What a crazy night we had! We like to set up our tent under a pavilion because if it rains, its nice to have everything nice and dry, but that wasn't the case last night. It was about 12:30 when it happened... we woke up to a waterfall of water pouring through the vents at the top of our tent. The vents have a little "roof" over them so that when it rains the water can't get in, but this water was coming up from the ground. At first we though someone was spraying us with a hose, but when we looked outside we realized the sprinklers in the park had come on. Now these were not just little sprinklers, they were more comparable to a small fire hose, lots of water coming out with a lot of force. Everything in the tent was soaked including our sleeping bags and pillows. I guess I would compare the waterfall of water coming in to the water bucket in the water park at Darien Lake Theme Park, or at least thats what it seemed like when you wake up to something like that. To make sure the tent didn't get any wetter, Joey ran to the sprinklers (there were 3 right near the pavilion shooting water towards us) and turned them away from the tent. We figured they wouldn't be on for more than a half hour, hour tops because of the amount of water they were putting out. So for the next 25 minutes, I watched as Joe walked in circles, from one sprinkler to the next, turning them away from the tent as they rotated. This wasn't something that we could have know was coming because these sprinklers retracted back into the ground after they were all finished and you could barely see them, even when you were looking for them. The tent, pavilion, and our bikes were all soaked, but luckily at the time all of this happened, it was in the 40s, so it wasn't super cold. After the water finally turned off, we climbed back into our wet tent and sleeping bags and tried to go to sleep. We knew this would be something we would laugh at later on when we looked back on it. Neither one of us slept very good the remainder of the night. When we woke up in the morning it was really cold, probably in the mid 30s. We found Joey's front tire to be flat again, so after we had oatmeal we fixed that. Since we were both so tired this morning, we had a hard time getting going, and not to mention we were both a little cranky. By the time we were all packed, it was a little before 10. We stopped at Subway to fill up on water and then went to the library which opened at 10. After checking the weather and email we got ready to head out of town. When we came into town yesterday we had to turn off of the road we had been following, so we thought we had to go back east a little to catch our road (and thats what it looked like on the map too). When we got to where the road was, it showed that it went onto the I-80, so we headed back towards town. There was a strong headwind again today which wasn't making us very happy either. We made it part way out of town on the road we were looking for and then decided to stop at a store to decide what to do. We were both exhausted and the wind was going to keep us at a very slow pace all day, which meant we wouldn't make it very far. We knew the next "town" was at least 60 miles away, and there wasn't much of a town there anyway, and that there would be virtually nothing in between. I was pretty sure that the weather report said the wind was supposed to be coming from the NNW tomorrow, which would be to our benefit, so we decided to head back to the library to take a second look at the weather. In the end, we decided to just stay in Kimball for another day. There is no since killing ourselves fighting the wind and not making it very far. After we were done in the library, we decided to get some cereal and milk for lunch. We ate at the tables inside the grocery store and then went across the street to a different park than we had been to last night. There was a maintenance guy in the park so we asked him about the sprinklers just to be sure. He said that they shouldn't come on until Friday in this park, so we should be in the clear. He also mentioned that at one point a man set up a tent in the park and ended up being right on top of one of the sprinklers, I can't imagine what a flood he would have had in his tent, so I guess it could have been worse. This park was a lot better than the park we were in last night; it was fit with bathrooms which were open and outlets in the pavilion where we could charge our phones, etc. We spent some time calling family and then I went across the street to the store to pick up some stuff for dinner. Steak was on sale at the store, so we cooked steak to go along with our mac and cheese (I also bought another pack of cookie too =D). After washing all of our dishes in the sink, we got camp all set up and ready. My sleeping bag had been sitting out to dry and was mostly dry except for the bottom, but everything else dried out nicely. We rode 8.42 miles today, even though we didn't really go anywhere, so hopefully tomorrow we will be in Colorado.
