Here in Mitchell, South Dakota we finally saw THE CORN PALACE! My old boss from DIRECTV wouldn’t stop raving about it before we left. Corn Palace! Corn Palace! You have to see the Corn Palace, Ken. OMG! Well we’ve made it here. Mickey & Randy in Pierre gave us the last two nights of suggestions for places to spend the night, and we’re here in Mitchell, and we could see the spires of the incongruously Islamic-themed Corn Palace poking above the rest of the buildings for blocks. Whole blocks!

WOW!

So what is the Corn Palace? I don’t know. We never went inside. But we were told later that it’s nothing but a gym. That sure would’ve been a let down. The outside though, that’s where it’s at. The facade is made entirely of corn. And there are murals around the entire thing that are changed every year. The lady at the gas station that charges you to use the bathroom told us all of this. Then we bought some beef jerky & postcards just so we wouldn’t have to pay to use the bathroom. (Her water & sewage rates had increased, so she put a fee on the bathrooms for non-paying customers.) Inside the corn palace is nothing but not much, plus photographs of all of the murals from years past. Did you know that this is the only Corn Palace in the world? Mitchell, South Dakota.

On our way in, headwinds had battered us, but not as heavily as they would the next day. Mickey had researched a campground for us, but a far better option is always to hang out at a local watering hole to see if someone would eventually offer us their space. One lady at Dr. Lucky’s was on the verge of letting us sleep in an open apartment above the bar (we pass out easily), but her husband nixed that idea. You know what else that bar had though? Karaoke. It was worth staying until after dark for that. More people filtered in. Some seriously good Karaoke was sung. This old lady belted the crap out of some Reba McIntyre. Honestly. It’s no Hope & Anchor, but these people had some pipes. A group of teachers celebrating their last day of school sung songs to eachother and tipped us off to another campground up the street. It might’ve been further away than Mickey’s campground, but it was on this street, as opposed to three or four turns away - and we figured the less directions, the better, being few pitchers deep (including one bought by the bar). We didn’t want to be wandering aimless in the middle of the night. I sung Sinatra’s “That’s Life”, Neil Diamond’s “Brother Love’s Travelin’ Salvation Show”, and The Beatle’s “Oh Darlin’.” Three of my standards. “Oh Darlin’” made my voice hurt. It always does.

The teachers left. Some of them asked if we wanted to go to the Kongo Klub. “What’s that,” we asked.
“It’s a nudie bar.” Actually they were more polite about it, calling it “Adult Establishment” or something.
Andy & I looked at eachother. It was 10:30pm. Quinn knew what was coming. How could we possibly refuse this invitation?

Stripperaoke. We missed it in Portland, but pretty much got the same thing here. It wasn’t until almost 2am before we hurled ourselves back into the tent, apparently singing “superfreak” as we rolled up to the campsite. It’s definitely going to be downhill from here. I don’t see how it can get any better.

…just a quick note that yesterday, leaving pierre, we broke 2,000 miles!

woo hoooooo!  half-way home (geographically anyway)

a coule days ago i wrote about the loop we did of crazy horse, mt rushmore and needles highway. here are the photos and a couple more.

the many faces of QAK

crazy horse big, crazy horse little

Mt Rushmore as seen from the needles highway

Needle's Eye

The Ominous Digital Hand of Bowling

Good 'Ol Sandbagger Stanek, a matador of the bowling world

a random cow crossing a random bridge to nowhere

We woke on the side of Ron Dyvig’s homemade Badlands observatory, half-expecting another day of troll-blown headwinds in South Dakota. Luckily, so far, those eastern winds were a one day anomaly for us. On our way to Quinn, we had regrettably passed WallDrug - arguably South Dakota’s largest unnatural attraction. Signs advertised their 5 cent coffee and “donuts for truckers/veterans/cross country cyclists” for miles, the same way South of the Border advertises their fireworks. Except that WallDrug has their signs thousands of miles away, and on asteroids, as Ron claims. Also, they don’t advertise free donuts for cross country cyclists, but we convinced them to toss us each a delicious maple donut at the $7.99 breakfast buffet. That’s right, buffet. As if there was any question we were going to visit WallDrug on our way back to the Badlands loop, the breakfast buffet made certain of that. I piled on so much food, my styrofoam plate almost snapped in half.

