Mile 1908.1 - The Badlands and the worse

Day 25 began wet. It had rained much of the night so the tent was wet and Penny was wet, but most of all, the ground was wet. What was firm soil was now soft mud and what was soft mud yesterday was now an ankle deep muddy puddle. I opted for a dry breakfast instead of making oatmeal and by the time I got down the hill I had camped on above a construction site, across the deep muddy imprints of the construction vehicles' wheels and onto the road, the bike was almost as dirty as before I cleaned her in Deadwood two mornings earlier.

I had camped near the middle of a 14 mile long construction zone. While there wasn't construction throughout, they had three separate miles where the road was completely ripped down to the packed dirt. Well, the one I went over yesterday was dirt, the two I crossed this morning were now slick, gravelly mud. Yuck yuck yuck. Now, the bike was as dirty as two mornings before. One really cool thing though, the number of birds that roost under the bridge spanning the Cheyenne River. Motor traffic they seem to be used to, but I was perceived as some new and heinous threat, and a swarm of birds flew out from under the bridge to protect their nests. Or they really dig cyclists and had come out to cheer me on.

I went by Scenic, SD. It is more scenic than many other places, though not as scenic as lots of stuff around it. Maybe one day I'll find out it was named for William H Scenic, a pioneer from the 1870's or that it used to be called Bleh but was renamed for tourism purposes as part of the CCC during the great depression. Slightly past Scenic the road goes through a neck of the Badlands National Badlands, but then slants down into a large section of the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands. At the side of the road there was a bright yellow warning sign that said 'Caution: Prairie Dogs have PLAGUE!'. Oh no! No taking an afternoon nap with the prairie dogs today! Not if they have plague.

Several miles later, I saw a turtle crossing the road. I looked at it and thought, there's a joke in that, and rolled on. Then I thought about the several crushed turtles I've seen on the road the last couple days and I turned back. Shell may be great against many predators, but it does not protect against tires. Even though there was no traffic at the moment, a truck could come along at any moment. So I picked the turtle up, took it over to the side of the road he was headed to, and set him down in gravel. Probably he would have been fine, but I've seen way too much roadkill. Way too much.

At Interior, I stopped at the grocery store to grab some more breakfast and restock on fluids. The ladies in the store were impressed with my travel thus far. I sat out on the cement blocks in front of the store and a very tall and broad Native American guy stepped out of a car. 'You going that way?' he smiled, pointing to the east. I was. 'You're going to need a lot of water.'

A couple blocks away is the Interior Jail which looks like it may have occasionally been at it's full capacity of three. Across from the jail is a sign honoring Interior as the oldest town in the Badlands, citing numerous famous visitors and their doings in town, and welcoming travelers. I did feel welcomed. A couple blocks later, I was back to the highway. There was a gas station there and even though I had just bought both gatorade and water, I went in to buy some more. As I was packing the additional fluids, the guy from the grocery store pulled in for gas. 'Taking your advice' I called, waving one of the bottles. 'Good idea.' he called back.

A couple miles out of Interior is the Badlands Park Headquarters and a campground. And construction. The road up to Cedar Pass was one lane and a construction truck was ferrying strings of cars back and forth. The other ways of getting across involved adding a prohibitive number of miles, so construction it was. I was the first vehicle up to the flagger, so we talked for five or six minutes, about my trip, about his job, and about the beauty of the area. The pilot truck had come back, so I let all the cars, trucks and rvs past me, so I could grind up the hill at 7mph in peace. I could see why it was down to a lane, it looked like they were repairing where part of the road slid down the face of the wall. After that part which came relatively early in the climb, I basically then had a coned off lane all to myself. Halfway up, a foreman in a truck told me as long as I stayed on that side, I was fine. If only I could have a coned off lane all the way home.

I stopped at one of the scenic overlooks. It was more scenic than Scenic. I climbed up a bit more and got to Cedar Pass at 2694'. From this point, the next time I'll be above 2500', I'll be in Pennsylvania. That's a little exciting. There were a number of hikes just past the pass that I didn't go on. When I come back to the area next time I will. I did walk out to another overlook point which showed just how bad the land was for a long time to the horizon.

