DAY 16 - OKOBOJI

    When we went to sleep last night it was a little too warm for the fly, but during night the temperature dropped and it became much better sleeping weather. Unfortunately, the temperature dropped below the dew point and by morning all of out gear was wet. It's difficult to see, but here's a picture of the sun shining on the wet grass and bikes taken with a damp iPhone: 

     For breakfast we ate the food we bought the night before, but in addition I wanted a cup of coffee. I was ready ahead of the other two so I went into town to see what I could find. The supermarket was open and the same manager was there from last night who gave us directions to the camp site. After telling him we slept well, I asked if he sold coffee. He said that he had none for sale, but he had just made a pot and I was welcome to it. He brought me to the break room and filled up a large Styrofoam cup, and offered sugar and creamer too. We chatted for a while in the front of the store while I drank the coffee and learned he had moved back from Denver, drawn by the small town experience. Like many we have met along the way, he likes living in a place where he knows most of the people and has a strong sense of community. He was very proud of his town and we agreed, as it was a great place for us to stop. 

   

  It was a little cold when we started so we still had on our jackets but the temperature  quickly became perfect.  

     It wasn't  long before we left South Dakota and entered Iowa. There was not an official "Welcome to Iowa" sign as we were traveling on a small secondary road  but after crossing the Big Sioux River we knew we had changed states and took a picture next to the most official looking sign we could find. 

     Out first and only official stop was in Rock Rapids, Iowa for lunch at the Sunshine Grocery store.   It was early in the day and they had an attached restaurant/diner, so we orders eggs, ham, toast, etc. and picked up a few bars for the road. We were anxious to get moving as we would be spending the night with some friends. 

     When we reconfigured the route to drop south, it brought us through the Lakes region of Iowa. I have a good friend and classmate from Williams College, Carl Leafstedt, who was from Sioux City but would spend summers on Lake Okoboji, near where we were scheduled to stop.  He's a professor of music at Trinity University in San Antonio Texas and I thought he might be at the lake this time of year, so I sent him a text. Unfortunately he wasn't going the be there,  but his mother was there and she was happy to host us.   We were thrilled to be staying in a house for the night, with a chance for a swim also, so we made great time out of Rock Rapids. The roads were very good, gently undulating, and we had a nice tailwind which brought us to the house a little before 3 PM. 

     We were a little self conscious about our appearance, unshaven and dirty with road grime, entering this beautiful lake house, but Mrs. Leafstedt immediately put us at ease. After catching up over beers (Shiner Bock!) and chips and salsa, Mrs. Leafstedt let us air out our gear on the outdoor furniture. 

     

We played in the lake,

did laundry and took showers. When we were finally clean, we were served a fantastic Midwestern dinner of bratwurst, sauerkraut, baked beans, corn in the cob and fresh fruit. 

Here we are sitting together at dinner. Also in the photo are Carl's brother Matt's two children who had just flown in from Switzerland where they live. They'll be here at the lake for a few weeks visiting with their grandmother. 

Of course the meal was excellent and we were easily able to replace the lost calories from the day of biking. 

     We needed to make a few adjustments to our route and a computer would really help us. There wasn't one at the Leafstedt's but their very friendly neighbor, Denny Anspach, invited us into his house the use his.  

After about an hour of tweaking the route with my sisters on the phone,  we were confident we could borrow some miles from New York so we wouldn't have to race to Milwaukee in three 140 mile days. 

     Walking back across the yard, we caught a picture of the sunset on this beautiful lake. 

     Denny came Back to the Leafstedt's with us where we had cherry pie and ice cream for dessert and discussed a wide variety of topics including ice fishing and architecture.

  

    We brought out gear in from outside to keep it dry and headed to sleep in real beds.  What wonderful hospitality. 

DAY 15 - HALFWAY

Today, at some halfway point in the day, we reached the halfway point. Yay! 29 days to finish the trip, and by the end of today, we will have finished 15 days out on the road. We are also the same distance from the west coast as we are from the east coast. Who knew South Dakota was right in the middle? 

