Meet 'Cherokee Chuck': Tattoo artist and family have been inking rally-goers for 30 years

STURGIS — When you arrive at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, whether it is your 50th trip or your first, be sure to get off Main or Lazelle streets. The stories are even better inside.

You’ll find line dancing inside the Oasis, pizza that arrives in 2 minutes at Gas Monkey Garage, a church-hall-like luncheon at Bare Knuckles, a mean game of pool at Sidehack and a live feed to an Iraqi military base at Broken Spoke so soldiers “can attend Sturgis in spirit.”

But inside Rosini Gypsy Tattooing, on the corner of Junction Avenue and Main Street, “Cherokee Chuck” Shaffer is in the front corner finishing up what is likely his, “oh, who knows, maybe half a million?” tattoo for yet another rally-goer.

The customer has been here many times before and specifically asks for Shaffer.

“I’m just trying to keep Rosini’s dream alive,” Shaffer says.

But he’s a rally legend all his own.

Just as the rally is celebrating its 85th milestone anniversary this year, Shaffer is celebrating his 30th.

The ‘old man’ who started it all

R.J. Rosini was the “tattoo shaman,” Shaffer says, the founder of what was then called R.J. Rosini and Co. Tattooing Gypsy Tour in 1983.

He was a 6-foot-3, “cantankerous” master tattoo artist who was unmistakable at motorcycle rallies and tattoo conventions worldwide. It was there he would find his next prodigy. He discovered Shaffer and his wife, “Mama Chris,” in 1993. Shaffer started working officially for Rosini in 1995.

Like an initiation, not anyone could apply for a spot at Rosini’s tattoo shop in Sturgis. You needed to “be found,” Shaffer said of Rosini cherry-picking his employees to join his tattoo community.

“We’re so proud to be part of his work,” Shaffer said. “He chose us, you know?”

Rosini died at the age of 63 in 2003, “same age as I am now,” Shaffer says. Rosini died of diabetes and fittingly at a tattoo convention in Vancouver, Washington.

“When he died, the entire tattoo community shook,” Shaffer says, while looking up at a dedication wall in the back of his tattoo shop. There, guests can see the history of the tattoo shop for themselves, decades’ worth of group photos from past tattoo artists, some of whom are still there today.

“Every year we take a photo to hang here,” Shaffer says. “So, if someone has died, they are memorialized. This is just a giant brotherhood.”

Rally brings in numbers that could reflect a years’ worth of work

Rosini Gypsy Tattooing is open year-round, but for the rally, the staff triples. Shaffer says no one gets a day off, and collectively, they knock out more than 100 tattoos a day.

The average age of the customer is about 18 or 20 years old, Shaffer says. In South Dakota, you can get your first one as early as 14, with a parent present.

“It’s unreal how many times I’ve put the name of my hometown on someone’s body,” Shaffer says.

Other popular tattoos to “commemorate their trip” include Harley-Davidson logos and quotes or prayers on a shoulder or leg.

Shaffer has “Gypsy tour forever” taking up his entire back (done by has late brother, Mikey), and “Gypsy 2 R” lettered on each knuckle. Inked backward on his belly is the copy of a handwritten “coffee pot love note” from his wife: “Have a great night, love you.”

“Now, I see it in the mirror when I get out of the shower,” he says.

They’re just family

His 34-year-old daughter, Skye McRae, does most of Shaffer’s tattoos. She’s been tattooing since she was 13 years old and is known today for her airbrushing and aurora borealis-like tattoos.

“I had no formal training,” says Shaffer, who did McRae’s first tattoo: a skull and bones with a pink bow atop the skull. “But now I can train her.”

McRae’s booth is the one in the far back, splashed in magenta pink to match her hair. There’s a photo of her as a toddler on the wall and a pink couch where she sits with rally-goer Sherri Williams to dream up Williams’ next tattoo.

It’ll be of a dogwood flower and a cardinal bird.

“When a cardinal is near, an angel appears,” said Williams of North Carolina.

She and her husband visit the rally every milestone anniversary. He was getting a chain around his arm at the same time up front.

“Never break the chain,” Williams said of their seven-year marriage.

What tattoo would you get?

Tattoos can serve as souvenirs from a memory, intimate for the one who wears it and hard to shake.

When you’re sitting there getting one done, you’re already thinking about your next one, says customer DeShawn Lawrence.

She was getting a flamingo on her ankle in honor of her 6-year-old son and “444” near her thumb in honor of her husband.

“For better, for worse, forever,” she said.

He was getting his next.

For Shaffer, his memories come from the work he’s done. He’s tattooed Gregg Allman, of the Allman Brothers; “Superman” Dean Cain; Vanilla Ice; and Johnathon Davis, from Korn. He met celebrity tattooer Lyle Tuttle in 1997 and was mentored by founder of the National Tattoo Club of the World, Edward “Philadelphia Eddie” Funk, who did Rosini’s first tattoo in the early ’60s.

“It’s such an adventure working with Chuck,” says Izzy LaPlante, a California-based veteran artist at Rosini Gypsy. Rosini discovered LaPlante the same year he found Shaffer.

“You just never know what’s going to happen here,” LaPlante says

Sturgis locals hide inside century-old Moonshine Gulch saloon

ROCHFORD – Todd and Debbie Proctor don’t even own a motorcycle.

