Day 4 and HOG 25th

We got up as I said and on the road by 4:30am, off we go in the dark, and straight into solid fog. Sioux Falls feels like it really is on the edge of the state. If you wanted to stay at the KOA in Sioux Falls and in a cabin, keep in mind they only have two cabins tucked in the back of campground. Nice little cabins but off the beaten path. All we took in the cabin was bedding and clothes so it took us like 10 minutes to load. Off we go into the darkness, gas up and I took over and almost immediately hit fog, pea soup fog. We crossed into Minnesota and were almost across the state before we escaped it, it was very wearing on the eyeballs. Getting to see the Mississippi River was way cool. Minnesota rest areas are very interesting, hard to find the pet area and some are old and some are new, The new ones are pretty but not as cool as Wyoming or South Dakota where you got a history lesson with each stop. I-90 in Minnesota didn't have as much construction but was in terrible condition in places.
Once we crossed into Wisconsin we were back to construction city but then add in some bad roads and heavy traffic and it was "interesting". We got to Sun Prairie to drop off our stuff at the Amerihost Inn and check in, nice place, nice folks. Then off to the big city. OMG, going in was not too bad until we got close to town, all of a sudden we were sitting in traffic. Hundreds of bikes the closer we got and all sitting in traffic, bikes were overheating and folks were pulling over to let them cool down. No helmet law so a lot of folks didn't have helmets on, hot day bet they were pretty happy about that, temp was 85 and 50% humidity. It took almost an hour to cover the last 6 miles, finally we got to the parking lot, way out but there was a shuttle, the pictures are in the gallery. Once she got us to the main area we were on our own. Seemed like nobody knew where to pick up the parade stuff so we went ahead and wandered around and saw the sights. The free part of the party turned out to the be the entertainment, beer and food were pay as you go. There was a lot of entertainment, all on the HD website, but there were so many people we opted out of trying to go squeeze into the music area. They were televising them to a big screen in the beer garden. If we were hard partiers we would likely have stayed but we were both tired from the trip and as a lady on the bus put it, it was 4lbs of poo in a 2 lb bag. Yep, venue was way too small. She said the one for the 105th is much larger and spread out so more to see. I kind of wondered when we saw hundreds of bikers headed out of town on 94, I suspect many did the same thing we did, come, see, get your pin, and go, hot and crowded, lots of folks aren't sold on that.
We did have one blow to our plans, the Summerfest grounds, where much of the music is (not our highest priority) is off limits to most everything including Minnie. They didn't advertise that on the website but I suspect it is being required by the promoter that is handling that part. I have a suspicion a lot of folks will not be patronizing that part, no cameras, strollers, packs, etc, etc, etc. We will be going to the museum (outside) to try to find Billie's rivet, and off to Discovery World to see about HD building customs. Lots of other stuff to look at too. So later folks, off to the shower, and out the door.