It's hard to think that 2 weeks ago yesterday, we were all on board to Seattle, eagerly awaiting the start of the trip. Justin arrived early and hung out with Patrick and our friend Kristen. 

Don and I slept on the plane (the chamois in my shorts made a great pillow) and arrived in Seattle at night, bike boxes in tow.

Now, we have completed half of the trip. We are exhausted, sore, and ever-hungry, but it's been an amazing journey so far. So many miles (and mountains) behind us, but still so any more.  

Let us fill you in about today. Last night's sleep was interrupted and restless because of the heat. The rain fly was off, sleeping bags bunched at our feet, and shirts used as a barrier between us and the sticky ground pads. After finally getting solid sleep in the wee hours, we decided to sleep in a little and hit the road at 8. 

To our relief, the road (SD 44) was much smoother this morning than it was yesterday. 

We stopped for breakfast in Platte, SD at a cute bakery. We ate donuts and breakfast sandwiches, downed some coffee, and chatted with some local guys who meet there daily. They call it "Old Man Coffee." Most have lived in Platte their whole lives and grew up together. Look how well Don fits in! 

We made a dash to the next grocery store 44 miles away to avoid a threatening storm. We managed to only get rained on for a few minutes. 

By the time we left, the storm had blown over. We continued on SD 44 for miles and miles, taking a break under the only tree in sight. 

We also played Cyclists of the Corn. 

Near the end of the day, we took a break at a convenience store and found two other cross-country cyclists. These guys are doing the tour more traditionally, with full gear. We chatted routes and gear over cold drinks. 

At some point in the day, I managed to get stuck in some wire fencing. Fortunately, we came equipped with Dr. Donald Hess, experienced wire fence detangler.

After 114 miles, we made it to Lennox, SD. Dinner was at Pizza Ranch, which is apparently an Iowa chain that serves buffet meals. We destroyed some food (mainly the salad bar) and easily got our money's worth! Really, it was $10. Craziness. 

Don taught us that over the course of the trip, we will see a full lunar cycle, new moon to new moon. Tonight, it was a beautiful full moon. 

DAY 14 - STRAIGHT EAST TO THE MISSOURI

Starting off the day early, we stomached some coffee from our hotel and got ready quickly. We knew we'd have to get through the first 60 miles without any real town, so we packed some bars and filled our waters and got on the road.

After leaving Martin, we knew we'd be riding along the Rosebud reservation for a good portion of time. The rolling flat terrain made for pretty fast riding, but we wanted to make sure that we got through the area swiftly given the warning we'd received the day before from the woman in Batesland about drunk drivers. Luckily, we barely saw anyone on the road for the morning - just a whole lot of crops growing. We did pass a very fortified-looking building, which we learned fr the sign once we got closer was actually the tribe's Tipi. The next building we saw looked nicer - we guessed it was a school - but it turned out to be an "adult correctional facility." Seemed a little out-of-place...

After leaving the reservation, we finally got to the town of Mission, where we stopped at the Turtle Creek Crossing supermarket to get some food and sit inside the air conditioning for awhile. This place was kinda cool- all the signs (for the aisles, the restrooms, the deli) were in both English and Sioux. We got the backstory on the store later when we were bewildered by the fact that none of the staff knew the prices on anything: apparently the store first opened 6 years ago under the operation of the tribe, but they closed because the tribe was unable to keep it operating. They had just reopened recently under a contracted management.

After soaking in the cold air for awhile, we headed out on our next 40 miles towards the town of Winner. While we had been inside, the temperature had risen a bunch, and combined with the humidity this meant that riding was pretty sweaty. People keep talking about some polar vortex coming back but I'm pretty sure that it's still super hot here. We stayed on highway 18 this whole time, going pretty much due east, in direct sunlight.

When we finally got to Winner, we found te first place that looked like it would have cold drinks and immediately went inside. I wandered the aisles briefly, and came back to the front of the store to find Don and Dave seated on the floor in front of the bread shelf drinking iced tea and eating cookies. Apparently this was allowed, but it definitely attracted attention. Lots of people stopped while we rested on the cool tile floor and talked to us a little.