They live along Mystic Road, about 35 miles south of Sturgis, South Dakota.

It’d be a pretty drive, up Rochford Road and north on S.D. Highway 385.

But no way, Todd says. He and Debbie have lived in Mystic since 2021.

“We know better,” he says, speaking for the fellow locals of the Black Hills. “You can’t even drive through Sturgis. We stay right here.”

He holds a beer and hangs out with his buddies at the Moonshine Gulch Saloon, a century-old bar in the unincorporated ghost town of Rochford, South Dakota, south of Sturgis. It’s the only working establishment alongside a convenience store “mall” across the street and Happy Dog Café, owned by Debbie.

Tourists have surely driven through the historic mining town, and Sturgis Motorcycle Rally bikers have been stopping by during their rides through the Hills.

“We just happened upon this,” said Wisconsin rider Robert Nieves.

He’s in town for the 85th annual rally with a few other guys and got stuck in a gnarly hail storm the night before. Driving back from the Boar’s Nest south of Lead, they ran onto the patio of the Moonshine as a refuge from the ride.

“This reminds me of home and has been our favorite place on the whole trip,” Nieves said.

The history of Rochford, South Dakota

Rochford established itself as an official mining district in the late 1870s. It quickly turned a profit from what was then called the Montezuma Gold Mine and a stand-by 60-stamp sawmill producing nearly one million feet of lumber.

But the nostalgia came and went. At its peak, Rochford had a population of 500 with a church and butcher shop, a few saloons and a pool parlor, two hotels, a theater and a drugstore. They even had a couple newspapers and a railroad that ran through it.

After their first resident died in 1904, the town dwindled to less than 50 residents. A century later, about 20 residents held on.  

Yet the dim lights of the Moonshine Gulch Saloon still flicker, and the front door still squeaks with every swing.

“The rally really helps us make it through the year,” says owner Amanda Olson.

She and her husband, Jim, keep the story alive, with their three kids even helping out in the back.

During rally week, Rochford picks up. The community hall next door opens for a home-cooked breakfast, and folks stop into Debbie’s coffee shop to pick up saloon souvenirs.

Olson’s 9-year-old daughter runs a lemonade stand for passersby, and there’s live music outside the front porch daily.

But no wonder the traffic keeps coming. Just this past spring, the state finished up a 10-mile reconstruction project paving the road between Rochford and Deerfield, toward Hill City.

The road passes Deerfield Lake, and Todd says it will soon be “the new scenic loop.”

Remembering long-time owner Betsy

For nearly 50 years, the late Betsy Harn was the one to uphold the saloon’s notoriety.

Beginning in 1977, she hand-pattied each burger and cut every potato, “never spent a dollar on advertising,” and even brought in fawns during the cold winters.

Todd says when he came in from deer hunting, “even if the lights were off,” she’d be in there and welcome you for a drink.

For a while, she didn’t have beer on tap and so would stock coolers on the porch. She didn’t buy liquor but let the locals bring their own and sneak it into the back. Harn died in 2023.

“I don’t remember it ever being closed,” said Ron Conrad.

He’s from Rapid City and has been coming to Rochford “since I was a kid.” He was having a drink at the bar with his son.

“Their chicken wings are great,” he said.

The rally has changed a lot, Conrad said. “It used to be just a Sturgis thing,” but now many small towns in the Black Hills have their own “mini rallies.”

Go to Hill City, he said, or make your way to Hulett, Wyoming, where the town of 300 people brings in 25,000 “old-time” bikers for its annual Ham-N-Jam, a Main Street barbecue during the Wednesday of the rally every year that used to be called “No Panties Wednesday.”

You’ll still find police officers with handlebar mustaches on horseback and free pork sandwiches and beans at the Captain Ron’s Rodeo Bar.

“I mean, go visit Sturgis,” Conrad said, “but then get out of there.”

In 2005, country stars Big and Rich made their way to Rochford to shoot their “Big Time” music video at Moonshine.

There’s photos of Big Kenny and John Rich arm and arm with owner Betsy on the wall today.

“I sing my songs in the sunshine,” the lyrics go. “Captain and cokes and bar room jokes keep me feeling fine.”

It’s a fitting song for the comforting saloon on Rochford Road. There’s a fireplace in the back, claw-foot couches by the window and rocking chairs on the porch to enjoy the “peace and quiet in the wilderness,” said traveling biker Jeremy Garbisch.

Visitors can try to nab the $385 pot for Shake-A-Day or come for the homemade pulled pork sandwiches.

It’s all part of the “Moonshine magic,” owner Olson said.

Gene Simmons brings subdued rally revelry to the Buffalo Chip

STURGIS — It’s hard to accept that “The Demon” in KISS is not immortal.

The towering, vampire-like performer prowled the stage for nearly a half-century, managing to beguile crowds with his 7-inch tongue, his raspy scream and blood boiling out of his mouth as if he was dying right in front of fans.

He looked like a nightmare and performed like a dream, but “open your eyes, baby,” Gene Simmons says, having shaken off a decades-long hangover and a kink in his neck from the 30-pound dragon armor he donned.

