Days 42 and 43: Pierre, South Dakota

A two-day combined post because I'm taking a rest day today, here in South Dakota's capital, Pierre (pronounced "pier" -- go figure).

Yesterday, on Friday, we rode from Midland, SD to Pierre, a little over 62 miles in total, with a fair amount of rolling hills and climbing. We got off to an early start, at around 6:30 (before Midland Fuel and Oil even opened), both to beat the heat and, we hoped, avoid the worst of the wind, which was forecast to be coming mostly out of the East (our direction) and getting stronger as the day progressed.

The first portion of our ride (still on Route 14) was lovely. The temperature was a downright frigid 59 degrees to start (it felt great), the road was still empty and, because we first had to head North for about 20 miles before turning East for the 42 mile balance of the ride, the wind was a non-factor (it sometimes even helped, when it shifted to coming from the Southeast).

I focused on riding, and accordingly didn't take a lot of pictures, but the scenery was very much more of what we've seen in South Dakota since leaving the Badlands. Farmland. Ranches. Horses. Cattle. Rolling hills. Wheat fields, usually harvested. Hay stored in circular and, less frequently, rectangular, bales. Grain silos. Unlike Eastern Montana, however, there was a fair amount of greenery, including the occasional grove of trees. Notwithstanding the drought, it's definitely moister here than there.

Which was confirmed when I crested the last big climb into Pierre and saw -- the Missouri River in all its grandeur. It was a nice sight to see -- and also meant, once we crossed it into Pierre (which was built on its Eastern banks), that we had passed into our third time zone of the trip -- welcome to Central Standard Time!

Our total mileage to date is now just shy of 2,000 miles (1,983 to be exact). And we're still not even halfway through our planned route (which, at this point, is probably about 4,300 miles in total). Sheesh.

Our trip is changing a little bit for the next week. Bob and I have given ourselves until next Saturday, August 4th, to get to Minneapolis (if you don't know that's to meet our wives, you haven't been paying attention), but Bob wants to go a bit out of the way to visit an old friend in Mankato. For my part, I'm beginning to suffer some recurrent tenderness in my achilles tendon (right foot, if you must know), and wanted to take a rest day today in Pierre. So we're actually riding different routes, separately and at different times, for the next seven days until, hopefully, we converge again in Minneapolis.

That will be a bit strange after all this time together, for sure! May you have good luck and following winds, Bob. I'll miss your company.

Here are Friday's route and metrics:

Day 41: Midland, South Dakota

Today we left the Triangle Ranch and rode to Midland, South Dakota, about 48 miles. Lyndy (the B&B owner) fortified us before we left with a wonderful breakfast of a baked omelet, fresh blueberry muffins and fresh fruit. And, of course, coffee. As a result, we hit the road a little later than usual, about 8:45.

It was a gorgeous morning, cool and not yet too hot, and the road out of Triangle was deserted and lovely. And, yes, it was gravel -- for about 8 miles -- but not in too bad a condition (although not in as good a condition as the road we rode on the way in yesterday, which had been graded by Lyndy's husband, Kenny). On the way to the main road (Route 14), we encountered one pickup, whose driver, Cliff (a neighboring rancher), stopped and amiably chatted with us for a few minutes. He's visiting NYC with his family in September, so, in a modest effort to begin paying forward all of the kindnesses we've been shown on this trip, I gave him my number and told him to look me up if he needed anything (assuming I'm back by then!)

When we got to Route 14, we were glad to see that it was well-paved, with reasonably good shoulders, and very little traffic. All of which means, of course, that a long stretch of it was undergoing construction for repaving. Go figure. As was the case in Montana, however, this construction worked in our favor because they were using a flag person, a pilot car and only one lane. It meant we could ride with zero traffic for about 10 minutes at a time until the pilot car passed us with a pack of cars behind it, and so on until we were through the construction site. But even afterwards, it helped, since there are so few feeder roads in to Route 14. The traffic that had been held up by the flag person way back at the beginning of the construction zone continued to pass us only in bunches, still about 10 minutes apart.

One cool thing we saw along the way on Route 14 was a decommissioned ICBM launch site, smack dab in the middle of a huge corn field. All that was left was a tall, square wire mesh fence, with the type of barbed wire on top, on outward facing arms, that you see at prisons. We had seen another one of these on the way into Triangle Ranch (along Kenny's gravel road), and Lyndy had confirmed for us that's what it was -- and promptly told us fascinating stories of what it was like to grow up in the area when the sites were active. Army tanks on ranch paths and dirt roads, providing protection, when the missiles were being maintained or moved.

The last 10 miles into Midland were rough biking, as the wind picked up and shifted against us. Midland is another one of those small towns that makes you question how it continues to survive. It appears that the main industry is a grain storage and loading facility (see photo). The only hotel in town, Stroppel's Inn, had recently closed, but through Lyndy's daughter, Nicole, who lives and teaches in Midland, we got in touch with the one gas station in town, Midland Fuel and Oil, which manages a block of nearby apartments that are rented out, usually to construction workers. For some reason, the building, the outside of which is in significant disrepair (and the inside not much better), has a large sign outside of it announcing that it's the "Midland Apartments," financed by the USDA. Ahem, if anyone from the USDA is reading this, I might look into not advertising the connection quite so strongly...

But the beds were serviceable, even if the floors were a bit grimy (OK, disgusting may be more accurate), and we had a filling, if not particularly exciting, dinner at Just Tammy's (one of only two restaurants in town, but the only one that serves alcohol -- that is, until Midland Fuel and Oil's attached restaurant recently got its liquor license -- which is now threatening Just Tammy's already marginal existence). We were the only patrons for dinner at Just Tammy's, other than Tammy's extended family (mother, children and grandchildren) who kept wandering in and out. Perhaps all too aptly, the sign over her bar read: "I don't know if life is passing me by or just running me over."

Here are today's route and metrics:

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