Stuffed and fueled up, we finished up the 6 mile backtrack to Wall, and headed south towards the Badlands, one of South Dakota’s top natural attractions. It’s weird and inhospitable there. The road twists around mounds and spires of rock and dirt that shimmer in spectacular color shifts, prairie dogs popping up and chirping by the dozen, like a oversized version of whack-a-mole without the stuffed animal prizes and acne-ridden, teenage barker hustling you into the game. Cycling through these dry desert canyons is a trip.

The Badlands.

Then there was this guy…we have no idea what that’s all about.

Our destination for the day was Philip, South Dakota - a spot on the map chosen at random because it was about 80 miles or so of a ride. From the Badlands, there wasn’t much along the way, and when we got there, the only thing open was the bowling alley. It was a Sunday. We had no idea. But hey, bowling alley! And they serve burgers! Let’s go bowling!

Rock & Roll lanes was empty except for a few cowboys having dinner and a few rock-crushing contractors relaxing after a long day of … golfing. Fred & Paul were their names and I’m not kidding about them being rock-crushers. “We pound rocks into gravel” Like the kind of stuff you do in jail. Or…South Dakota. After watching us roll a game (Quinn: 78; Andy: 104; Ken: 132), we convinced them to roll another one with us. Fred had a natural bowler’s posture in spite of his claim not to have bowled for 15 years. He sidled up to the lane with a lean to the side like his leg was broken, his fist clutching the ball, tucked down by his waist as if these rock crushing arms were about to give you an uppercut that would break your jaw in half. He hurled the ball effortlessly and it arced fast, right across the face of the triangle of pins and into the gutter. The lady working the grill sighed, shook her head, came out and rattled off something about “if you’re going to try & roll like that, you need to stand over here and aim over there,” then put down a few post-it notes on the lane to direct his throw. With a few tweaks to the markings, he was rolling strikes like he was playing Wii bowling at home. The grill lady walked back behind the counter, satisfied, as her husband (who owns the place with her) grinned broadly. Final results - Paul: 46; Quinn: 48 (way to show ‘em, Quinn!!!); Andy: 95; Fred: 105; Ken: 173. Ok, yes, I was keeping score, and yes, I used to be in a bowling league as a kid, and yes, I used to read a lot of Dragon books, went to band camp, and listened to Weird Al a lot, so what? It was a genuine game (one of my best ever), and I had a Turkey in the 10th frame! (A turkey is three strikes in a row - awesome in bowling, bad in baseball unless you’re the pitcher).

This had been one of our most enjoyable nights of the trip. With nothing to do in a town of 800 picked at random, we spent four hours laughing with these guys. We packed up & headed for the lot down the street where Paul said we could probably set up our tent behind his RV. Just as we’re about to mount our bikes, the grill lady comes out & encourages us not to go to the RV park, but to set up camp behind her bowling alley. “You’d be sleeping on rocks over there. At least there’s grass back here.” Just the night before, she had told us, they had been robbed for the second time in just a few months. This clearly didn’t daunt their good nature, and she made sure we were comfortable & had everything we needed. It was off the road, quieter, and there was far less a chance of us getting run over by something in the middle of the night.

Everything was set up and we were making ourselves comfortable. Quinn thought she heard a raccoon or a rattlesnake going after her beef jerky, but it was just the wind. Probably. After an hour or so, we were well on our way to snoring our way through the night when the lady comes out again and scares the living bejeezus out of us, trying to get our attention. I don’t think she tried to open our tent herself, but she was definitely trying to wake us up. Andy recalls getting woken up by me grogging “What the?!!? There’s someone there!!! Who the f*** is that?!?!?!?” All I remember, after the cognizance that it wasn’t a bear or drunk outside our tent was “excuse me…excuse me… miss?” Quinn unzipped her side of the tent. The lady was nervous and worried-sounding, probably a little regretful that she almost made us pee our pants. “I think…if you don’t want…if anything happens out here tonight…and you need…if the weather gets bad or something…you can…here are the keys…you can sleep inside the lanes if you want…this key is for the kitchen just go through those two doors - we don’t keep them locked…really, it could get cold out, I don’t know…just…i’m going to leave clean towels and dial soap…if you need to get inside, please, go ahead…there are towels, some soap if you want to wash up in the morning, I know how girls like to keep clean…and…and…that’s all…I just want to make sure you guys are ok…this key is for the kitchen - just go through those two doors, we don’t keep them locked.”

