Day #72 5/23/2011 Lake Preston, SD to Tracy, MN - 94 miles

We rocked today, covering 94 awesome miles and crossing the South Dakota-Minnesota border.  We went this way.

Up at 5am, we enjoyed our usual oatmeal with its usual raisins and customary Splenda in the comfort of our room.  We departed around 6am in advance of the sunrise.  I love a good sunrise and wanted to see it rise above the South Dakota farmland.

We enjoyed a quiet night in Lake Preston.  With the summer hunting season still
a few weeks away,we were the only guests at the motel that night.

 Like much of Texas, we had been surrounded by largely level terrain since leaving Pierre, SD, which made for a good view of the sunrise. Even though we were up and out early, I had not yet adjusted for how far north we were and how early the sun rose.

There were no roses to stop and smell, but there was a sunrise to look forward to each morning.  Click for a better look.

Lani and I have seen hundreds of miles of farmland, from the free-range cattle farms of Texas, to the pecan groves of New Mexico and now the miles of wheat, soybean and corn of South Dakota.  We were seeing a lot less cattle and a lot more horses.

After closely scrutinizing thousands of cows and hundreds of horses  as we biked along the rural roads in several states,  it was pretty clear that cows are screamingly dumb.  I mean, they stare at you with the this look that says "The lights are on, but I'm not here.", as if you could be Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men with the air bolt and saunter right up to them.  Horses, on the other hand, they are not just looking at you...they are watching...studying...and get anxious when you get too close.  Anyway, I really liked the way the horses in the mist looked poised alongside the silo.  Unfortunately, as I stopped to get my camera, they became anxious and started to stir before trotting off.

The morning air was still, the roads with a gentle roll and farm-filled landscape of South Dakota comforting as the first couple dozen miles ticked by.  The first town we entered was Arlington, population 992 and - surprise surprise, 98.49% of them Caucasian!

Founded in 1880 and originally called Nordland with the streets given Norwegian names,  this changed in 1885 when Olaf Street became Main Street and the city renamed itself after Arlington, VA.  Like many of the small towns, there was  no shortage of local pride revolving around the annual festival.

I don't recall seeing it, but the Arlington Inn - formerly a Super 8 - caters to the hunting crowd who come to this area for the duck and ring-necked pheasant hunting, as well as for the fishing in the nearby lakes.  Companies like Good Ol' Days Pheasant Hunting offer guided hunting experiences with lodging starting at $35/night.  

And, you know what?  I believe him.

Arlington's community calendar includes the annual fall festival (9/10/2011), the opening of pheasant season on 10/15, the living nativity and choir on 12/3 and the Winter Games at Lake Poinsett.  The city even offers two free campgrounds (or, $5/night with electricity with payment via drop box.)  You can even play 18 holes at the Lake Region Golf Course for $20.

Like so many of the small towns we entered, there was no shortage of local pride.

 We made our way to downtown Arlington which, to no surprise, was compact.

A couple of hardware stores, building supplies, a drugstore, a gift shop, a place for antiques and - something we found in all but the tiniest of small towns, a beauty shop.

The Arlington School District features K-12 and, between this town of 992 and the school district, no shortage of overachievers.

These sort of displays were common in this part of the country, but...seriously, don't you think you might want to prioritize some of these achievements?  Don't you want to call attention to your Nobel Prize Laureate? Ted Schultz passed in 1998, 2 months shy of his 96th birthday.  He authored ten books and wrote on the economics of agriculture and on how Japan and Germany recovered economically following WWII so much faster than the UK.    Wow.

After passing scores of miles of soybean, I shouldn't have been surprised to see the Soybean Processors plant, I mean: how much tofu do Americans eat?  Or tofurkey?  Or soymilk?  No...I knew all along where those soybeans were destined: soybean oil now with partial hydrogenation at a later time after which it will sneak its way into something prepackaged that you will rip open, culminating in a date with destiny in a coronary artery near you.

Okay, maybe that was harsh. Soybean oil has a multitude of uses, like feed for swine, cattle and poultry, plastics, insulation and all sorts of places you'd never suspect.  It's sorta like that skit from the 70s classic Kentucky Fried Movie on zinc oxide.  (You really should watch that clip...it's less than 2 minutes.)  And again: the rail, tying together local and national commerce.