While the monster sleeps, Simmons arises nice and easy now. He’s witty, affectionate with a side of raunch, thoughtful and funny and looked like he just wanted to hang out when he performed the night of Aug. 3 for thousands of bikers at the 85th annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

“This is much easier now,” he says of his one-man show as The Gene Simmons band. “It makes me feel good.”

Simmons ‘introduced me to music’

Touring as part of the American rock band KISS, Simmons says “it was a traveling city,” with private jets, three double-decker buses, 20 45-foot tractor trailers, 5 miles of cable and more than 60 people to help set the stage for one show.

“When I was a kid, there was always that mote,” he said earlier in the week while hanging out with his five dogs in one of his houses on the West Coast.

His favorite metal bands Sly and the Family Stone and Loving Spoonful were untouchable, “where the enemy is coming right up to the castle but he can’t get in because it’s surrounded by alligator-filled waters."

“With my solo band, the draw bridge is down and anybody can come into the castle with me and have lots of fun," he said.

On Aug. 3 at The Buffalo Chip, he welcomed all 10 contestants from a bikini contest earlier that night — still in swimwear and that’s all — to sing along with him. There were no pyrotechnics to turn anyone who came on stage “into shish-kabobs,” and Simmons’ two guitarists Brent Wood and Jason Walker joined the girls on the same mic, like it was karaoke night in a small-town bar.

He asked the crowd what they wanted to hear, sang covers from Motörhead and often hung his sunglasses on his black T-shirt collar so he could wipe his sweaty jowls.

Then he quieted down the crowd to honor the late Ozzy Osbourne, only for them to rev their engines in respect.

“KISS introduced me to music,” said Blake Griffin, who with his fiancée, Hannah Hotchkiss, stood in the best seat in the house that night, hanging over the Wolfman Jack Stage at the Chip and bouncing in place like he was about to enter a boxing ring, his adrenaline unhinged.

He was wearing a cut-off KISS T-shirt he bought in 2008 when he last saw them perform and had a tattoo of The Demon on his lower left shin. This was his first time seeing Simmons onstage alone.

“He loves Gene Simmons more than anything,” Hotchkiss says of Griffin. “I’m so happy he gets to experience this.”

A redefining of rock shows

Simmons turned KISS into an omnipresent brand. Even if you had never listened to “Rock and Roll All Night,” “Beth” or “Shout it Out Loud,” you knew their makeup and most definitely saw someone dressed like them for Halloween.

“All that legacy stuff is self-aggrandizing,” said Simmons, 75, cooly forgetting that he was unapologetically, arrogantly indulgent his entire rocker life. “The only thing I ever hoped for, and that the band ever hoped for, was to raise the level of quality in a concert experience.

“With the advent of better technology, we decided to put all the money we made back into the show, and, yeah, that included flying off the stage and some pyrotechnics.”

Their daredevil approach redefined rock shows, “broke the barrier for what a band is supposed to be,” he said, and built a legacy for Simmons whether he wanted it or not.

Gloria and Graham Thompson traveled 1,500 miles from the Florida panhandle to weave through Needles Highway during the day and hit every show at the rally at night. They didn’t even mind that it was Simmons without The Demon persona.

They came for the nostalgia.

“We’re just old people enjoying our old age,” Graham said.

They parked their hog right in the front row for Simmons and had not moved since 6 that night. (Simmons came on around 10:30 p.m.)

“And we love it,” he said.

The KISS brand lives on

Last year, music investment firm Pophouse Entertainment purchased the KISS brand, including its entire music catalogue and trademarks. Simmons said he’s excited for the $300 million acquisition because now there will be Broadway shows, documentaries, comic books and “a chance to spread my wings and do whatever I want for s*** and giggles.”

Simmons also runs a chain of Rock & Brews restaurants and casinos, of which he started with KISS bandmates, and co-founded his own film production company in 2023 with producer Gary Hamilton. Simmons/Hamilton Productions has already finished their first horror film, “Deep Waters,” slated for a release later this year about an airplane that crashes into shark-infested waters.

The thriller persona will never completely die.

Today, Simmons’ face is on wines and vodkas, Harley-Davidsons and motor bikes, condoms and Tumblers, lunch boxes and even your own casket, if you wish.

But he’s no demon. He’s just the perverted grandfather who can still rock out in the garage with you. He’ll purse his lips, thrust his hips, grab his crotch, tap his metal boots that curl, then give you an endearing wink like he was in on the prank all along.   

“We’re all here just to have a good time,” he said. “And this tongue can still whip up a good g--d--- froth if you want it to.”

Let’s go, girls: Biker Belles celebrate Women’s Day in Sturgis

STURGIS – In the 1998 Walt Disney film “Mulan,” the main character Fa disguises herself as a male so her chances are better to fight in the fictional Imperial Army and to prevent ruthless bad guy Shan Yu from invading China.

Alas, it was the reveal of her true female self that helped Mulan save her country. Lesson learned.

But the Biker Belles would never waste their time hiding at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally like that.

Their braids hang long behind their helmets, their pink bikes sparkle and they themselves roar in unison.

“Sturgis is such a misogynistic place,” says 26-year-old Hannah Stout-Ortega, who just received her motorcycle license. “And this is our response to that. There is so much more to women than being objects to look at.”

