This blog post is being published as part of the Birthday Series to my grandmother, Marie Babb, who turned 91 on May 14, 2020. She has been the most devoted reader a grandson could ask for. Owing to the express -- and of course very polite -- observation that I "hadn't written in a while," I have written accounts of my past adventures for her birthday. Happy Birthday, Grandma!
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This is the second story in a series about my 2019 summer road trip to South Dakota. The first story can be found
here.
I arrived to the home of a friendly man named Andy who I connected with through the WarmShowers website. Andy was already much more than the typical host: he agreed to let me park my car in his driveway for the duration of what I anticipated to be a week-long bicycle tour of the region, a 500 mile ride spread out over a week. Usually, hosts agree to let you crash for one night as you ride from place to place, so already I was liking the guy.
When I pulled in, I found Andy out in his garden wearing a large sun hat, loose-fitting flannel, and some yard pants. His salt and pepper hair disguised his age, but his reverent tone and quiet disposition immediately created a comfortable environment. He showed me his irrigation canal that brought rainwater to his various herbs, fruits, and flowers. He had a nice set-up! He showed me his screened porch and motioned that I would lay my stuff here and crash for the night. Inside the house ("Do you mind taking your shoes off?") was a large living space filled with books, a kitchen full of garden-fresh produce, and lots of natural light. Nearly 3 days of driving from DC and I was ready to relax. Writing nearly a year later, I can't quite recall how we passed the time, but I remember Andy cooked a meal of tortillas with all the fixings and I loved it.
Prior to leaving DC I had worked out my biking itinerary. It was close to 500 miles but wouldn't be too much work any particular day. The glory of a bike tour is that you only have one task each day: ride! All told, you give yourself about 12 hours of daylight to ride the miles you need, and no day was going to exceed 80 miles of riding. To the outside reader this may sound like a lot, but if you think about a comfortable pace of 10 mph, one is well equipped. I ran my itinerary past Andy, who I was really growing to enjoy the company and advice of, and asked for snarls or things to be aware of. Andy went to his bookshelf and removed several books covering the topics of bike touring in the region, as well as rock climbing in the area (the topic had already been broached -- how could I suppress it?). He cracked them open and I started taking notes.
The first ride would be a two day loop to Devil's Tower and back. I would return to Andy's in two night's time, stay once again, and then carry onward. This way, should anything come up, I'd never be too far away from civilization or my car, and the 60 miles there-and-back would give a good proxy for pacing, equipment, and finding the right head space.
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| Day 1 there, Day 2 back |
The next morning, I bid Andy
adieu and began the ride.
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| Ready to roll (helmet not pictured) |
The first 10 or so miles were unsavory. I'm riding on the side of Highway 85, a heavily trafficked 4 lane thoroughfare of the area. Nothing is pretty, the cars pass me fast, and the pavement is hot. The gradient of the road is a bit amiss, but I know the real treat is later. I turn left onto 34 and see the long stretches of straight road ahead. Ahhh, now we're somewhere. Actually, we're nowhere -- to the left and right there's nothing but air, sky, and land.
I ride to the right of the rumble strip for a few miles here on 34 as I suss out the traffic, but already things seem better. I decide to pop over the rumble strip and ride on the right side of the road. I can hear a car approaching from a mile away, so if I get the heeby-geebies I'll go back over there to try and put some distance between me and the car. Some people ask me how I don't listen to music when I ride for 8 hours straight. The answer is generally pretty simple and two-fold: 1) Listening to music crowds out your sense of hearing for when cars approach. You'd be amazed out how easy it is to differentiate between a car, a pickup truck, an 18 wheeler, or some machinery. Sometimes I'd play a game of trying to guess the make and model of the car approaching, seeing if I really
was
that good. I wasn't. But it didn't stop me from playing. 2) Sometimes it's nice to really just be
present. Music, for better or worse, transports us to another place. To plug into my headphones on the day's ride is to admit that there is nothing to gain from the Nature around me. Lots of things can make noise, but sometimes it's quiet. The deafening silence is overwhelming enough. All of it is a great backdrop for endless thought. I find the practice of riding without music a clinic in meditation. My mind is clear to focus on the present.