It was so adorable that Andy and I started giggling in our sleeping bags. “Ok, ok,” Quinn nodded, looking up at her, “Thank you so much!”.

“I just want to make sure you guys are ok. I worry.” Then she added, almost as an afterthought, “My name’s Dorothy Hansen, I’m from Philip, South Dakota.”

OK, this post was going to end here, because that was just amazing, but then we had to go sleep, wake up, make our way into the bowling alley that had just been robbed the night before, and watch things just get more amazing. Dorothy had left towels & soap out for us, but on top of the towels was a note: “If you didn’t see my note, go back into the kitchen.” Back in the kitchen was a lengthy, vertical note scrawled on the back of a scoresheet:

We really couldn’t believe this. South Dakota, seriously…we had no idea you were going to be so awesome. Ever since we crossed into the state, people here have been amazing.

So, we left all the guys at Pactola - very sad to say goodbye …it was so nice to meet them all. to roll up after a loooooong day of lots of climbing (beautiful, but exhausting), it was so nice to drink some beer and meet a load of great new people with all sorts of good stories. no women are allowed on this “fishing” tradition weekend thing, but they all seemed happy to have me around and occasionally even said things like - hey, not with the lady around.

after leaving the lake, we rode through rapid city, a hilly but really nice ride. had some good buffalo in rapid and ken finally finished typing the story. and then we headed out to the town of Quinn. This was the most grooooooling, painful, frustrating 60ish miles. holy crap. the wind was pushing us backwards and sideways the entire time and we were on some f**cking service road that had constant steep up and down hills. every time i’d look over at the highway, id see nice flat road or really gradual climbs. agh. finally, we found a way to get to the highway and had a slightly easier ride from there. but not much really, the wind was no help at all.

we saw countless signs for the wall drug store, but at the rate we were going - we werent going to make it there before it closed, so we just planned to go there the next day before heading to the badlands. quinn, 4 miles away. sweet! this was the first sign. there were signs for other towns miles ago, but quinn is basically a ghost town, with lots of empty houses and a few people in the town. and one great bar/restaurant (thank goodness) called the TWO BIT. i stopped and took photos at every single “quinn” sign that i could find.

the reason we went to the town of Quinn is obvious, but the reason i actually know that there IS a town of Quinn is through my former position as photo researcher at Discover Magazine. We did a story on a wonderful guy named Ron Dyvig. Ron is an astronomer, and a good, well recognized one too. He has a home in rapid city, but spends most of his time at his homemade observatory built in the old, abandoned Quinn Hospital. Aparently, the town of quinn used to be much larger than the town of Philip, but after they put the highway in, Quinn was much less accessable and thus much less popular. Lame. This story on Ron was one of the first that I produced at Discover, it was a bit of a challenge finding the best, cheapest way to get my photographer and his assistant out there (to the middle of nowhere in South Dakota). Well, Ron was nice enough to answer my emails and let us camp out in his backyard for the night. He gave us a tour and great lesson on his telescope and what exactly he does. you should check out his website here: and the story that discover did here: He has discovered several asteroids and when discovering an asteroid, we learned, the discoverer gets to suggest names (usually approved) and Ron named one after South Dakota. I would have too – love this state!

We woke up in the morning to a fresh pot of coffee and a giant screen showing the nasa station where some astronauts were fixing something in space. (this is a first for us.) then off to the badlands. Thanks again Ron!

this was the first sign we saw. Quinn, 4 miles. Phillip, more miles after that.

the observatory

with Ron and his TOP SECRET sign above our heads. awesome.

there were two of these signs. wish i ahem took one, but noooo, better not to i guess. there was a quinn post office too! but i didnt want to stop us for a 500th time to take a photo of it.

several people told me that there were maybe 5 people living in Quinn, and that we'd be lucky to find any kind of gas station or store, but there was a bar! Doesn't get any better.

The Pactola Gang told us about the most scenic route to see Crazy Horse and Rushmore and all that.  Everyone else in the country has exagerrated the hills we experience.  Like “Oh my lawd!  You ain’t neva gonna make up that one!”  and two hours later we’re looking down on them from 5,000ft higher.  The guys at Pactola, though, understood how badass we are and played coy about the hills.  They told us about the Needles Highway and the loop that goes from Crazy Horse to Rushmore and the pigtails and all that.  About the hills, they were just like “Oh yeah, you’ll definitely see a lot of this” and wove their hand up and down like you do out the car window when you’re a kid.

