Saab Owners Convention report

Saab Owners Convention

July 21 – 24, 2022 Sturgis, South Dakota, USA

Anyone who has asked ‘where did you disappear to for the last fortnight?’, either looked like they wished they hadn’t, or replied ‘where’s that?’

I was really excited about getting out to the States again, although one or two doubts niggled about my trip to the convention for Saab Club America. Mark had already done the trip when the Sturgis car museum was still preparing for its public opening.

We flew into Denver, my choice, my mistake. The altitude, I had been warned may give me a few problems, but we had to get to our destination somehow. On a blistering hot afternoon we eventually got out of immigration to arrive at our hire car company. They no longer had the car we opted for on booking and wanting to please, they upgraded us. Then they discovered they had to up grade us further, if we wanted, because that car wasn’t available either. So we went from a basic Mazda to a Dodge Challenger, in black.

We sent off north to the Colorado and Wyoming border town of Cheyenne for our first night, a few hours drive and fairly straight forward. The scenery was impressive, the mountain range of the Rockies to the left and the most horrendous thunderstorm cracking lightening to the ground on the right! Eventually we had to go under it and whether the weather. Apparently Colorado is famous for its incredible lightening storms.

Wyoming greeted us with dry clear skies and a mixture of open space and distance rock formations. Cheyenne, Mark claimed was a boring little town last time

he sailed through with the Colorado Saab members.

No it wasn’t, but then I had my heart set on visiting the town. The centre for Rodeo, Frontier Days, which was about to happen the following week. The town, although spent a lot of its history being burnt down had so much to see, quirky buildings, railroad memorabilia, gunslinger events and one or two historically famous ‘Tupperware ladies’ thrown in (as the trolly bus guide tactfully referred to the brothel houses) we stayed over an extra day…..also because I had altitude sickness, identified by a local policeman who recommended a place for breakfast.

Ever on we drove the very long straight road to Lusk for lunch and into South Dakota for another break in Hot Springs. I don’t know where the spring was, but it was definitely hot.

We took time to take in the Jewel and Wind caves. We love caves, and they are cooler than outside. Wind cave is a sacred Native American site, the story of how they and the bison/buffalo originated from this cave, the beginning of life.

We passed the monument for Crazy Horse, not to be complete in our life time.

We toured Custer Park, saw the huge herds of bison, ‘Don’t pet the Fluffy Cows’. I was so scared of Mark losing the lowered skirt of this damn Dodge driving the narrow lanes of the Needle Highway. Then through the tiny tunnels, under and over the pigtail bridges of Iron Mountain Road which deliberately opened up views of Mount Rushmore, the graffiti of presidents.

We arrived early in Sturgis taking the opportunity to check into the Saab museum and get our bearings in town, the home of one of the biggest motorbike annual meetings, due a few weeks away. I did a bit of motorbike clothes shopping- it had to be done.

We went into Deadwood (Marks singing not to be endured) to visit the Adams House and Mount Moriah cemetery, the resting place of those well know Wild West characters Wild Bill, Calamity Jane etc. I found the area dedicated to all the children lost in the smallpox, diphtheria and measles epidemic at the turn of the 1900s most moving.

The first convention event was the drive to Devils mountain, the first American national park and famous for that science fiction film, Close Encounters…..Amazing!

The next day was the equally long trip (they consisted of a nearly two hundred miles) to Mount Rushmore but we’d done that one, so into the cool of the museum.

This is where I was handed a lovely red tee-shirt with ‘Volunteer’ across the chest. So we did, and it was fun on the entrance to meet so many other Saab owners and welcome them to the event.

One slightly bemused arrival asked if we were Canadian. Another asked how long had we lived in the States, since last Tuesday.

Mark caught up with old friends went to the auctions and helped out generally in the museum. I caught up with Jody, I met on my last trip to Maryland and found her daughter is studying at our university in Bournemouth - so close to home. We took a car out for a test drive with an idea of Jody bidding on it at the Sunday auction.

Saturday night a gala dinner was held in Deadwood so we all drove through the impressive gorge, avoiding all the mountain goats. As we arrived Mark announced we were low on fuel and after asking around the nearest station was back in Sturgis - oops. Leaving the event was down hill and back through that gorge, where the local police set up a breathalyser cordon, pulling in some of the Saabs. Obviously their weekend activities, the Corvettes were there the weekend before. We passed by in our inconspicuous car and slid into the first gas station, filling up took for ever….$80, at $4.65 a gallon, leaded petrol too. A far cry from the £1.99 a litre we left at home.

Sunday the auction over, Jody didn’t win her car, we set off for the 300 miles to Denver, stopping at Lusk again for lunch along with about twenty bikers heading to Sturgis. We convoyed most of the way with the club members from Colorado, leaving them on the outskirts of the city limits and airport to settle into our last hotel, and try and pack the suitcases accordingly to weight and gaze at the last view of the sun setting over the Rockies.