After slogging through 114 miles with South Dakota headwinds yesterday, the first thing I checked when I awakened with my 5 AM iPhone alarm this morning was my weather app. As a cyclist, you know it’s going to be a long day when the app is showing the wind patterns instead of the expected precipitation. You can imagine my chagrin when I saw the words “Windy, gusts up to 29 MPH” – but after about 20 miles into the ride this morning – it actually wasn’t too bad.
Our group had a 7 AM roll out and were all expecting the worst because the wind was already swirling in our faces as we looked east toward the Lewis and Clark Memorial Bridge over the Missouri River where we would soon cross. It was at least fairly warm at 73 degrees but at the time, it was hard to see us getting into the mid-90’s today as forecasted. We only had about 1,200 feet to climb today and it seemed like we did 1/3 of that as we got out of the Missouri River valley, but the river itself had some pretty big white caps as we crossed the bridge.
Our first SAG stop was at mile 18 and the wind pushing against us caused us to use about 90 minutes of time to get there – that works out to an average of 12 mph. But we were working pretty well together with a 7 man paceline and swapping out the lead every 3 minutes or so. Soon after refilling our water bottles, however, the wind started to get a little better. The headwinds began to become crosswinds as our direction of travel changed which allowed us to get a little more speed. Maybe we just needed to put some distance between us and the Missouri River Valley because at about 25 miles out of Oacoma, the winds became more bearable.
The sun was heating us up by the time we hit the official half way mark across the country in White Lake, SD at 1,900 miles covered since we departed Astoria, OR on August 13th. We stopped and took a few pictures at mile 38 into our ride and some of the locals looked puzzled as to why these crazy people on bikes stopped to take pics of their town sign.
Our lunch stop was a mile 53 in a small park in Plankinton, SD. That sounded like a weird name for a town in this part of the country but it turns out it was named for a guy named John Plankinton, a director of the Milwaukee Railroad which had expanded westward and whose President was none other than John Mitchell, for whom Mitchell, SD was named – and the town we are in today. Seems like those cozy business relationships were perhaps even prevalent back in the 1880’s.
Mitchell, SD is famous for its Corn Palace – so of course we had to stop by and see that before we headed to our hotel for the night, The Hampton Inn. The Corn Palace was built in 1892 to prove the fertility of the state’s soil and to encourage homesteaders to settle in the region. Another piece of Americana I guess but we did pass by thousands of acres of corn today so these South Dakotans are clearly proud of their corn heritage!
So now that we are officially over half way across the country – I’ll offer a few observations and perhaps answer a few questions people have directed my way lately:
We are blessed to live in this beautiful country and God has definitely “shed His grace on thee”
The people in every state have been incredibly gracious and friendly and are proud to be Americans
Our P2P group has great camaraderie and we are getting along great and working together
How’s your butt? Cast iron
How are your legs? Alternating between steel and wet spaghetti on a daily basis but recovering well
Is it hard? At times of course, but your body is used to it now and “knows what to do”
Are you having fun? Yes, the time of my life – and feeling incredibly blessed to have this experience
So tomorrow we head to Sioux Falls, SD which holds virtually 25% of the state’s population. Hopefully it will be a relatively easy 73 miles!