The Biker Belles is an informal group of women who connect every year at the rally like a family would for Thanksgiving. And the 85th anniversary of the rally marks their 17th year taking up space on SD Highway 14A.

Fellow bikers might have gotten a whiff of their perfume as they zoomed by, but that’s the point of a strong women’s ridership, says Biker Belles founder Toni Woodruff.

“We wanted a place where women could feel safe and connected,” she says. Woodruff is the daughter of Buffalo Chip owner Rod Woodruff. She uses her family space as a “home” for women.

Women’s Day at the Rally was Aug. 5 at the Chip.

“This is not just about riding,” Toni says. “A motorcycle is often a vehicle of change in women’s lives and its own little magic.”

Charity ride preserves history of female riders

Leave it to women to disturb a stereotype and use their empowerment for good.

Toni hosts an annual women’s charity ride at the rally, supporting the “the preservation of this history and to raise awareness of the women’s role in motorcycling.”

Their ride supports three South Dakota-based charities: The Sturgis Motorcycle Museum, Helping with Horsepower and the internationally known Jessi Combs Foundation.

They have thus far raised a quarter million dollars to give more than 50 scholarships for female college students and young riders.

With Biker Belles, the Sturgis Museum continues to expand female exhibits. Helping with Horsepower was founded by modern-day adventurer Laura Klock and assists female veterans through equine therapy, and the Jessi Combs Foundation honors the late professional female rider.

In 2019, Combs died at age 39 while attempting to set the record as the fastest woman on earth, reaching 522 mph riding her 56-foot-long jet-powered North American Eagle at the Alvord Desert in Oregon.

“She was my best friend,” says foundation executive director Dana Wilke. “Jessi was the sweetest bad*** who was always smiling and always positive.”

In 2017, Combs became the first female Grand Marshal at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and in 2015 co-founded the Real Deal Revolution, a nonprofit that “furthers women’s roles in skilled trades” like welding, leather stamping and pinstriping.

“We’re revealing to this world what we’re capable of,” says foundation ambassador Stout-Ortega. “We’re showing off confidence and abilities that we already possess.”

‘L8RBOIZ’: These professional riders smack stereotype in the face

Nearly 200 women showed up for the morning charity ride Aug. 5, including this year’s 100-year-old Grand Marshal Gloria Struck, female business owner of TEAM DIVA Amy Skaling and Accident Scene Management founder Vicki “Spitfire” Sanfelipo.

She’s best known in the female biking world for her advocacy in reducing injuries and fatalities to motorcyclists.

But there were newcomers, too, like stunt rider and YouTube bike show creator Cody Renee Cameron, who displayed her leopard print 2006 Harley-Davidson Sportster 1200 at the Chip and has more than half a million followers on social media.

A few months ago, Cameron was the only woman to complete seven days of off-roading with 25 other guys during the annual Scram Africa ride in Morocco.

She rode 1,500 miles to the rally with seven other women.

“These women can freaking ride,” Cameron said. “They moved through the canyons like they were one giant serpent!”

The bike display Cameron was part of was founded by 34-year-old Becky “Axel” Goebel, the first woman to be invited into the Born Free Motorcycle Show in 2022. She built a 1948 Panhead Chopper with a 1947 Harley-Davidson transmission and a 1954 frame, all on her own.

Her license plate says “L8RBOIZ.”

“Sturgis is a weird place when you’re a girl,” says Goebel, who also owns 12 motorcycles and the clothing brand Axel and Co.

“It feels like you went back in time here with a lot of men,” she says. “It’s not that fun, but that’s why it’s important to have women here to say, ‘We are here, and we need to be respected.’ ”

Welcome to the Buffalo Chip: Rally ‘headquarters’ host rockers, campers

STURGIS – Think of one of those harmless, Friday night keg parties in high school.

The ones in the cornfield with only the headlights of your car diffusing the night sky. Maybe a few more trucks show up with friends hanging off the tailgate, tires spinning in the mud. Someone’s playing the guitar.

But the next time, they come by the hundreds. Word gets out that it’s a pretty good time. Then, the next time, they come by the thousands and suddenly Ozzy Osbourne is on stage and says, “How did I not know about this friggin’ place?”

And this is how the legend of The Buffalo Chip goes.

“It’s just a special place for an awful lot of people,” says founder and CEO Rod “Woody” Woodruff.

He opened the campground in 1981 as a place for Sturgis Motorcycle Rally-goers to retreat to after the city wanted all the bikers to howl in the night someplace else.

Turns out downtown Main Street was the promenade while the Chip was the party.

They welcome bikers from around the world once more for the 85th anniversary of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in the Black Hills of South Dakota through Aug. 10.

Who’s bringing the guitar tonight?

From Jerry Lee Lewis to Marilyn Manson

The Sturgis Buffalo Chip is unofficially known as the rally headquarters every August. There you’ll find tents pitched and RVs rolling in for nightly concerts, more than a dozen motorcycle shows, beach parties and beauty contests, and a stunning display of 800 American flags to honor the nation’s veterans and active-duty military members.

It’s more than 600 acres of “motorcycles, music, freedom and friends,” Woodruff says, and it’s “simply the best party anywhere for the nicest people on the planet.”

Michelle Caton, founder of the International Bikini Team, hosts nightly contests on the Main Stage and says the atmosphere at the Chip is unlike anything else she’s experienced at any other rally worldwide.