0 Comments
We woke up pretty early, had some oatmeal and were on the road by about quarter after 8. It was a pretty short ride to Scottsbluff and it warmed up nicely on our ride there. We planned on going to the Godfather's Pizza buffet which we knew started at 11, so we went to McDonald's and did some internet work while we waited for it to get closer to 11. We were both so excited about the buffet and so hungry by the time it opened, so we definately got our moneys worth. I like that you can request for your favorite pizza to be made for the buffet and that they almost always make it for you. Unlike the other Godfather's, this one didn't have the chicken, mashed potatoes or soft serve ice cream, but it did have very tasty pizza, potato logs, salad, spaghetti, dessert pizza and bite sized cinnamon sticks, so we were more than satisfied. We stopped at the grocery store to grab a couple things before heading out of town. The wind was a little strong and was coming as a head/side wind for the first 10 miles out of Scottsbluff. Our hope was to make it to Kimble, which was 45 miles away. After climbing the Hogback Mountain pass, which was supposedly at an elevation of 5,000 some feet (it didn't feel like we were that high), we saw Wildcat State Park. So we decided to stop in to use the restroom and sit on a bench to put on some sunscreen. Today was the first full day in about 2-3 weeks where the temperature was warm enough that we could wear just our shorts and jerseys and didn't need any cold gear. The temperature was in the 70s today which was perfect riding weather. While at the State Park, we talked with a couple of the ladies that worked there as well as a nice older man who shared some of his travels with us. After we left the park, we didn't make it a mile before Joe had another flat on his front tire, so before we road back down the hill we fixed that. The remainder of the ride was pretty good. As we were riding the wind eventually shifted to more of a side/tail wind which helped a little. It's amazing how there is virtually nothing between Scottsbluff and Kimball, a couple ranches, but that is pretty much it. Soon enough we made it to Kimball where we found another nice little park fit with a pavilion and picnic tables. Since we had such a filling lunch, we just had Ramen noodles for dinner and a few chocolate chip cookies we bought at the grocery store. What another great day on the road. I can hardly believe how fast the time has gone already; we will be in Colorado tomorrow! That will make 10 states (including ON) already! We rode 57.95 miles today.
We woke up early after a great nights sleep and found out that it was lightly snowing again this morning. Travis had to leave for work really early in the a.m. so we unfortunately didn't get to see him this morning. We had some really yummy cereal for breakfast along with an orange. We relaxed for a little bit while we waited for the temperature to get a little warmer outside. Shenga, the kitty, again was nice and cuddly, so we gave her a lot of attention. When it was time to go we hit the road around 9:30. It was about 30 miles before we planned to stop for lunch and they seemed to take a while (even though we weren't going that slow) after covering so many mile so quickly yesterday. The traffic was again pretty light and the wind wasn't bad, although there was a slight headwind for the first 23 miles. Again it was a little chilly, but we were pretty comfortable with our warm gear. When we arrived in Alliance we found some picnic tables outside of Subway that looked like a perfect place to make lunch. We cooked up some rice and then I cleaned up our dishes in the ladies room. There was also a McDonald's in town, so we decided to take a little rest so I could write yesterdays blog, since I was too tired last night, and to enjoy a soda (I had an ice cream cone instead of soda and it sure was tasty!) While we were in McDonald's it rained for a short while outside, but luckily went away very quickly. After our break, we both felt more energized and ready to ride. The remainder of the ride took us through an area of sand hills and by a tiny old town that looked like it could be a ghost town. We also saw quite a few trains throughout the day. Our hope was to get as close to Scottsbluff as we could today since the weather report looked like it might be windy tomorrow. We made it to Minatare, which is only 10 miles from Scottsbluff. I had hoped there would be a grocery store in town so I could by a package of cookies or some kind of snack, but when we got there at 6:42 we saw the sign that they closed at 6:30, I was bummed. We found a nice spot to camp under the pavilion in the town park. There was a group of kids playing basketball so at least we had some entertainment while we made/ate dinner. Once it got dark we set up our tent and listened to the radio for a little before going to bed. We rode 74.33 miles today.