With no worries in our heads we set out to see Crazy Horse.  The scale of the monument is impressive.  Although the sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, bit off more than he could chew and not enough people saw his vision, as grand as it was.  The first blast was in 1948 and all they have accomplished since is the face of Crazy Horse and some of the arm.  The money they have been spending on the visitor’s center and restaurant and all the other surrounding buildings would be much better spent on finishing the actual monument.

So we left Crazy Horse in his inflicted state of disarray and rode back down the hill to catch the Needles Highway.  The Needles are some more geologic upheavals the Black Hills offers.  They are granite formations that just stick straight up out of the ground.  The main attraction is a naturally formed needle’s eye.  I guess there was only one pinnacle with the eye but the whole highway was littered with jagged granite protrustions.  And, of course, windy and curvacious map lines which means windy and curvacious and high elevation climbs.

From the highway we caught Iron Mountain Road.  Or the Iron Maiden road as Ken kept calling it.  Iron Mountain Road is probably the funnest road we have taken thus far.  For me at least.  It includes the Pigtail Bridges.  The guys at the lake kept trying to describe it but all I really got was that they curve around and the tunnels frame Mt. Rushmore perfectly.  Iron Mountain Rd. has a lot of switchbacks and after about a couple hours of climbing on a steep grade I understood what they meant.  There are 3 different tunnels and each one is perfectly aligned to view Washington, Jackson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln in all their granite glory.  As you come up over a steep hill and look through a tunnel large enough to fit a tour bus, there they are.  Not as large as Crazy Horse but more grandiose.  I recommend this view from a couple miles away over the $20 entry fee just to get up close to the monuments.  For an extra ten bucks they let you pick Washington’s nose.  I also wondered if drivers heading the opposite direction knew what they were missing by not looking in their rearview mirror.  It was pretty magnificent.  Sure it’s just a bunch of dead presidents’ faces carved into the side of a mountain, but you can’t deny the enormity or daunting labor it must have taken.  So we saw that, then the pigtails!  The Pigtail Bridges is what made it such a fun road.  They make up part of the descent of Iron Mt. Rd.  There you are, climbing up a huge mountain, you see Rushmore, cool, the boring and foreboding prarie is just past the mountain, ugh, then as you start to pick up speed going down you see that the road curves under itself!  Like a curly fry!  Or….a pigtail!  It was glorious and dizzying and entertaining and everything else that makes up for such a brutal uphill.  Then, on the way down we startled a wild turkey crossing the road.  I don’t know if you’ve ever heard a wild turkey before but they are the funniest and most amusing animal sound in the kingdom.  We’ve been hearing them while camping at night and can’t help but mimic them every random while.  The lil guy we startled on the road didn’t make any noise, though.  But Ken and I sure did!  We bellowed out turkey calls for the next mile.  There is no way to describe it in words.  “Gobble” just doesn’t do it justice.  We followed Iron Mt Rd to it’s end and stopped in Keystone to get a cup of coffee for the ride home.  There, a guy named Sludge or Slaw or Sloth or something I didn’t catch told us about where to see some big-horned sheep and mountain goats, but that required us going back up all the hills we just came down.  So we made our way back to highway 16 then on to catch 385 to take us back to Pactola Lake.  As luck would have it, we came across a pack of mountain goats and big-horned sheep grazing on the side of a mountain.  And we didn’t even have to backtrack.

pictures coming soon

There’s a real good reason we went so far but didn’t make it anywhere today. Actually, there are several good reasons. The least of which being that our quintessential awesomeness put us so far ahead of schedule that we have to find ways to kill time before meeting Johnny Hunter in Wisconsin on June 1st. Our path through South Dakota is designed for maximum inefficiency, zigzagging up & down, and taking the scenic route wherever possible. It was always part of our plan to set up camp somewhere near Rapid City, stroll down to the Crazy Horse & Mount Rushmore National Monuments, then set up camp again somewhere near Rapid City before heading east. Our plan was just thrown for a loop when our warmshowers contact ended up sounding like a total bummer.