“This is an entire city in itself,” she says. “You could stay here during the entire rally and have the time of your life.”

Woodruff says he has room for “one million more RVs” and speaks as if he doesn’t even mind more than half a million people will be coming to belly up at his bar and on the picnic tables and definitely dance on top of them.  

But they’re all his “lifelong friends,” and you’ll make plenty, too, he says. “It’s like a reunion every year.”

Music at the Buffalo Chip started humbly four decades ago, with concerts “for a few hundred people” by Jerry Lee Lewis and Susie Nelson (“Yep, that’s Willie’s daughter,” the inaugural poster read in 1982). But it’s grown a bit since that “keg party in the pasture,” bringing to the stage Aerosmith and Mötley Crüe, Tim McGraw and ZZ Top, Poison and Billy Idol and the self-proclaimed “Buffalo Chip house band” Lynyrd Skynyrd multiple times over.

This year, newcomers Marilyn Manson and Gene Simmons will perform.

“We like to surprise people,” says Daymon Woodruff, Woody’s son and current president of the Chip.

He grew up backstage, “born during a ZZ Top concert,” he scoffs. Daymon experienced true mentorship working alongside his father from childhood, learning an appreciation of “all types of” music and people.

 “We consider ourselves happiness counselors,” Daymon says. “We just want people to feel free to express themselves and get away from all the doldrums in the rest of their life.”

Daredevils and bikes on fire

The performers are equally unhinged. For the rally’s 70th anniversary, PeeWee Herman zip-lined onto the stage during the 2010 Miss Buffalo Chip contest. And in 1992, amateur stuntman Robert Foley lit one of the Chip’s old outhouses ablaze so he could ride his bike through it.

On Daredevil Wednesdays, stuntmen will light themselves on fire and strap themselves to a limousine “like a hood ornament” to jump the Rusty Nail Bridge – and make it. They have 22 firewalls, highwire walks over the crowd, and a wall made of Monster Energy drinks for minibikes to barrel through.

In 2011, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith fell off the stage and broke his shoulder. In 2005, Toby Keith played in the rain. Woody says as soon as a single rain drop hit Keith’s “brand new hat,” it just hit hard, with 50mph winds and 4 inches of mud.

“But everyone’s attitudes were so positive,” Woody says. “They spent three hours sliding down the hill in a mudslide. Such good moods out here.”

Keith went on to return to the Chip five times.

Like the senior guests who honk their horns after every song during a municipal band concert, Woody says the crowd will rev their engines when they like what the artist is doing on stage.

“It’s the power of applause in itself, only magnified,” Woody says, as if it wasn’t rowdy enough.

Looking out for their Black Hills community

But the Chip is a sanctuary. The Woodruff family hosts a Freedom Celebration on the Thursday of every rally, a tribute to military veterans and active-duty members.

It began after army lieutenants showed up in 2005 to tell a couple that their son had just died in combat. Fellow active-duty members camping at the Chip put on their uniforms right there to have a missing man ceremony with the parents.

Another veteran who had been coming to the rally since the 1960s told his wife he wanted to be buried at the Chip when he died. Last year, he came for the last time, unwell and in a stretcher from his home in Fort Meade, to visit his friends at the Chip. He passed away shortly thereafter, and folks will have a memorial service for him this year, Woody says.

Woody and his family also low-key have raised more than half a million dollars for Black Hills charities like the South Dakota Special Olympics and the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum.

He’s given nearly $20,000 in scholarships for students at Black Hills State University in Spearfish, South Dakota, and also founded with his daughter, Toni, the Biker Belles, an annual rally fundraiser that celebrates female motorcyclists with mentorship, networking and a morning ride around the Hills.

But Woody and Daymon are just bikers like the rest. Woody has “a whole garage full of ’em,” and Daymon switches out between his 110-dirt bike and Ducati Scrambler. They live at the campground during the rally and always have the beer on ice ready for first-timers and the ones who will always return.

“We’ve got folks who tell us they stay in five-star hotels and can’t wait to get home,” Woody says. “Here, they stay in a tent in the middle of nowhere and never want to leave.”

The legend of the Chip will get you like that.

The oldest-living South Dakotan was at the first rally over 80 years ago

STURGIS, SOUTH DAKOTA – At the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, it’s not all bikinis and debauchery.

Some just come to feel the omnipresent rumble, to wave to the bikers and to take in the smell of fried food and fuel.

And they come back for it year after year (after year).

This year's 85th annual rally is expected to bring in a record number of guests, surpassing 700,000 bikers who will crowd Main Street in Sturgis, South Dakota Aug. 1-10, filling the campgrounds, mingling at the Buffalo Chip, looping through the Black Hills and screaming along with ZZ Top, Gene Simmons, Nickelback, Jason Aldean and Marilyn Manson.

Some of them may pass by the home of a local woman who won't make it this year, but has been a part of Sturgis lore since the beginning.

'Fascinated' by motorcycles since 1938

At 109 years old, Hazel (Bush) Baumberger is the oldest living South Dakotan and a longtime admirer of the rally. She was there for the first one in 1938, when she and her husband, Art, heard about dirt track races in the Black Hills and choked on dust for a few days.