When we woke up and looked out the window, we found that there was a light snow, so it was good that we were inside last night. The continental breakfast at the hotel was great! We had eggs, waffles, orange juice, toast, and cereal so we were nice and full and ready for the day. We were on the road just after 9 and got to ride in a light snow for a little while. Most of the ride down towards Wind Cave National Park was downhill. Not only was it downhill, but there was a strong wind at our backs pushing us all the way there. When we got to the park we saw some more prairie dogs and buffalo. At the visitor center we upgraded our pass from the badlands to a year pass for the national parks since we will be going to so many this year. After looking at the exhibits we headed towards Hot Springs where we planned to stop for lunch. We got to Hot Springs really quick and stopped in the park to make some mac and cheese. There were even working bathrooms in the park which made it easy to wash dishes. Before heading out of town we filled up on water at Subway. With the wind the way it was we figured that we would be able to make it to the NE border with no problem. After about 70 total miles, we made it to the border and got our SD sign picture since we missed it and obviously the pic with the NE sign too. Once we rode into NE we were on a grooved road for about 5-6 miles, part of which we had that strong wind a little more at our sides because the road turned. Riding with that strong wind on the grooved pavement was pretty tricky. Somehow, the road turned back so the wind was at our backs and the grooved pavement ended at the same time, which made the rest of the ride a lot easier. Around 5:30 we made it to Chadron, which is where we figured we would be staying for the night. There was a McDonald where we stopped to use the picnic tables to make some rice for dinner. When we looked at the warm showers site to see how far away our next host was (we planed to be there tomorrow night), it looked a lot closer than we thought. After calling our host, Travis, we found out it was only 22 miles away and that we could make it there tonight, even if we had to ride in the dark for a couple miles. So once we found out he could take us tonight, we packed up real quick and headed further south. We knew that by the time we reached our host we would have over 100 miles since we were already at 86. The wind was still with us which helped, especially when we were going down hill or on a flatter part of the road. It was incredible today, the wind was so strong that you could feel it pushing you up hills and down the road. We are so thankful that that wind was in our favor because we definitely would not have made it very far if it was against us. The weather channel said that the wind was 25-30mph with gusts up to 50mph. It would have been a horrible day if this wind would have been against us! The ride to Travis's house we a little hilly in the beginning, but it still went relatively quickly. We rode for a little bit in the dark with our lights, but it wasn't pitch black out yet so it wasn't bad. There wasn't much traffic on the road which was also helpful. Travis's house is about 15 miles from Hemingford. Once we made it there and got our bikes inside, we were greeted by a really cute kitty (which of course made my day!). His house was pretty neat because it was an old one room school house that was used up until about 5 years ago! We both had a nice shower and enjoyed watching part of the movie "The Green Hornet" on the projection screen that Travis had before bed. I had so much fun playing with the kitty because she was so cuddly and loved attention. We had a really comfy bed to sleep in and I was so excited that the kitty decided to come sleep next to us even though we were strangers. It was a little chilly today, but somehow we managed to not get rained on (even though the weather report said it was supposed to rain all day). The day was pretty incredible though since we rode 111.29 miles in 8 hours with the help of the wind. We weren't nearly as tired as we have been other days even though we covered a lot of ground..
