WOW! What an amazing month we just had.
We had just booked our trip to N. Carolina to go kiteboarding at REAL Kiteboarding . The next day we got a call from our eccentric friend John. He was opening a huge VIP club in Sturgis and wanted Petra and I to come be pit bosses at the clubs six bars. We were able to cancel our reservation in North Carolina, and re-book our plane reservations to South Dakota.
We met John at a restaurant in Costa Rica (the same one in which we were married), three years ago, and have visited him in Spain and Florida since then. We immediately liked his honesty, and that he lived his own life, not trying to be somebody else. He had done well in his own country of England, and was now involved in businesses around the world. He had taken his beautiful, custom chopper to Sturgis (the largest motorcycle rally in the world), towed behind his 45’ motor home in 2008. But he was disappointed with the clubs and entertainment there, so, he decided to open his own upscale club called Monkey Rock (check out Monkey Rock website, click here).
We miraculously arrived the same day we left Bonaire, on a series of 5 connecting flights. I never realized how far west South Dakota was, but it’s really in the middle of nowhere. And it’s stunningly beautiful. Which is why Harley riders from all over the U.S. make the annual pilgrimage here. (You may remember John McCain campaigning here. He made the mistake of saying that he wanted his wife to compete for the Miss Buffalo Chip contest, not knowing that it was a topless contest.)
I just saw an HBO special with Chris Rock. In a skit, he said husbands need to look in the mirror every morning and say, “You suck. Everything you say to her is wrong. Your life is only about one thing, making her happy.” Well, this trip was all about Petra. It didn’t start out that way, but I quickly became aware that I was married to a rock star. Petra became the most photographed women at Sturgis, where 400,000 bikers became her fans.
Mark Reid, is a world famous body art
competitor who travels the globe in competitions. He is recognized as one of the top 3 in the world, and has worked at the Playboy mansion and other venues (for Mark's website click here). He was one of the vendors at Monkey Rock. We decided a good way for him to get recognition would be to paint Petra to match our friend John’s custom chopper. After 3 hours standing in nothing but a G-string and pasties, Petra was transformed into PETRA, THE SUPERSTAR BIKER MODEL. Then we had Don and Deb from Shooters Images, take pictures of her onstage in front of a crowd of appreciative bikers (Shooters Images website).
This worked so well we painted her to match The Rock & Roll bike, which won the Sturgis motorcycle competition two years ago. The owner was in our VIP section spreading thousands of dollars in $1 bills to the dancers and hostesses, when I sold him on the idea of having Petra painted on his bike as well. You can judge the results for yourself.
Budweisser was a big sponsor of Monkey Rock, and they offered to do a motorcycle burnout
demo.
We set them up outside the main door and got ready. They took a few pics with spectators, and I decided they couldn’t leave without a few pictures with Petra, the rock star. Of course, now she became Petra the Bud Babe. After she drank her Bud, they burned through a tire, did a two second tire switch, and burned through the second tire until it exploded. The crowd went nuts. At least I think they did. Too much tire smoke to see, and too much motorcycle noise to hear.
Mark Reid kept begging Petra (by now his favorite model of all time) to let him paint jeans and a vest on her. We were thinking, “yeah, right. Big deal."
“I have to paint jeans on you. I do the best jeans in the world.”
Okay, we’re always up to seeing the best of anything. I wasn’t sure whether he liked his painting, or his canvas, better. But the jeans were incredible.
Petra posed for pictures after all the paintings, but everybody went crazy for the jeans. She had her picture taken for 7-8 hours with people in front of some custom motorcycles with about 300 different people. She earned over $1,000 in tips that day alone. What’s funny is 3/4 of the people didn’t realize that the jeans were painted on until we told them, after they had their picture taken.Then Petra went crazy and decided to hitch-hike to Florida.
But I reminded her that she was only wearing a G-string. I told her if she came back to Monkey Rock, I would let her party with Stephen Tyler from Aerosmith. She stopped at the gas station, got something to eat, and came back to reality.
John had put a lot of money into Monkey Rock, and we were doing all we could to help him. Petra worked as a Pit Boss at one of the bars on the four nights she wasn’t totally body painted, and I helped in
lots of other areas from entertainment, keeping the bars running, and whatever else needed doing. We got home at about 3 a.m. each morning, and were up again about 8 a.m. to do it again.We obviously hadn’t thought this through very well. Instead of kiteboarding, we were slaving away 19 hours a day. Work! Work! Work! You can see from the pictures how bad it was. We joked that other people went on vacation to get away from work, but we went to work. John and his beautiful wife, Lee, were great hosts and were very appreciative of our efforts. Petra and Lee also looked damn good together, also.
You can’t go to a motorcycle rally without looking at some bikes. Here’s me with Ron Simms, a very famous bike builder.
And here’s a copy of the exact same bike he custom built for me back in 1994. Only the paint job is different.