Then, just as I was leaving the gates of the park, I saw a group of people and a couple bikes that were loaded for touring. Standing in the middle of a swarm of Korean and Japanese tourists were a couple Germans in cycling gear. I pulled up to them and found they were going New York to Los Angeles. So I guess this was the halfway point for both of us. One of the two spoke English on par with my German, so the conversation was a fun mixture of the two. A girl wanted her picture with the three of us, so we made her boyfriend take pictures with all of our cameras. I didn't get anyone's name.

From there to road swings north to Cactus Flat. My friend was right, I did want all that water, as I found myself stopping at the gas station there for more Gatorade (and ice cream). I sat on a bench outside and a couple on a motorcycle pulled in. She asked how far I was going, and that launched a pretty long conversation among the three of us that spanned the gap of her going to the bathroom and me taking a call from Dan. They were from Madison and riding out to Yellowstone. We all agreed that the worst part about South Dakota was the wind.

Here, the road I was on crosses interstate 90 and becomes unpaved for about 9 miles until it reaches US 14. To this point I had crossed a respectable 51 miles in about 3.5 hours. For a gravel road, I was even able to keep a pretty good pace for most of it, until the strong southerly wind swung around and came at me from ESE. I got to 14 and made my right turn into the teeth of the wind. Within minutes of me turning on to 14, it began to rain big, heavy, hard drops. I pulled off and covered the sleeping bag with my raincoat. I didn't care if I got a little wet, but I don't want my sleeping bag to. I do need to get a waterproof bag for that. It started coming a little harder, so I pulled out the tent and had just snapped the poles together when the rain slowed to a stop. I gathered the tent back up and rode on into the wind.

Since it was coming from east-southeast and I was headed north east, it was hitting me from about 3 o'clock. It was trying to push me to Montana, but that wasn't the direction I had in mind. It took all of my lower body strength to keep me moving forward and all of my upper body strength to keep me in a more or less straight line. I wanted to make Midland, which would have put my day in around 100 miles, but halfway to Philip, a town 17.6 miles from where I got on the highway, I was ready to call it. It's too bad too, with westerly or no wind, this terrain would have been great. There were a couple times I had horses running along fences with me. It was all so green and wavy and pretty, but oh, the wind.

Using as much will as physical power, I fought my way Philip. Google maps on my phone told me the motel was in a different location than it really was, but once I got to the right place, I took a room. They were doing construction on the motel, and I was given a room all the way at the end of the hall, next to the side door. That was cool except for the fact that the wifi connection was too weak to reach me fully.

I dumped the luggage in the room and took Penny outside to clean her yet again. As I was out there, a boy of maybe 9 came up to me with a bike, asking if I had one of those airhoses to fill his tire. I told him that I did have a pump and ran back to the room to get it. I came back out and the boy now had a slightly younger friend with him. I started inflating the tire and the sound of a girl's voice made me look up. I was suddenly surrounded by 6 or 7 children, half on bikes, half on foot, but all in motion except for the boy who stood watching me as I tried to get air into his tire. I tested it and it didn't seem to be holding air. 'My dad has some slime' the boy offered. 'I don't think that'll help, I think the tube is bad' was my verdict. This sparked an immediate reaction among the crowd, splitting it into a 'new tube' side and a 'try the slime' side. The slime, by the way is a tube sealant that doesn't fix everything, like leaks at the valve stem. From the angle of the stem when I was handed the wheel, that was my first guess. I tried a bit more, but it was clear that the tube wasn't holding anything, I apologized saying I only carried one size tube on me. The crowd dispersed within seconds and I was back alone with Penny. I was going to suggest he find me a wrench that fit the bolt and I'd take the tire off to check, but he was already gone.

I finished cleaning Penny and went back in to shower. As I came out of the shower, leaden clouds filled the sky again, and sure enough the first peals of thunder were heard from a distance. Soon I was very glad that I didn't press on to Midland, that I was inside and dry. I ordered a pizza. The pizza tasted fine, but I can't give it above a C because it wasn't done enough. People, the pizza is done when the bottom of the crust is golden and the cheese has good color. I'm not looking for black and black here, but I'd probably prefer that over white and white. Leave it in 4-6 minutes longer, and that would have been a good pizza. Sigh.

Day 25 - Camp west of Scenic, SD - Philip, SD
76.46 miles for 1908.1 on the trip. 6:06:57 traveled today, 161:47:40 so far and a top speed of 37.7