Local Indian Motorcycle dealer Clarence “Pappy” Hoel founded the rally with nine stuntmen bikers in 1938. Before that, Sturgis hosted horse races in the 1870s. Hoel continued to evolve what began as the Black Hills Motor Classic, from racing and stunts to live music, bike shows and rides through the Black Hills.

According to the City of Sturgis, demographics for the rally today hover around 62% male riders and 37% female, around ages 45 to 65. The city sees up to 20 times more traffic, especially during the second and third day of the rally, and top visitors come from New York, Texas, California, Wyoming and Colorado.

Baumberger, though, doesn’t own a motorcycle. She doesn’t wear leather. And, no, she never made it to one of the infamous rock concerts at The Buffalo Chip outside of town.

What to know about the rally: Bikers head west for Sturgis' milestone anniversary

But you would’ve seen her on Lazelle Street, and she’d always don a rally T-shirt with a Harley-Davidson pin on her lapel.

“Motorcycles fascinated her,” said Sandra Griese, Baumberger’s 79-year-old niece who still spends time her with “Annie” every week.

“I don’t even know why, but she loves the chrome, and she loves the noise," Griese said.

And the rally came to love her.

Hells Angels and temporary tattoos

Baumberger was recently named the South Dakota Centenarian of the Year, a title she bestowed last year as well.

She’s the longest-serving member of the South Dakota Health Care Association’s Century Club, and she’s still a chatty and chipper resident at Peaceful Pines Senior Living in Fort Pierre, South Dakota.

“She manages to amaze us every day here,” said Jalen Bame, executive director of Peaceful Pines. Baumberger has been living there since it opened last year.

But she has so many stories to tell, how could she idle?

Her last visit to the rally was in 2015, when she rode in on the back of her great nephew’s Harley-Davidson at 99 years old.

“It was the most wonderful day I ever had,” Griese recalled Baumberger saying then.

But, oh, the other wonderful days she had. Her nephew Jim Bush lives in Sturgis and served as the city’s police chief from 1990-2016, a safe guide for Baumberger through the chaos.

On one of her annual trips to the rally, Bush told her the Hells Angels motorcycle club was riding through town, and she insisted on having a look.

He drove her and her sister, Rose – a longtime travel companion – downtown and told them to stay on the sidewalk.

“But ... they wanted as close to those motorcycles as they could get,” Griese said.

Her great niece, Michelle Kohn, said Baumberger was once asked if she would’ve gone on a ride with one of them had they offered.

“Hell, yeah!” Baumberger said.

“She’s fearless,” said Kohn, who plans to attend the rally this year with her Honda Rebel.

Her nephew, the former police chief, often threw her in the back of his police cruiser to parade her through town. She’d roll down her window and wave at all the passersby.

“You know,” she told Bush, “I bet everyone thinks we’re drunk and going to jail.”

And she loved the attention nonetheless.

Baumberger was likely the most innocent darling of the rally. She never really drank beer, never camped, maybe gambled in a bit a bit just to pull down the lever and hear the jingle of the machines, and only managed a fake tattoo on her arm.

“But she did try to convince her friends at coffee that she and Rose got a real one,” Griese said. “They had a bang out of that.”

Someone get her some leather

Baumberger was a farm girl, first in rural Onida, South Dakota, and then helping her husband on his farm with cattle and labor. She still owns their farmland today.

She never had any children but her 14 nieces and nephews would take turns driving her to the rally after she couldn’t drive herself anymore.

She never remarried after Art died, but she led an annual Bush family reunion for nearly 90 years.

Griese said she was “very flashy,” dressed well and always pressed her jeans “with the crease down the middle.”

But she never donned a Harley-Davidson leather jacket (although the company did send her some swag once, many stickers of which adorn her walker at Peaceful Pines).

Last year, her family organized a “Rally for Hazel,” inviting bikers to stop by Peaceful Pines so she could see the motorcycles and maybe share stories. There was cake, lemonade and poker chips.

There are no plans for another drive-by for Baumberger this year, but perhaps the centenarian will listen for the growl of a hog still, her lullaby as she rides toward yet another decade.

From a ‘Sturgin’: What I learned (and saw) at my first bike rally

If you bring ear plugs to the Sturgis Bike Rally, you’re missing the point.

For the 85th anniversary, I was the “Sturgin” in the crowd – a first-time rally-goer. And it was obvious.

I didn’t wear fishnet tights like other women did. I took selfies with motorcycles, got caught staring at all the tattoos I didn’t have and winced whenever I’d come out from a shop on Main, like stepping into Narnia.

The ground shook underneath a days-long parade of hogs, and the choppy idling at the stop signs gave me goosebumps.

But the racket turned into a comfort. I tossed my lame ear plugs into the overflowing garbage cans, and, alas, it’s a little too quiet now that I’m home and safe from the lane-splitting bikers giving me anxiety up and down Highway 14A for a week straight.

The first day, I was proud to report how nicely everyone was riding. The second day, and from then on, I was appalled by the arrogance on the road.

(There were also more amateur, stiff-seated bikers than pros. The old guys are “aging out,” I hear, and don’t want to put up with novices. It’s a different rally than it used to be, I heard even more.)