Here are a few of our favorites bikes.
Then there’s the bike that won Best In Show by the People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals, PETA. That’s really close to PETRA. And she looks like she was dressed to be riding this bike. You decide.
Speaking of animals. We were minding our own business and just riding through downtown Sturgis. And we see a dog. Then a cat. Then a rat. You think that’s strange. The rat was on the cat. The cat was on the dog. And the dog was walking down the street. One picture is worth a thousand words.
It had to happen. Another guy, Jim Ludwik from Colorado, saw the pictures of Petra and wanted her to be painted to match his bike. What the hell, one more time. She came out great after Mark worked his magic and we got some nice pics.
To see more body-art pictures click here.
Jim wanted to go downtown, so I suggested Petra ride on the back of the bike with him, matching his bike. She grabbed her tip bucket, and off we went.
Downtown sturgis was packed with bikes.
We rolled slowly down the street, Jim and Petra in front of me. Petra was fully painted and in just a G-string, so I decided to keep honking the horn. Petra stood up on the back seat and held on to Jim. Everybody turned to see what all the noise was about. Hundreds went for their cameras at the same time. The slower people that had to dig their cameras out of a purse or pocket, ended up running down the street chasing us trying to get a picture. When we finally stopped after a few blocks, Petra was immediately surrounded. People backed into the street so thickly that cars couldn’t pass. The police finally walked over and had to clear the street.
Petra started to have her picture taken next to Jimmy’s bike and everyone was happy. Until the police told me that they were going to arrest her for soliciting if she accepted any more money. I studied Martial Arts for many years and decided this was the time for a demonstration. I whipped my leg up and knocked out the biggest cop in one shot, and then turned towards his partner who was drawing his gun. Using a scissor kick, I knocked him to the ground and took away his gun.
Oh, wait. Both cops were still there looking at me. Guess it was time for Petra and I to drive into the sunset.
We headed back to Monkey Rock and on the way we started to hear Tornado sirens. The sky was bad and a few drops of rain started falling. Petra’s body art was actually made of colored makeup, and we were worried about her melting like the Wicked Witch of The West so I gunned the bike to 100 mph. We made it back to Monkey Rock in about 5 minutes. We pulled the bike inside and could still hear the Tornado sirens. I looked around and realized that Monkey Rock is really a huge tent. It could barely survive the 30 mph winds we were already getting, and a tornado would eat the place like a cupcake.Pulling Petra, we ran for the gas station across the street. She was hobbling as best she could in her body paint and heels. We made it with 20
seconds to spare, then all hell broke lose. We video taped the most severe hail storm you will ever see. People living in Texas for 25 years said they’ve seen tornadoes, larger hail and more wind. But they’ve never seen a hail storm last for 23 minutes with this much force. We shortened the video to make it fit under the 10 minute Youtube maximum. Take a look. The middle of the video is intense, especially around minute 6.
You can’t go to South Dakota without seeing Mt. Rushmore. A few pics.
We found the mountain carving of Crazy Horse even more interesting. One man, Korczak
Ziolkowski, started carving this mountain 60 years ago. He had an old compressor and air hose and $150. He had worked on Mt. Rushmore, and the Indian tribes asked him to carve a monument to Crazy Horse.. (Crazy Horse was killed by a U.S. soldier that stabbed him in the back on a reservation.) Everybody called Korczak Crazy for even considering such a large project that was obviously impossible. He was proposing to carve the largest sculpture in the history of mankind, by himself.He hiked up 799 stairs that he built to the top every day. Sometimes he would get near the top and the air compressor would stop. He would have to go back down, restart it, and climb back up. He did this a record 9 times one day.
After many years of working he got married and ended up with 9 kids. The kids started helping him with his work, and still continue to this day. The government has offered $10 million in funds, twice, to help complete the project. But the family has refused to have the government take control. So after 60 years, they still work year round. ( Here is an interesting The NY Times article about Crazy Horse - click here )
To see more pictures from Sturgis and Monkey Rock click here.
After nine days, the Sturgis part of our vacation was over. We flew to Florida to meet friends and family. But we couldn’t get away from Harleys. We stayed with Petra’s friends Sandy and Tommy in Daytona Beach. We took a beautiful drive together and got a few more great pics. Petra used to live with Sandy in Daytona 10 years ago, and she was so exited to see her second family again. Sandy’s mother, Louise, considers Petra a third daughter. (Bet she didn’t know Petra was a Biker Mama.)
We visited my brother Tony in West Palm Beach. Then we spent a night with kiteboarding friends we met in Hatteras last year, Scott and Jake.
To see more pictures from Florida click here.
And now we’re home. We are back to our little oasis after having re-experienced the world. But now we’ve got a new kiteboard, computer and some Ed Hardy board shorts. Life doesn’t get any better.