We headed down to Pactola Reservoir, seven or eight miles south of the Sugar Shack. We took the first sign that we saw, a downhill road that led lakeside, to a marina that does nothing but rent boats and posts “no camping”. Confused and slightly distraught by the fact that we might be stranded on some false advice, we inquired about camping from the lady in the trailer next to the office. “Oh, the camping’s on the other side of the lake. You’ve got to go back up the road, over the dam, and it’s a few miles down.” Back up the road is something you never want to hear, particularly at the end of the day.

Back up the road and a few miles down, we found the entrance to Pactola’s actual campsites. Again, it sloped downhill, twisting & turning around the shores of a deep turquoise lake, the setting sun reflecting the pine covered shores off it’s a golden shimmering surface. The road went on & on, sometimes climbing back up, until we finally found Circle A, where camping was free for some reason tonight. A few RVs were set up, and a few fires were already going. As we got closer, there were actually a *lot* of RVs set up - at least a dozen - and a little bit of music, too. Free camping is always a great thing, but it seemed odd that this many people were out so early in the season. The unofficial start of summer wasn’t until next weekend, and it was still a little chilly, to be honest.

We slowly and silently rolled up to an available campsite, inevitably catching the eyes of a few from this early group of campers. They drew themselves out to the road like the dwellers of a forgotten land rarely drawing the attention of the outside world, wondering why these odd travelers with no campers were coming up at this dusk hour. Our presence was known, but our silence and scale was mysterious. They ambled towards us in groups of one or two, around our age. They held beers in their hands as they asked what we were up to. They seemed happy. Before we could stop our bikes, they were dragging out coolers, offering us beers of our own. They were friendly.They were here by the dozen. And apparently, they’ve been here this weekend for 22 years.

The Pactola Lake Annual Fishing Tradition Weekend Unofficial Camping Something Thing had been going on for over two decades. Trailers full of beer, meat, and potatoes filled up Circle A, and lifelong friends brought their sons once their sons were of age. Every year you were there, you’d get a fish pin to put in your Pactola cap. After 10 years, you got a bigger, gold pin. After 20, you got a gold & diamond pin, and you had to get a tattoo. Only one person there, Kenny, had the tattoo. His son, Kenny, was going to have to get the tattoo in two years. These guys didn’t seem as dedicated to casting line as they did to throwing back beers and singing unsolicited acapella Karaoke by the fire in the middle of the night. That part made it hard to sleep, but the fact that either of our hands always had a beer in them, courtesy of them, made passing out quite a bit easier. We told them all about our trip and the generosity we’d already seen, including Dana buying us Sugar Shack burgers. “Wait a second… did the guy walk like this,” one asked as he plodded one leg forward, dragging the other, and swirling the rest of his torso to meet up with his legs. “Yes. Yes. That’s totally the guy!” I said. “Yeah. Mr. West.” He gestured to the rest of his group, “did any of you guys go to Central? He’s a Math teacher there.” “Oh yeah! Mr. West! He’s a great guy. A really great teacher.” These guys were incredible. I wanted to come back to the Black Hills sometime in the future from the minute we rode into them. Now I know the exact date I want to come back in a year from now.

We stayed up later than usual with them, seeing far more stars than any night before. Andy & I thought we were seeing the Milky Way or the Northern Lights, but it turned out just to be clouds. Still, it was great to sit by the lake & stare at the sky. There were too many guys for us to remember all of their names, but they did all sorts of things. Cop, FBI agent, Hiking Archaologist, Nuclear Physicist, Pharmacist, Printer, Gun Engraver, Buffalo Wrangler, Miltary Radar Specialist…. And that’s barely half of them. A good half dozen of the rest worked for the guy who engraves guns (rendering them useless, but heirlooms. Any hunting magazine will have an ad for his business). They all were excited to have a bunch of New Yorkers there - and New Yorkers who showed up on bikes and meant “bicycles”, not “motorcycles”.

As the night wore on, we developed our plan for the next day. The Pactola guys were so cool, we knew we were coming back to this exact spot after the day’s ride because we wanted to hang out more. There was breakfast to be cooked in the morning, and a huge dinner to be had at night. They also said they’d let us set up camp on one of their sites to avoid the next night’s fee. A round trip back to Pactola was perfect. It was beautiful, and we had a bunch of destinations in the Black Hills (Crazy Horse and Mount Rushmore are there). To sweeten and seal the deal, they convinced us to drop all of our bags at our site so we could ride through the hills without the extra 60 pounds of luggage. The routes they’d advised us to take were a bunch of squiggly lines on our maps. Whenever there are squiggly lines, it means there’s a lot of climbing to do. Not doing it with our panniers full was going to make a world of difference. “If anyone messes with your stuff, we’ll… we’ll… we’ll shoot ‘em!” Perfect.