We woke up to the sound of a light rain on top of the camper. After some oatmeal we packed up our bikes and got ready to get back on the road. We had thought about staying at the campground through the weekend because we knew that it was supposed to rain, but we figured it would be best if we got going to get some miles in. Jewel Cave was a destination on our itinerary so we hoped that we would make it there by 3pm for the last tour. We left the campground around 10. It wasn't really raining when we left, just a little cloudy. We were both glad that we had an opportunity to ride to Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse with unloaded bikes because we were moving a lot slower on the hills today with all of our bags on the bikes. For most of the uphill ride to Custer it there was a light rain that would come and go. A few hours later when we made it to Custer and it was raining pretty good; the temperature had also dropped since we were at a higher elevation. We went to Subway for lunch and then to the Dakotamart to do some grocery shopping since we were pretty much empty on food. There was no way that we were going to make it to Jewel Cave today, we should have left earlier this morning. With the rain and cold we may skip going to the cave and just head towards Hot Springs tomorrow. Although we thought we would make it further today, we ended up deciding to call it a day early and just stay in Custer because of the rain. We took a room at the Days Inn. Only a couple hours after being there it snowed for a short time and is supposed snow some more tonight, with a possible accumulation of a couple inches tonight, so I guess it was good that we decided to take a room. We watched a movie and made some Ramen Noodles in the microwave for dinner. While we were eating, we met a couple ladies from Arizona who had family in Niagara Falls and a few places in Wayne County, what a small world! We can't wait for the continental breakfast in the morning. Although we didn't get very far, at least we got 20.84 miles further down the road.
We slept in today since we knew we would be taking a rest day. We had some oatmeal and yummy bread for breakfast and then relaxed. I took an awesome bath in John's clawfoot tub (I've always wanted to take a bath in that kind of tub!). It was so relaxing and felt great on my muscles. This afternoon we set up everything for our cruise and got our room all reserved so I am pretty excited about that!!! We will be on the Sapphire Princess that leaves Anchorage on September 15, 2012 (so we will get to spend our thirteen month anniversary on the ship!!!). For some of the day we went to sit out in the hammocks that were on the campground land (until it started to sprinkle). It was so relaxing. I worked on my blogs to get caught up and did a little research. We made some ramen for lunch and enjoyed being able to relax indoors. For the first time in 34 days, we didn't get on our bike and ride any miles, it was a complete rest day. We made some more mac and cheese for dinner (it tasted much better than normal because there was butter and milk we could add to it!) Later on that evening, Rob stopped over with a Hawaiian pizza! It is funny because we were thinking how much we wanted pizza earlier that day. We chitchatted with Rob a little before we hit the sack. We plan to head out tomorrow as long as the weather is cooperative. It was amazing to be able to stay at the Prairie Dog Bicycle Club campground. We had so much fun talking with John and were so excited that we got to stay so close to the homestead of Gutzon Borglum, the designer and sculptor of Mount Rushmore. It is so neat to be so close to where it all started!
We woke up early since we knew it would be a long ride to our planned destination: Crazy Horse. We had some oatmeal and our favorite bread toasted with honey for breakfast. We were on the road by a little after 9 heading towards Custer Park again. Within about a mile of being in the park, we saw our fist buffalo for the day. There were a few more buffalo standing in front of the visitor center when we rode by as well. Soon enough we reached the needles highway where we turned to begin to head north. The beginning of the road was beautiful because there were trees all over the the road was again pretty curvy. I was feeling exhausted this morning and my legs were pretty sore from all the climbing we did yesterday so I decided to try some of a 5hr energy that John gave us. For some reason it made me feel really weird; my arms felt heavy, I was really warm and I felt a tad bit dizzy. This slowed us down a little but, luckily that feeling wore off after a couple hours of climbing. For most of the morning, we felt like we weren't going to make it home before dark because we were going pretty slow (we didn't realize how much we were actually climbing I guess). I don't think we had any idea what was in store for us as we were riding down the needles highway; we knew there were rock formations but had no idea it would be so amazing to ride through. The rock formations were incredible and the road going through them was another amazing road to ride on. At one point we even saw a guardrail way up in the rock formations so we knew we would be doing a lot of switchbacks soon. The ride was just so incredible that it's hard to describe, but I took a ton of pictures because of that. When we reached the "needle's eye" we rode through the most amazing tunnel I had ever ridden through. It was about 8 feet wide and 12 feet high