Anyway, the sites of rural America were instructive in ways that I hadn't anticipated: it was like the field trip to accompany articles and essays I'd read over the years.

As we biked through South Dakota, the amount of wetland was a constant feature.  When we had left Pierre a few days ago, the Army Corps of Engineers was preparing to release water from the Oahe Dam, just North of Pierre, accompanied by reports of the imminent flooding of Pierre.  Back on 3/24, Day #12, we crossed the Morganza Spillway (6 miles of knuckle-baring highway hell) which had recently been in the news when the ACoE had to flood it, too.  The records snowfalls and recent snow melt had produced overflowing rivers around the country...we were just a step ahead.

I was struck with how high the water level was and thought of the flooding across the nation over the past 2 months.

It would take a minute, or two...or three...whenever I stopped for a photograph.  A photo here, a photo there and, next thing I'd know, Lani would be be out of sight.

We would see deer in the fields along the side of the road and sometimes watch a  deer family prance across the road.   The outcome of Deer v. Truck occasionally popped up, but nowhere near as frequent as in the Texas Hill Country.

A few miles past Bushnell (population 65, 30% of whom are artists!) and just before Elkton, population 736, we took a break...together.

Gray, cool and quiet, we paused for PB&J. Generally, we found that after 2 hours of biking, we were ready for something to eat.

Directly across from where we were taking a break was the Hill Top Dairy of Elkton, the home of 2100 Holsteins and their daughters.  The dairy is operated by a couple from the Netherlands.

The dairy has a pretty active page on the Book of Faces.  If I were a milk-producing cow, this is where I'd want to be.  Do you think cows ever wonder why the milking machine always stops after the foreplay?  Y'know how the dairy got its name?  Cause it's on the top of a hill.

51 miles after leaving Lake Preston, we arrived at our next state crossing: Minnesota, the Land of 10000 Lakes and the original home to the L.A. Lakers.

Well, this is exciting, isn't it?  224 miles after leaving Pierre, South Dakota, we made our next state crossing.  Good Times.  For the sake of completeness, you can view this spot from the roadside in Google map street view.  Isn't that cool?

Just like the topography changed when we crossed from Montana to South Dakota, the entire lay-of-the-land changed when we entered Minnesota.  Suddenly, things just looked different, the homes as well as the farms.  

This was the first home site we saw in Minnesota; it was more stately than anything we had seen in all of South Dakota.  The windmill on the left-hand side looked ancient.

Just a few miles into Minnesota, we were flanked by massive wind turbines in every direction.  These were some of the 600 turbines that were part of the Lake Benton I  wind farm

Did you know that Lake Benton is proud to be known as the "Original Wind Power Capital of the Midwest".  Sorta reminded me of the small Texas towns we entered, each claiming something obscure, like the being the  "Cactus Capital of the World",  or the "Smoked Meat Capital of the Known Universe."  Anyway, being the green and sustainable person I endeavor to be, I like a good wind farm.

Rural highway gave way to the next small town, Lake Benton, MN, home to...wait for it...wait for it: Lake Benton.  Lake Benton, population=703 and only 99.72% of them Caucasian, is a four-season destination with fall hunting (deer, pheasants, waterfowl, and other game) and snowmobiling, downhill and cross country skiing, ice fishing and winter camping in the interminable winter.

From a bicycle, this looked pretty ominous.  We pedaled on...furiously.

A mere 8 miles past Lake Benton, we pulled into Tyler and what was our original destination for the day.

Like pretty much every other small town in rural America, Tyler 's roots begin with the railroad.  In this case, it was the  Chicago Northwestern Railroad Company who had eleven men establish a railroad depot.  And the rest?  A town of 1218 (97.78% of them...guess what color?) that celebrates Æbleskiver Days (in honor the the town's Danish heritage) annually during the fourth weekend of July, named after the aebleskiver, a spherical Danish pancake.   Such silly people.

Danish settlers from Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota settled on Lincoln County, Minnesota in the area of Tyler to build a Danish church.  They set up a contract with the railroad company to set aside 35,000 acres of land in the area to be sold only to Danish settlers for a period of three years at the cost of $5 to $8 per acre.