After Winner, we switched into highway 44 heading east, which quickly disappointed us. We knew we had only 40 additional miles to go for the day, but the road and the continuing heat made it tough. Why the road, you ask? While it's hard to encapsulate in words, the surface of highway 44 heading east from Winner was basically broken up into fragments every 20 to 30 feet. Instead of say, paving the road with asphalt the 55 miles from Winner to Platte, apparently someone decided this would be a better idea. It was as if, instead of buying asphalt for 55 miles, South Dakota saw a deal on eBay for 20-foot fragments of pavement and decided "Oh hey, let's just buy a bunch of those and glue them together! That should work great!" Well, it doesn't. At least not for us. The constant gaps in the pavement over which we were riding did not make for a pleasant time.

Though we could see a storm off to the southeast, we never got any rain during the day, though by the end of our ride I think we all might have appreciated it. After 130 miles, we hit our last 10 miles before the campground and also hit some big hills. As we learned later at dinner (spoiler alert: we made it though the hills), these hills are the ones that trucking companies send their drivers-in-training to from the Sioux Falls area and surrounding states when they want them to learn what the Rockies are like. So, these are big hills.

We finally reached the campground after a nice descent down and across the Missouri River.

The state park is right on the east side of the river, and we quickly showered with some improvised towels (some old handkerchiefs printed with the park schedule from 2011 that the nice park attendants gave us) and headed to dinner across the street at the only place around, called Dock 44.

While we were at dinner, the family at the table next to us stuck up a conversation with us about our ride. Much as most people we meet along this trip are, they were very friendly and even offered to call relatives in Sioux Falls to ask if we could stay with them tomorrow. Whole that sounded like too much of an imposition for us, we appreciated the offer sincerely. The couple and their daughter left after we talked to them a little about how they had relatives interested in long-distance biking, too. Much to our surprise, after they had left, the waitress came up to us and told us that they had paid for our dinner- without even telling us! Definitely the first time that has happened to us on this trip, and it was incredibly generous of them. Thank you, family from Sioux Falls! You made a tough day much better.

After they left, the two couples playing cards at another table came over and also started talking to us about our trip. One of the two men came back a couple minutes later with ice cream for all of us- again, fantastically generous and very appreciated. They stayed and talked to us awhile and gave us advice on our route for the next couple of days. Apparently highway 44 gets less bumpy on this side of the Missouri, so we're excited for that!

After some great info from all the patrons of the restaurant, we headed back to our campground to get some rest. Hoping to recover from our tough 140 miles today with a more normal 120 tomorrow!

DAY 13 - HUMIDITY STARTS

When we got up this morning, I went outside to get an idea of the temperature.   Immediately I was struck by how similar it felt to home. It was a little overcast which we hadn't seen so far on the trip, but that wasn't it. I soon realized it was the humidity. This was the first day that the air was anything but dry. It certainly impacted us later in the day when the temperature approached 90. 

  Dave and I made it to breakfast first, but after almost two weeks together we know what each other likes so we were able to order for all three.  We each got the big breakfast, eggs, ham, hash browns, toast, coffee, but something else caught our eye - cinnamon rolls. They were warm, covered with icing and delicious. I tried to take a picture that did them justice and I apologize in advance to my brother-in-law Charles who does the photography for my sister's food blog, stylishcuisine.com. 

Breakfast is when we finalize our stopping points. Overnight I received intel from Command Central that gave us the distances between towns, the locations of the grocery stores and the elevation profile for the ride. They also recommend places to stay at the destination location.  Command Central is manned by my three sisters:

Gail in Needham, MA,

Lauren (with her 6 week old son Grant) in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, 

and Diane in Manhattan. 

We couldn't do it without them, especially now that the route has changed. 