and when you looked up you could see the sunlight through the crack in the stone. As we continued on, we came across Sylvan Lake which was really pretty. We rode back down for quite a while before reaching the turn to go to Crazy Horse, which of course we uphill again. Since we had been climbing almost the entire day thus far we were SO hungry by the time we made it to Crazy Horse, however we decided that we would wait until we made it to Custer to eat. We walked around the Native American museum, watched the 20 minute video on the monument and took a little time to look at all the pictures of how it has progressed over the years. I didn't realize how incredibly huge this monument really was. After seeing Crazy Horse, we luckily had a mostly downhill ride into Custer, where we went to Subway (even though we wanted to go to the pizza restaurant, but it was closed for the season, just like most of the other things in this area at this time of year). We usually split a sub and are content, but we were both so hungry that we decided to each get a foot long. After a yummy "lunch" around 5pm, we headed back towards the campground. Again, we rode through Custer Park. While riding we saw Rob, a member of the bicycle club, riding up towards Coolidge Mtn. We also saw a small group of mountain sheep in the park. We originally thought they were deer, except they didn't move when they saw us coming, instead, they just stood there in the middle of the road. We saw more turkeys, deer, buffalo, and more sheep as we continued to ride through the park. The ride home took about an hour and 45 minutes, where the ride to Crazy Horse took us over 5 hours because of all of the climbing. We were surprised to see a sign that said we were at an elevation of over 5,000 feet. Any other time we had climbed to an elevation that high or higher we had 4-5,000 feet of climbing, but today we started at an elevation of a little over 3,000 feet so we didn't feel like we had climbed that high. Overall, we climbed to a height of about 6,600 feet on the needles highway, which is the tallest elevation we have been at on the trip thus far. We made some mac and cheese for dinner and chit chatted with John and Rob for a little before going to bed. We rode 63.05 miles today. The past two days have definately been our favorite on the trip thus far, so much so that we don't want to leave!
We woke up a little late since we slept so good last night, guess we were more tired than we thought! Jon made us a yummy breakfast of what he called a wild rice pancake that included red peppers, egg and of course wild rice! We also enjoyed some really tasty vanilla honey yogurt with strawberries and some of his amazing bread toasted with honey. I just can't get enough of his incredible bread, we ate a whole loaf last night and another one this morning, it is SOOO good! We did some laundry and planned out our route to go visit Mt. Rushmore. John warned us that we may encounter buffalo in the middle of the road and as long as we didn't get between them and their young we should be fine, but to still be cautious. After we took all the bags off our bikes, we left around 12:20 and headed towards Custer Park, which is only 3 miles from the campground/Prairie Dog Bicycle Club Headquarters. We turned on Iron Mountain Road. What an incredible road to ride on. It was a curvy narrow road with rolling hills with trees all around, so much fun. After only being on Iron Mtn. Rd. for about a mile or two we came across a large group of buffalo that were standing right next to the road. We were very hesitant to ride by them because every time Joe moved a little closer one of the big ones stared him down. Because we didn't want to startle or get them mad and be chased by a buffalo (they can get up to 45 mph) we opted to just keep our distance and wait a little while. After about 10-15 minutes they decided to walk down the hill a little. We started moving around the corner/down the hill and they were fine, until all of a sudden they all started running in the same direction we were going. We stopped and then so did they. We were worried that they would run right out in front of us as we were going down the hill, but they stayed where they were and we were able to go by without a problem. It was absolutely amazing! As we continued riding down the road we saw more buffalo, but these ones weren't as close to the road and were busy eating. It is so hard to describe how awesome this road is to ride down. We road through a few small one lane tunnels which had a view of Mt. Rushmore as you looked through the tunnel, it was pretty neat. After a while, we found ourselves riding on switchbacks up a mountain. It was so much fun and the scenery was amazing. When we got to the top we could see Mt. Rushmore on the neighboring mtn. The ride down the other side of this Mtn. was probably my favorite ride I have ever riden, it was truely incredible. I feel that people in cars would have a hard time appreciating how truely amazing this road is. There were again a few switchbacks followed by amazing curves along the edge of the mountain and pigtail bridges. One of the pigtail bridges was right after we came out of a tunnel which was pretty sweet. There were also a couple spots where the lanes of the road divided so there were trees in between which was just so cool. After an incredible ride down the mtn. we made it to the road that went to Mt. Rushmore. We had a couple mile climb up to the monument which would have been a killer climb if