I prepared for the trip the way a parent prepares for Disney World. As a journalist, sure, you can just show up and start listening (everyone loves to talk about the weather and where they’re from, if you can hear ’em above the roar), but it wasn’t enough to wander and people-watch.

I started calling businesses and vendor owners, tattoo artists and police officers, first-timers and old-timers, group rides and swimsuit contests and Deb Holland, from the City of Sturgis.

City Hall on the corner of Main Street and Junction Avenue became my refuge, and she became my rally godmother.

This is how I felt in control of the chaos.

From dawn till it was time to party and over again

I’d write every morning and grab coffee from the darling staff at the Sturgis Coffee Co., each of whom dressed in a rally theme each day: Lace, glitter, camo or leather fringe. It was content gold to watch bikers with their chaps and bandanas having coffee and muffins with a bikini car wash across the street.

Afternoons were a street fair of demos at the Harley-Davidson tent, bikers doing belly shots at the Jack Daniels tent and wet T-shirt contests at Sidehack, always a long line at Dixxon Flannel Co., lemonade stands and carnival corn dogs on Lazelle Street and deafening trick rides at Full Throttle.

It was either “3 rally shirts for $30,” “4 rally shirts for $40” or 50% off leather whips.

Many used elaborate body paint for their shirt and that’s all (I had to once look twice to see whether it was a real leather vest or … nope).

There were tattoos being drawn up in window fronts (my favorite was a guy getting eyeballs tattooed on his eyelids) and massage chairs next door.

Many rode from dawn until it was time to party, the riders in the back holding up their 360 cameras through Needles Highway, the Wildlife Loop and the Badlands.

It’s a ride even more than a rally. You don’t like the noise in town? Make some on the open road.

Nights were when I wish I’d kept the earplugs, a ringing in my head the new lullaby after slasher concerts and heavy metal at The Buffalo Chip.

Bikers don’t clap, they rev their engines when they like the song.

The Chip was the frat party that everyone wanted to get to: bike stunts, campground kumbayas, “beach” parties, and an incredible night club that didn’t match the crowd at the Iron Horse downtown.

In Sturgis, no one is left out.

I'm just happy to be here

The rally is over-stimulating, a sensory hangover I will be nursing for days. It looked like happy-as-hell 60-year-olds on an overdue spring break, smelled like fried onion rings and stale beer, sounded like Ozzy Osbourne tributes in one ear and AC/DC in the other, tasted like motor oil and cigarette smoke and felt like a sunburn on my shoulders and a jackhammer on my chest.

But the gaiety was most palpable. Everyone – even the street vendors, the traffic controllers and Moody County Sheriff Pat West himself – was so happy to be there. It’s the way all of us feel on vacation but more unbridled than that. Inhibitions gone and invasiveness simply not a thing, there was pride among the bikers for the secret society they all were clearly in.

Sewing machines on the sidewalks were humming all week for new patches on leather: a badge of honor, a medal from a rally well done. The most I counted on one jacket was 44, from a man who said, “I didn’t even miss the Covid year.”

Most didn’t. Attendance numbers have hovered around half a million for at least the past five years. Traffic count for this year was at 537,458 (one more if you count me.)

Now I get to be the one who raises her eyebrows when someone tells me they’re a Sturgin. I got a lot of, “Oh, boy!” and, “You’re going to see a lot!”

I did. You will. Only in Sturgis is there bleachers in front yards so neighbors can watch the motorcycles growl by, paperwork that says I won't expose a nipple, a woman using hand sanitizer after her meal but sitting at the sticky bar with no pants on and profanity a love language like the teenager who just figured out he could start using the F-word.

Speak freely, ride freely and feel free in Sturgis.

Then deal with the earache later.

Retired couple visits every continent

Only pack a carry-on bag. No matter how long the trip.

Book guided tours.

Don’t eat the fruit.

Pack Band-Aids.

Only buy trinkets for souvenirs.

And definitely take a Rhine River boat cruise.

Jan and Joyce Wright are residents of Touchmark at All Saints in Sioux Falls, but they’re hardly there. They’re out often out of the country instead, wearing out the soles of their shoes and having a beer on yet another international vacation.

You want to know how best to travel? Join them for a glass of wine and story time at The Vine Bistro in their retirement community commons.

“People are so drawn to their kindness and energy and inspired by their adventurous spirit,” says Touchmark executive director Amanda Snoozy. “Jan and Joyce are warmly embraced.”

After their next trip to Antarctica in December, the Wrights will have officially traveled to all seven continents. Their passports tell the story from more than 80 countries; all 50 states in the U.S.; about 40 river tours, like to the Seine and the Danube; and three different working farm tours to Cuba, Chile and Egypt.

There’s a story for every stop.

“There were armed guards on our tour bus in Cairo, police with sirens going behind us and military with AK-47s out their windows,” said Joyce about a hydroponic farm tour in 2019.

Sure, they’re pretty popular at The Vine, but all that drama for two traveling Americans in Egypt?

“It was all our travel agent,” she says.

For more than 20 years, the Wrights have been working with Tiffiny Trump-Humbert of family-owned Trump Tours, a custom traveling agency that specializes in ag tours worldwide.

No, she’s not that Trump, but law enforcement in Cairo wasn’t taking any chances.

“They didn’t want an incident with our president,” Joyce says.