    Now on to the day. We were on the road by 7:15.  Route 20 in Nebraska is called the Butte to Bridges Byway. We were in the Butte section which can be seen through the retreating morning fog 

   The first push was to Chadron, NE about 30 miles away. Although we planned the route West to East to take advantage of the winds, we had a steady headwind.  With a strong headwind our pace will drop to 13-14 mph, compared to a tailwind when we can easily ride 23-25 and when that is combined with a downhill stretch, 30+ is easy.  We've become accustomed to each other's riding and are very comfortable in a pace line at those speeds. If you want an idea of what that's like, here's some video that Justin shot:

Riding between Fort Robinson, NE and Martin, SD. from Justin on Vimeo.

After Chadron we had a chance to practice as the road turned more north east, with a strong tail wind and sloped downhill.  We were at our lunch stop in Gordon, NE quite quickly, smiling and happy for the change in fortune with the winds. 

    We stopped in the local grocery store, bought the standard staples- lettuce, cheese, turkey, blueberries, bananas, and yogurt. We ate a few streets away at a local park. 

 

A town official came over to chat and made sure we knew we could get water and use the bathrooms in the town office across the street. 

   During lunch we checked the weather as we had heard there were thunderstorms predicted. Indeed, there was severe weather alerts for our area, so Justin made sure neither Dave nor I tried to take a nap and we were off. Our  route now took us north into South Dakota. 

     We took one break in  Batesland, SD.

Although this place doesn't look like much, it was truly an oasis. The heat and humidity had been getting to us and this place was very well air conditioned. We bought some drinks and had a seat at a small table set up inside. 

The proprietor was a very nice woman who was originally from SD but lived for many years in Seattle.  She wanted to hear about our trip and in exchange gave us route and weather advice.  It was then that we received NWS alerts on our phones and we started riding again to beat the storm to Martin, SD. We could see the storm coming but we were successful in avoiding it.

Because of the flash flood warnings we stayed in a motel in town instead of the campsite by the river. There were few good options for food in town, so we hit the grocery store, bought some healthy food and a 6-pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and were in for the night. We have to get to bed early as we have a long ride tomorrow (142 miles) and we lose an hour crossing from Mountain into Central time. 

DAY 12 - HOT WINDS AND BEAUTIFUL BUTTES

At about 5 am, thunderstorms rolled in and woke us up. Strong rain and lightning flashes were reason enough to keep us in our tent until about 7 am. After a quick stop at McDonalds for breakfast (literally the only thing open), we finally hit the road around 9 - the latest start yet. There appeared to be a shortcut on the map which avoided a major freeway, so we decided to take it. Unfortunately, about 6 miles in, we discovered it turned to a dirt road. After yesterday, we vowed to avoid unpaved roads at all costs and turned around. After searching for an alternative route around the freeway, we finally started making forward progress at 10:20 am. In the picture below, you can see us getting onto pavement (yes, even when trying to avoid it, dirt roads kept finding us) and heading east!

The day quickly turned hot, but there was little time for frequent stops. We powered in to Lusk, WY for a lunch stop after about 59 miles. We bought a hefty serving and spread out in the local park to pack it in. 

Given our late start, it was already 3:15 by the time we departed Lusk, heading toward Nebraska. Unfortunately, we began experiencing strong cross winds. We altered our typical straight draft pattern to fly more like geese migrating. This worked well, but taking up the whole lane required frequent spotting for cars behind us. 

The scenery was particularly boring today. Maybe we have been spoiled? 

But we did eventually make it to Nebraska! Finally, we are officially in the Midwest! 

At this point in the day, the winds became stronger and now directly east to west, causing a brutal headwind. Our pace markedly decreased, and the day continued to drag on. A much needed long downhill brought us near our destination. 

Finally, after several hours of unexpected extra time on the saddle, we made it to Fort Robinson after 121.6 miles, where Don's sister Diane made a reservation for us at the local lodge. We were more than excited, especially on an exhausting day like today, to be inside and sleeping on real beds. 

We showered, ate some simple but awesome food at the restaurant in the lodge - and headed to bed. The sun caught up with us today, so we will be sure to be using tons of sunblock tomorrow, when we wake up early and do it all again. :)