Day #70 - 5/21/2011 - Pierre, South Dakota to Miller, South Dakota - 72 miles

It would be pretty much impossible to get lost on the 72 miles from Pierre to Miller, South Dakota.

Finally: back on the bikes again.  It feels like forever, almost as if there had never been a bike trip…I can’t believe it’s been more than a month since we biked.  Don’t get me wrong, Lani and I have covered a lot of territory and have done things that we never would have been able to do had we been on bikes…multiple states, great cities, local restaurants, cheap motels, friends of hers and mine, national parks and parts of the country that I would likely have never made it to...ever.  

Maybe this was the way it was destined to be? 

But, absent the hours of daily biking and my usual 2.5 hours of running and biking at home, the side effects of androgen deprivation have lead to even more weight gain.   For nearly 40 years, I’ve been only a few pounds from my high school wrestling weight, less than 8% body fat.  And now?  I’ve gained over 15 pounds in a year.  Clothes no longer fit.  I feel gross. 

Anyway, it felt good to bike.

Five weeks since biking into Deming, New Mexico, we had covered the remainder of New Mexico, crossed Arizona into Death Valley, CA, went snowboarding in Mammoth Lakes, CA, met Russell and Lani in Santa Monica, drove north with them to Monterrey and San Francisco, continued on our own through Sonoma where I blended my 2009 Syrah, and made our way to Seattle where we made a right turn, traversed Washington State,  Oregon, the skinny part of Idaho, the width of Montana, Wyoming and ended up in South Dakota.

There was a short, sharp climb out of Pierre, then SD14 leveled off.  We headed east towards the rising sun.

 In case you approach Pierre from the east, this is how you'll recognize it.

SD14 (for South Dakota) is a rural road that cuts through the heart of a rural state.

The development of the Rural Delivery Service allowed the US Post Office to eliminate 40000 post office branches between 1901 and today.  A rural deliver address included the rural route number and box number, like "RR 14, Box 1".  In the distance beyond the mail boxes were a bunch of single and double-wides.

Rural South Dakota had a whole different look and feel than rural Texas.  It was as flat as the flattest parts of Texas while being a lot greener with endless agricultural farmland as opposed to cattle ranches.  Late-May in South Dakota was a lot cooler than March and early April in  Texas.

All morning, it looked like there were storm clouds ahead, but the skies stayed quiet.  And, best of all, there was no wind.  Lordy, do I hate the wind...it's just this relentless force that holds you down, like The Man.  Hills are okay: you struggle up, you fly down, you struggle up, you fly down.  Anyway, on these quiet South Dakota roads, I could easily do 18mph on the flats, but settled in behind Lani at 12mph.  How flat was it?  You see that tower in the distance on the left side of the photo?  It's still miles and miles away.

We would see them from the distance, these ginormous towers that reminded me of water towers, but then I'd think they had to be grain elevators, but...it turns out they were water towers after all!  It's just that they were bigger than any water tower I'd seen before, bigger than the one that towered over my grade school when I was 6 years old. 

The Mid-Dakota Rural Water System serves approximately 5,500 with customers with 3800 miles of pipeline over 28 town or community water systems.   The interesting stat here is that there these 28 towns barely average a population of 200!  Holy rural America!  

Let's see...what else would I notice...I'd notice the telephone poles and how instead of, say, two cross pieces at the top that there would be four pieces that were fastened together to make three triangles.   Do you know why the cross pieces are fastened to make triangles?  Because the triangle is a rigid structure, a structure that you can truss. 

So, the reason that I'm forever catching up to Lani is because I'm stopping to take pictures.  FYI.

 21 miles East of Pierre, we entered the bustling ruralopolis of Blunt, population 354.  Blunt dates to about 1880 and, like the small towns of Texas were beholden to the Southern Pacific, originally served Chicago Northwestern Railroad.

Dreary day, cloudy skies...bad for photography.  But, Blunt beckoned, so we had that going for us.

In addition to the American Legion, the American Legion Auxiliary, a Masonic Lodge, the Order of Eastern Star, Girl Scouts and the 4-H Groups, Blunt features the Lariat Riding Club to ensure that Bluntians are rodeo-ready.

