Day 13 - Gillette, WY to Custer, SD

We've reached South Dakota. We won't go to Spearfish, where I was born, but we're spending the night in Custer so we can tour around the area tomorrow to see Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse.

The ride today was long, but aided by a nice tailwind out of Gillette. The early part of the ride wasn't too bad, but certainly not the most scenic we've had. We were warned about mine traffic as we headed out of town. The picture is of a large coal plant east of Gillette. The good news was we had a tailwind for the most part so the pedaling was a little easier and it was quiet enough to have some conversations along the way. I rode with Gerry and Greg and chatted with them for awhile. The interesting thing is that Gerry is 70 and Greg is 17, which covers the age spectrum for our group. Gerry has done a lot of ultra-endurance riding over the years. This is Greg's second cross country tour. He rode from Portland to Savannah last year.


Dave and I met up at one of the stops, which was at a replica frontier village on the side of the highway. We really haven't seen much touristy stuff on our trip just yet, but know that it is lurking in the Black Hills across the South Dakota border. I'd like to say we sat and rested a spell, but we grabbed a bite to eat, applied some additional sun screen and chamois butter, filled water bottles, and headed down the road again.



The roads were in good shape and not too busy once we got out of town. One stretch in particular had everyone smiling. 8 miles of smooth, newly paved highway with a good 15 - 20 mph tailwind. Lunch in Newcastle was great and the wind helped us again until we started the bulk of the days climbing at around mile 85. For those of you who have done the Mountain Goat rides with Bike Masters, think of today's ride as a 75 mile warm up and then a Mountain Goat! Climbing got more intense as we entered South Dakota.

Dave has been noting the various changes in terrain, surroundings, etc. Today he said that the clouds here in South Dakota seem to be different from those we saw in Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. They appear to him to be larger, taller, and fluffier. I suggested that the clouds here aren't much different from those we get back in Nebraska this time of year as storm clouds start to build in the afternoons. He's not convinced. If we see some of these clouds tomorrow, I'll be sure to take a photo...

One thing you might note in the picture of us at the South Dakota border is that someone took the liberty to exercise their second amendment freedoms and shoot up the sign.







We ate dinner this evening at a restaurant called the Purple Pie Place, which had nice dinners in addition to great pie. The whole place was painted various shades of purple and they even grew rhubarb by the patio where we ate our dinner. Dave had the strawberry rhubarb and I had the cherry. Both were great. There was a pig on the front porch. A sad commentary on today's society, when you can't leave your purple pig on the porch without bolting it down. Speaking of purple... right across the street from our hotel is Fred Flintstone Village complete with an enormous statue of Dino. Things have gotten just a little tacky.