our bikes were loaded. I was so excited once we got to the top. After taking some pictures, we enjoyed some of the jam cookies that Grandma had mailed to us while we sat and admired the presidents. Because we were worried about getting back after dark we only stayed about 30-45 mins before getting back on the road. With the exception of climbing back up the mountain with all of the pigtail bridges, etc (which we were excited for) most of the ride home was downhill. At one point there was a group of deer that decided to run right out in front of us, it was an amazing site to see and I wish I would have been able to get my camera out in time to get a pic of Joey riding with about 10-15 deer running across the road in front of him, it would have been an amazing shot. We also saw a few wild turkeys since there are a lot of those in this area too. When we got back to where we had our fist encounter with the buffalo this morning, there was a car that had just driven by the buffalos. We aren't sure if it was the car or us climbing the hill near the group that startle them, but whichever it was, they began to run up the hill right down the middle of the road. There was a sharp turn right at the top of the hill and when they reached the top, a minivan came around the corner and almost hit them. I can't imagine what it would be like to be driving around a corner and seeing a bunch of buffalos running towards you. It was actually kind of funny to watch because of that. The ride back to the campground was very quick. After what was probably the most incredible ride we had ever been on we returned around 6:30 and found a yummy dinner of turkey with veggies an wild rice, and of course more mouthwatering bread waiting for us. What an incredible day; now when people ask what our best day on the trip so far was we can tell them about today. We rode 43.33 miles going to Mt. Rushmore and back.
Last night we had a little trouble falling asleep because there were planes flying low overhead frequently (we later found out that there was a military airport only about 5 miles away). It was chilly again last night, but we woke up pretty early, made some oatmeal again and then were on the road by 8:15. The wind was with us this morning which was great! We didn't have far to ride before reaching Rapid City. The city is very spread out because of the hills so it was a little overwhelming at first, but there was a McDonald's right when we got into the area, so we stopped to look up where everything we were planning to go was. Not too long after we left McDonald's a man in a truck beeped and waved at us, and we realized it was the guy who owned the campground we stayed at near the Badlands! Our fist stop, which we have been looking forward to for a couple days, was the Golden Corral (we knew there was one in town because Grandma filled us in). We were so hungry and so excited to be able to have such a wonderful selection of food to eat. I ate 2 full plates along with a ton of dessert (there was a chocolate fountain and even cotton candy!). I was in heaven! After we filled ourselves to the brim, we headed to the post office because Grandma had sent us a package. We left our Bear Mace and extra bottle of Halt with Gram before we left so she could mail it to us once we got closer to the mountains. After we got our package, we rode down main street in Rapid City, which was neat because there were statue of each of the presidents on each of the street corners as you proceed down Main street. Soon enough, we made it to the bike shop that we had pre-ordered a couple folding tires and water bottles to. There was a really pretty huskie dog with bright blue eyes at the door to greet us at the bike shop, she was so cute. After we got everything we needed at the bike shop, we sat outside and opened our package from Gram. There were a whole bunch of jam cookies and easter candy and even a couple packs of slimjims amongst the other things. What a great treat!!!! Soon enough, we continued out of the city towards our Warm Showers host just outside of Hermosa. We were pretty excited because this host was a member of a bicycle club that was given a campground and we were informed that we would get to sleep inside a little camper! As we came into Hermosa, a lady, who we later found out was Laura from the bicycle club, pulled over and took our picture and also made sure we knew how to get to our destination. With only about 7 miles left before we got to the campground we figured we would be there very soon, however, that didn't happen. Joe got another flat, this time on his back tire so we had to stop to fix that. While we were fixing it, a guy on a motorcycle pulled over and we chitchatted with him for a few. After we were back on the road, we couldn't have even gone 2 miles before we had to stop again, this time I had a flat. We knew my back tire was pretty warn, but we thought it would make it another couple hundred miles, guess we were wrong. The tire had 2 huge slices in it, so we had to use one of the folding tires we had just bought in Rapid City. When we finally made it to our host we enjoyed a quick tour of the place and then an amazing hot shower. There was a tasty meal of pasta with buffalo and tomatoes waiting for us and we also enjoyed some of the amazing bread that Jon had made (he is a chef). We planned out our route for tomorrow and then went to our little camper to go to bed. It was so great to not have to set up our tent and be able to sleep indoors! We rode 54.83 miles today.