Sioux Falls is home, the globe is their playground

Joyce is 75, Jan is 78. They’re from White Lake and both worked for regional insurance companies while raising their daughter in Indianapolis. After they retired, they moved to a beach in Florida then to Albuquerque, New Mexico, after they got spooked by hurricanes on the East Coast. They “settled down” in Sioux Falls in 2022.

The Wrights don’t even have any connection to town but appreciate the healthcare, the culture and all the amenities at Touchmark, Joyce says. With town outings, live music, Mah Jongg and cards, it’s no wonder they need a vacation from their busy life in Sioux Falls.

“We travel freely, knowing our home is secure,” Joyce says. “And when we return, our friends and neighbors are eager to hear about our adventures.”

Like the one schoolmate who got to go to the Taylor Swift concert while everyone else had to stay home, Snoozy says friends and neighbors of the Wrights live vicariously through their memories.

“There is always a new energy at happy hour when the Wrights return from their latest adventure,” she says. “You can usually hear the laughter spilling down the hallway as stories are swapped and photos are shared.”

Jan and Joyce have been married for 56 years, but they still vacation together wonderfully, she says. They make friends on cruises and such but almost always book a table for two, and it’s their tradition to sneak into a local bar wherever they are so Jan can have a beer.

He loves the Guiness in Ireland the most but skipped out on kissing the infamous stone at Blarney Castle.

“If I want to kiss a rock, I can go to our place in White Lake,” Jan says.

For their 50th wedding anniversary, forget an open house. They planned a cruise in Alaska, but friends at The Vine got word. Soon there were 16 people coming along, in which Trump-Humbert had to step up and plan all their accommodations as well.

But traveling the world wasn’t always a long-lost dream to work toward. Joyce just happened upon a 12-day private tour to take in China more than 15 years ago, with her sister as her travel companion.

She got to meet the manager of the General Motors plant in Wuhan, fly into Beijing and then Nanjing and sneak into a private purse sale in Shanghai.

“After that, I was on a roll,” she said. “I kept looking for the next place to go.”

In 2020, they were stuck at sea among 600 others on an Oceanic Cruise heading toward Machu Pichu. After stocking up on provisions and setting sail from Chile to Lima, the country had closed down overnight because of what was then a novel Covid virus.

They reverted to Chile, spent eight extra days at sea until Panama let them through the canal and into Miami.

The airport was empty when they arrived.

Clean diets, few injuries, no jet lag

With merely a carry-on bag at their side – “we do laundry on the ships” – they come back with only photos they took or small gifts as décor for their home. On their shelves is a Moka pot from Argentina and Delft blue pottery from the Netherlands. There are napkin rings from Africa on the dining room table, art from a local painter in Paris on the wall and a replica of the Lily of the Valley, Lithuania’s national flower.

In their photo albums are pictures of the salvaged Vasa ship in Stockholm, an ox-drawn wooden plow on a tobacco farm in Cuba, Whirling Dervish dancers on a riverboat tour down the Nile, a manic Secretarybird in the Eastern Cape – “he was hilarious to watch,” Joyce said – and a cloudy day along the Amazon River’s Rio Negro blackwater tributary.

They stick to a strict meat and potatoes diet, “or anything that’s cooked,” and have a pretty strong stomach for as much as they’re on the water. Joyce says they’ll be the only ones in the dining hall when everyone else is seasick in their rooms. Jan says the largest wave they faced was 26 feet high just north of Iceland.

“The Pacific is calmer than the Atlantic,” he says.

They don’t deal too much with jet lag either, Jan says, although they once were “down for a week” returning from Europe.

“If you’re flying into the sun, jet lag is usually worse,” he says.

They’ve succumbed to very few injuries. Joyce has a left knee and right hip replacement but only complains about backaches or maybe blisters on her feet.

She once did quite literally fall off the plane after landing in Istanbul while on their way to Italy.

Instead of pulling into the concourse, around 350 passengers had to take airstairs onto the runway, but “they were crooked,” Joyce said. She was the second to disembark, and down she went, landing on her hip on the lip of the plane and hurting her ankle and knee.

After an urgent visa to sleep for a few hours at a Turkish hotel, she hobbled her way to the Vatican in Rome and up the limestone hill to the Acropolis in Greece.

“I think it was a sprained ankle, but I got over it,” she said.

The Wrights set out to sightsee, not to sit at the beach or wade in the ocean. You won’t find them at an all-inclusive resort, and you won’t run into them along the Champs-Élysées in Paris.

“Parisians are not very nice,” Joyce says.

But do endure more than 20 hours of flight time toward Australia to meet the locals, Jan says.

“If you can get on a ship with Australians and New Zealanders, you’re going to have a good time,” he says.

Stateside, you’ll find them in the Black Hills. They’ve got a motorhome for U.S. travel and spend most winters in the south, but they otherwise don’t make it much further than West River.

“I always tell anyone who wants to travel, every American should go the Black Hills of South Dakota,” Joyce says.

After Antarctica over Christmas, they’re off to East Asia in March for a monthlong trip to South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan, all new countries for them to visit.

Still, there is more to come. They take big trips at least twice a year and book no less than two weeks per vacation.

“We’re retired,” Joyce says. “We’re just embracing our independence.”