Bandit,

I couldn't make the trip out to Sturgis, SD this year, so I did the next best thing. It was early August and I couldn't just let that slip by without a rally. I attended the East Coast Strugis Rally held the same time as the "Big Sturgis" rally in Little Orleans, Maryland to be exact. It's only about a 2-hour ride from my house, but of course, I made it a 6-hour ride and squeezed in a Hooters stop on the way. Here's my report on the rally along with a few pictures:

East Coast Sturgis (ECS) was started 5 years ago by Ken Appel. Ken's goal was to give us folks on the east coast a place to go and party for a few days in the old school Sturgis way. ECS is located at the Apple Mountain Campground and Ken met his goal of making sure everyone had a good time.

Granted, it's not Sturgis, South Dakota, but there's some great roads in the area and it hasn't gone commercial. Sure there are the usual vendors you'd find at any rally, but the main focus is on having fun and enjoying a few days with old friends and making some new ones. I have to believe this is a lot like the Big Sturgis used to be back in the day. I'm not saying you can experience Big Sturgis by going to ECS, but if you can't make the trip to South Dakota, this is definitely worth consideration as a place to kill a weekend and a few brain cells.

Ken lined-up bands each day to entertain the crowd. A poker run benefiting the Little Orleans Little League was held on Friday. The local volunteer fire department had all of the beer concessions and sold beer at $2 a can. And, for a finale of sorts, Saturday afternoon included a motorcycle demolition derby, which judging from the pictures on Ken's website, www.eastcoaststurgis.com , must have been a helluva good time. (I'll explain how I missed that in a minute.)

The point here is that this rally gives back to the community in specific ways and it was an inspiration for me to buy as much beer as I could consume.

I met up with my riding buddy, Jerry, in Mechanicsburg, PA on Friday. Jerry was riding in from Connecticut on his new 105th Anniversary Ultra Classic Electra Glide and I ran up on my Fatboy from Northern Virginia. Of course, we met at the local Hooters. After a quick lunch we headed down to Little Orleans via the scenic route and got in some good riding in the Pennsylvania hills. We finally made it to Apple Mountain Campground around 6:00 that evening and set up camp.

We spent Friday evening wandering around the campground, listening to the music, eating anything that looked like cholesterol on a stick, and watching many of the ladies earn beads. The campground is like Bourbon Street at Mardi Gras. I have two words for you, titties (wait, that's one word, but you get my drift.) And as usual, I somehow managed to walk away without a single good tittie picture for you.

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