It was a chilly night last night that's for sure. Our 0 degree sleeping bags are being put to good use so its not so bad, just the getting up in the morning part that is tricky. We woke up nice and early since we were so excited to ride through the rest of the Badlands. We had some oatmeal and washed our bowls in a sink with nice hot water, which was nice so we didn't have to freeze our fingers washing them outside like normal. There were hardly and cars going through the park for the first half of the ride which was great. It was so peaceful and the scenery was beautiful, I am so glad we decided to ride through the park. There were a couple steep climbs as we were riding through, but nothing harder than we have ridden on before. We made it through the park in about 3 hours and headed towards Wall. The wind was great today; it was still a headwind, but it was not very strong at all so we were very thankful. When we made it to Wall, we went to the "famous" Wall Drug Store to see what the fuss was all about. There were a lot of neat little shops inside and we ended up deciding to eat lunch at the cafe there since we were so hungry. Again, we had cheeseburgers and fries, along with a homemade donut each. I don't know how we end up having cheeseburgers whenever we go out for lunch, but they are always on the lunch menu and they always sound wonderful, and they were. After lunch we filled up on water and then had to do something we never though we would do, ride on the 90. We saw a road labled "service road" next to the 90 right in Wall, but when we took it, it ended up turning the opposite way towards a bunch of housed, guess it wasn't really a service road after all. When we got on the 90 it wasn't as scary as I had imagined it to be. Most of the cars and semi's moved over to the outside lane and we had a large shoulder too. The traffic didn't seem to be going too much faster on the interstate than it had on all of the side roads we had been riding on (where the speed limit was 65- and 75 on the interstate). The I-90 is so much different out here than the thruway back in NY. Nonetheless, I would still never ever want to ride on the 90 in NY, but we aren't aloud to anyway so that's good. The miles went pretty quickly so it didn't seem like we were on the 90 for a long time. There were a couple long climbs, but for the most part the ride was semi-flat. All around the highway it was hilly; we also crossed the Cheyenne river, so it made sense why there weren't other roads that went through that area. We got off the interstate as soon as we could at exit 90. From there we took a road that paralleled the interstate. The road we were on was nice and quiet as there was almost no traffic on it, but it was much hillier than the 90. Every time we came to the top of a hill we could see the black hills off in the distance, it was very pretty. Eventually we made it to New Underwood where we stopped at the little store and picked up some bread and jelly to make pb and jelly sandwiches. There was a little table in the store so we were able to eat inside, which was great since it was starting to get cold again. Its funny how it warms up during the day, but still gets so cold at night. We found a church down the road from the store where we set up camp, rather quickly I might add because by the time we were done with dinner the temperature had dropped even more and it was very chilly. We are only 18 miles from Rapid City so we're pretty excited for tomorrow. We rode 68.48 miles today, another fantastic day!
|
|