After a day of riding, we ran into them taking their group photo in front of a bar 5 miles from the campsite.

This is going to be a long post.

We left Sundance Wyoming this morning where Andy’s favorite breakfast (biscuit, gravy, sausage patty & egg) is called “The Devil’s Tower”. The same breakfast is called “The Hungry Bear” at Enid’s in Brooklyn, and all across the west, we find it under different names at diners everywhere. At Higbees in Sundance, the owner, Jinks, made us plates memorable enough to photograph.

Hmm... it actually looks kinda gnar, but trust me, it was delicious

It was Jinks’ birthday last night, and when we left the Dime Bar Horseshoe Saloon, she was well on her way to forgetting a very happy birthday, with a glass of straight Jack Daniels swishing back & forth in one hand and a cigarette dangling from the other. She opened Higbees at six in the morning.

Her patrons eavesdropped us planning our trip for the day and offered their advice. Since we’d stopped short of our destination of Newcastle, in the snow, our plans had changed. Instead of coming into South Dakota near Custer, we were going to come in near Spearfish & Sturgis, around route 90, north of the Black Hills. For the past two days, we’d finally been seeing trees again, which was a welcome change from the sagebrush covered plains of Wyoming. The Black Hills promised more of that and of course, hills.

On the road, a strong tailwind kicked us out of Wyoming, but almost as soon as we hit the state line, South Dakota’s winds tried to push us right back. For the first few morning miles into Spearfish, we pedaled hard downhill, not even realizing we were already into a new state. The Frontage road we took along I-90 unceremoniously brought us across state lines without any “Welcome to South Dakota” sign. We’ll have to wait until we hit Iowa to look the other way for a photo with all of us on the border.

Spearfish is a beautiful town in the foothills of the Black Hills. We tried to find a park to have our lunch, but the only open, grassy area we could find was a cemetery, and it didn’t seem right at all to have a picnic there. So we turned around to a coffeeshop, spread out our food, and ate the last of the deli turkey we bought at Pine Haven. It was starting to get pretty slimy and Quinn didn’t want to touch it.

There was a shorter, flatter route across the foothills that would bring us to Deadwood before heading down into Rapid City, but it was a gorgeous, sunny, 65 degree day, and we’d been doing less than 40 miles for our past two legs. We easily agreed to take the scenic route through Spearfish Canyon that everyone recommended. It was a very gradual uphill climb, but well worth the effort to experience the trees & hills we’re going to be in lack of once we pass East of Rapid City in a few days. Beautiful woods had been lacking for most of the last state we were in. The local Native American name for Wyoming roughly translates to “This place sucks, let’s get out of here.” This of course, is not true, and there are some beautiful parts of Wyoming in spite of it’s tedium. But mostly lots of sagebrush. We’re still in the Black Hills as I write this, and some of it’s most scenic vistas are on our route, so marveling completely at it’s beauty right now might be a bit premature. All I’ll say is how much Andy & I wanted to jump right into the river during one of our breaks.

The scenic route ends as gradually as it begins with the intersection of route 85, and then it gets a lot steeper. It wasn’t really a struggle getting through these first 20 miles, but these next six were brutal. At least, it felt like six. It could’ve been two. Steep climbs always feel a hell of a lot longer. We dripped sweat and pain as we climbed, then finally descended into Lead, SD where we stopped for Nachos & drinks at the Stampmill Inn. The Stampmill Inn makes a mean plate of Nachos, and the three of us inhaled it to the slightly amazed bemusement of the bartender.

Stampmill's mean plate o' nachos

We called our host for the night in Rapid City, another warmshowers.com user. In spite of our numerous detailed emails over the past week, she seemed to be surprised that we were showing up, and that there were three of us. Clearly, she does not follow twoarmparty as closely as she should. We all were skeptical of sleeping in our outside of the trailer she’s got 10 miles west of Rapid City, and we got the impression that she was skeptical of hosting us at all. So we put our feelers out for other options. Stampmill’s bartenders recommended restaurants, campsites, and acquantances in the area. One restaurant stood out in their suggestions: the Sugar Shack. Just a few miles north of the junction to Rapid City, and the only thing we had to do was climb over Strawberry Hill to get there. “It’s a steep, steep climb, but only about two miles, then it’s pretty much a gradual downhill from there the rest of the way.” This is a bold-faced lie. Not only was it a lie, but it was a lie corroborated by several people at Stampmill’s. Strawberry Hill *was* a brutal uphill, two mile climb that took us the better part of an hour to do, but the rest of it was not at all downhill. Jerks.