C.B. Tyler was a prominent local businessman in the late 1880s...he eventually moved to Pasadena, CA.    And, like Mr. Tyler, Lani decided not to stay in Tyler as originally planned.  Utilizing the Google in my iPhone, she decided that we should press on through the next few towns.  The next motel was in Tracy, 25 miles ahead.

Okay...I've become obsessed with the seemingly obscure places where people lived.  Some of these "places" were census-designated places while some of them were unincorporated areas.  Florence, and all of its 61 people scattered over its vast 0.2 square miles, on the other hand, was a city.  Seriously?

As best as I can tell, all that's in Florence is a post office, a cemetery and more wind turbines than people.   A post office in a "city" of 61 people?  Is that cost effective?

The air had been still for most of the day, allowing us to make good time.  By early afternoon, however, the winds picked up and were steadily in our face.  We pulled into Balaton, population 637 (5 of them not Caucasian!  Someone...alert the media!) and sat ourselves down at the wind-whipped Knudson-Bosley Park for lunch.  

Balaton was incorporated in 1892 and named after Lake Balaton  in Hungary.  I'm guessing that one of the men who worked for the Chicago Northwestern Railroad Company was from Hungary.

And then, sooner than imaginable, we approached Tracy, Minnesota, our end-point for the day. We pulled up along side the Wheels Across the Prairie Museum, a popular destination for school field trips.  For the obsessive amongst you, here it is in Google streetview.

I stopped longer than necessary for this picture, admiring the idyllic and iconic quality of the setting.

The town of Tracy has several exhibits reflecting its historic past, including the St. Marks Episcopal Church, the C.&N.W.R. Engine (dating to 1915) and the Tracy Depot.

In the the Little House on the Prairie television series, Tracy is referred to as "the Big City."

Tracy, Minnesota, population 2268 (with a shocking 12.17% of them not Caucasian!) was incorporated in 1881 and named after John F. Tracy, a former president of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway.

The Tracy-Milroy-Balaton Panthers women's volleyball and basketball teams seem to do pretty well.

And then, just a few minutes past the outskirts of Tracy, we were there...our longest day of biking, finishing with some really irritating headwinds (but nothing like the winds of Marathon, TX).

The Garmin Edge 705  (now replaced by the Edge 800) gives to-the-second information about what you've done, how far you've traveled, calories expended, etc.  It was a bit of a shame that Tracy wasn't just a few miles farther away so we could have a 100-mile day, but this was close enough. 

There were two overnight options in Tracy: the Valentine Inn -  Victorian Inn/B&B with rooms at $110+/night and the Wilder Inn, pictured below for half the price.  How could we turn down an inn named after Laura Ingalls Wilder? I certainly couldn't.

The inn looked like any beat-up motor inn from the outside: a large L around a dirty parking area.  But, after two months, we were pretty flexible.  But, the room was excellent: stone tile floor, nice furniture, flat screen TV, ‘fridge, microwave, plush towels…one of the nicest rooms we’d seen.   All it needed was ventilation in the bathroom and a coffee maker. On the other hand, there was fresh pot of coffee and fresh fruit in the office...not bad at all.

Wow...it felt good to feel great.  The room was awesome (realizing, I guess, we've stayed in some pretty dicey motels) and we had covered nearly 100 miles of South Dakota and Minnesota, including a border crossing.  

The Surly Long Haul Trucker and me.

I've been pretty deliberate about trying to make the blog about the journey and, as I came to understand what the experience was really about (America), have the photography focus on the sites along the way.  So, I beg your indulgence here.

Without the panniers, its really not that heavy.

Both of us were pretty excited about the day and distance.

Lani makes fun of her father.  

We walked over to the nearby market/gas station: veggies for dinner, canned salmon and bread for a sandwich.  We retired to the room and relaxed for the evening.

A bottle of Korbel would have been really nice.

Planning for the next morning, the weather again called for worsening headwinds from the East.  We agreed on an early start calling for a 4am wake-up, our earliest. No matter...we'd always have Lake Preston, South Dakota to Tracy, Minnesota...all 94 miles of it.