The Blunt Bar and Grill features the only gas in town.  Actually, its the only gas for at least 20 miles.

We passed quietly through Blunt, followed by scores of miles of pastoral farmland, occasionally punctuated by a town of 200, or so, like Harrold (population=209) or an unincorporated community like Holabird that's big enough to warrant its own zip code (57540), but not so big that the Census Bureau is even keeping score.

A Mid-Dakota Rural Water System water tower on the left and grain elevators in the right marked the appearance in the distance of a town.  (I think this was Highmore.)  Be the first to friend Mid-Dakota Rural Water System on the Book of Faces.

As if the water towers and grain elevators at 20 mile intervals weren't enough to alert me that this part of the country was different from anywhere I had ever lived, there were billboards that nailed home that point.  I sort of knew what an "Angus" was, but, out-of-context, "Gelbvieh" and "Balancer" would've had me wondering.  ...turns out that a Balancer is an AngusxGelbvieh hybrid, usually accomplished by artificial insemination because, as you know, an Angus won't give a Gelbvieh the time of day.

Eagle Pass Ranch is pretty serious about breeding a better bull and Balancer, using the latest in  egg donation, embryo transfer and artificial insemination   In their own words "We don’t quit working for our seedstock customers until their genetics are on the dinner table."  Genetic seedstock on my dinner table?  I'm drooling. 

By early afternoon, wind from the South/SSE, sustained at 15mph and gusting to 20mph, kicked in.  It was more of a nuisance than a hindrance, not like the winds of Marathon. (It's a clip worth watching if you haven't seen it yet....maybe even if you have seen it, too.) 

Dew Drop Inn...for real? Now, I'm sorry we didn't stay here and support a local business, rather than a national chain.  I think it was the memories of the Prince Morat Motel in Tallahassee and Hotel Bien Venido in Alpine, Texas that left me with a touch of  traveler's PTSD.  So, we stick with our current favorite, the Superduper 8.

After about 6.5 hours biking and a close-up view of South Dakota agricultural and cattle ranching, we pulled up to our budget motel of choice, the Super 8.   Two better than Motel 6 and one short of the National 9 , I was surprised to find one in this town of 1530.  The demographics of these rural states is interesting and, the more ruraler, the morer interestinger.  While South Dakota is 84.7% Caucasian, Miller is 99.15% Caucasian.  So, here's the other interesting thing about racial demographics in rural parts of America versus  the operators of these motel chains: virtually all of them are managed by families from India. 

 From the memorably unmemorable Prince Morat in Tallahassee to the "how much do you want to pay?" Budget Inn of Sanderson, Texas, there were managers and entrepreneurs from India in charge.  I had to ask and, even as I formulated the question, the manager at the Miller Super 8 knew what I was going to ask when I said "I have to ask you a question."  He explained how the motel provided a place for an extended family to live and work, keeping everyone together and employed.  Made sense.  And that's why "other races" accounts for 0.02% of the Miller population.

Even with a decent highway shoulder, invisible debris, from glass to plant thorns, was a constant threat.

For those hard to detect leaks that still drain the air and life out of your tire, Lani resorts to advanced leak-finding techniques.  A tire that is less than rock-hard rolls less well and you find yourself pedaling harder than you think you should on the flats.

Lani and I walked the 0.9 miles to the Tucker's Supervalu Foods and picked up some Diet Coke, produce and turned towards dinner.

I'm happy to say that I did't fix a single flat on the trip.  Lani fixed a lot of them...all of them, in fact...and, ironically, she's not happy.  Thanks, Lani...strong work.  Way to be empowered.

We had a simple dinner: lentils and quinoa, flavored with a can of barbecued beans.  So good.

Salad in one of its simpler forms: chunks of bell pepper, tomato and brocolli.

Flat fixed, salad served, a dinner of grains, legumes and beans cooked  al dente, we settled in for the evening.  From the comfort of our room, we watched the mother of all thunderstorms, replete with hail, sweep through the area.  Hail storm on a bike...wow...that would've sucked.