The Sugar Shack, an oasis somewhere at the bottom of some rolling hills, advertises “The Best Burgers in the Hills”. As far as I’m concerned, they’re somewhere between the 2nd & 3rd best burgers I’ve ever had. (The now closed “On The Park Burger” on 110th St. in Manhattan holds a special place in my heart and will never be knocked off #1).

The guy sitting next to me, a soft spoken older motorcyclist with a limp and a thick white beard, was impressed with the speed and vigor we devoured our plates. Dana West is his name. He rides 15 miles from his home in Rapid City just for these burgers. Everyone at the Sugar Shack was bristling with optimism & friendliness. We’ve grown accustomed to people being generous & welcoming, but there was something about South Dakota so far. Even the group of offroad dirtbikers who ambled in as we were about to leave were nothing but ear-to-ear grins and firm handshakes. They left with roaring engines into the trails across the street. The waitresses chatted to us about cycling, climbing, and their kids. Dana sat & listened as another older park ranger overheard us deliberating where to spend the night, and then suggested the campsites at Pectola Reservoir a few miles down the road. “It’s free tonight. Just look for Loop A,” he said with a wink and a mysterious grin before he & his wife scuttled off to their pickup, back to the campgrounds for the night. Dana bid his farewell to the Sugar Shack, but before he left, he told the waitress he was picking up our tab.

Bubba Burger: 1/2lb patty, bacon, pepper jack, jalapenos, grilled pepper&onions, BBQ

We never the guy who recommended Pactola lake again. I might have imagined that smile & wink, but based on what happened to us there, I’m pretty sure he knew what he was getting us into.

TO BE CONTINUED
It’s taken me the better part of today to write about this, and I’m only half done.

I took a whole bunch of photos of the musty old mason lodge we stayed in a week ago. Instead of posting them all here, I’ve put them up on flickr, where it’s a bit easier to navigate through them.

The weird Wyoming weather finally caught up with us today. Sure, we’d been battling some disagreeable headwinds & crosswinds here & there, like Patrick Hugens told us we would be, but we’ve been able to avoid the downpours and blizzards everyone else told us were inevitable. Even yesterday, when we rolled into the general store at Devil’s Tower, the rainclouds rolled in right behind us, scattering downpours for the rest of the day. We woke up to cooler temperatures and blustery West-Northwest winds. Convenient, since we were headed Southeast today. Still, the inconsistent winds pushed us from side to side. Climbing the Black Hills, flurries began to drift past us, then began to drift past us in gusts. The higher we got,the colder it got and the more it started snowing. Soon, we were in the middle of a full-fledged snowstorm. Just like the one the crazy lady in Jeffrey City predicted. (I never, never should’ve called her out on being a terrible witch. Stupid! So Stupid!).

The roads slick, we eventually reached the summit and began to decline, winds battering us and snow biting at our faces. Maybe it was going to pass. “The weather can change at the drop of a dime out here. But stick around a few minutes. It’ll change back.” Someone somewhere said that, more or less. The good news was that it might pass. The bad news was that it was pushing us the whole way, so we were going to stay underneath it. The other good news was that it was pushing us, so we didn’t have to fight it. The other bad news was that that was really freezing, and we were starting to get numb.

By the time we reached Sundance, 26 miles from Devil’s Tower and 45 miles from our destination in Newcastle, we needed to warm up. We stopped for an early, lazy lunch to wait out the weather. The weather never passed. Each time we stepped outside to challenge it, it’d kick up harder and colder. These were not the types of conditions to ride in. We’re tough and awesome, but we’re not stupid. It was time to stop.

We don’t like to have to stay in motels all that often either, but it’s something like 38 degrees & snowing outside, so camping is out of the question. Big thanks go out to Andy’s Dad here, for putting us up in the Motel across the street. There’s cable & wifi, so we’re totally hooked up here.

BROasted marshmallows from the campfire at devils tower