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| The first milestone of the day. Picture taken by some friendly motorcyclists from Texas |
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| My lunch break for the day was the bench of the sole convenience store in Aladdin, WY. They also sold chocolate milk. |
Around mile 40 or so I start to round this bend and see troublingly dark clouds off in the distance. I decide to check my phone which is packed away deep in my panniers and search for the Doppler radar forecast. As if heaven-sent, I get a text from Andy saying to seek shelter, that an intense storm cloud (
this storm cloud) will intersect my ride before I'm able to make it to my destination. It's a lightning/thunder/heavy rain/hail storm. I didn't know it could get this rough out here, but now I know. Though I'm flat out in the middle of nowhere, there is a small town 6 miles up ahead called Hulett. If I didn't pedal fast to get there in time....well, best to not think about it.
I get to Hulett, all is well. The storm is still a bit off, but I must stay until it passes. I make shelter under the canopy of the local park, pushing aside some of the picnic tables to make room for my bike, and wait. And wait a bit more. And then
WHOOSH. It's like the sky just opened up. And someone turned off the overhead lightbulb. It was pretty dramatic. I'm happy to be safe and dry, if not a little cold with the sudden drop in temperature. The storm passes fast and the sun comes out again, as if a torrential downpour didn't just happen. Allowing the road to dry a little bit, I jump on and pedal off with about 15 miles left to go in the day.
I arrive to my host's place for the night, a lodge run by Frank Sanders on the other side of Devil's Tower which caters to touristy folk looking to stay in the park (they pay money and sleep indoors) as well as bike tourers and rock climbing nomads (they stay for free and sleep outside in tents). I was the latter. However tonight, because the rain was expected to hit again, Gabe and Rachel, the friendly young couple running the lodge, said I could sleep in the indoor rock climbing gym at the end of the driveway. Really it was Gabe who offered as we started talking about climbing, which led to a 30 minute conversation, which then prompted Rachel to come find him and pull his ear back to the kitchen for shirking his duties, apologizing to me all the while.
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| Four walls to call my own for the evening |
Dinner wasn't luxurious: it was two cans of ravioli, a peanut butter bagel, and water. Another question I get about bike touring concerns food: just what do you eat? The short answer is anything, anything at all. It's a calorie game during the day, exercising, sweating out in the hot sun, that the usual tendency is to eat high-calorie, salty foods, with complete disregard for nutritional value. Knowing that it is just a short-term compromise, I allow myself to eat whatever I lay my eyes on. Cans of ravioli or Vienna sausage, packages of Ramen and Pop Tarts, chocolate bars, jars of peanut butter (I just dip my spoon into it -- I don't even bother with bread) and when I come across a convenience store, chocolate milk (my not-so-secret weakness). Of course, lots and lots of water, ideally 4-6 liters per day. All of this gets packed into my panniers and ridden around for miles and miles.
That's a wrap on the first day of the tour! Already full of memories and sights, and some friendly conversations with strangers. Tomorrow will be the same ride, but in reverse, and with a few pounds of food and water lighter.
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| My morning view: Devils Tower. It was the first national monument in the US and holds immense religious value for the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Kiowa tribes |
Day 2 was much of the same but still provided helpful perspective. I remember thinking on the way there: "Hey, this is going to be a boring ride back because all of the views and scenery are, well, the same." While that may be true, it is also the views and scenery which spark thoughts, or provide benchmarks to measure up against. On today's ride I can think to myself "At this point yesterday I was thinking
this but now with a new day and a new perspective, I can look at it from another angle."
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| Highway 34. Often I'll ride on the blacktop until I hear a car coming. Then I'll move to the other side of the rumble strip |
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| Bathroom breaks were decided whenever a random pole would be sticking out of the ground. That way I could lean my bike against something instead of plopping it on the ground |
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| Baseball cap on the bars, rear panniers loaded down with the tent and sleeping pad on the rear rack. Beautiful grasslands in bloom. Obviously too, another bathroom break |
Night two is back at Andy's place. It's a time to re-calibrate: I can drive my car to the store if I need anything immediately, drop anything I don't really need into the trunk of the car, collect things I've forgotten. Trim down. Andy is cooking some delicious Indian food for dinner tonight and I've agreed to step in and help as sous chef. He's also told me that we'll be joined by a pair of cyclists who are coming in from the other direction. They haven't been very responsive to calls and text messages over the course of the day, but they're expected to arrive later, closer to dinner time.
Two slim bikers not much older than I pull up with a heavy load. Name's are Paul and Quentin, and they're two French guys from a little village in the Alps who have been best friends since before they can remember. They're riding their bikes across the United States for the summer, fulfilling a dream. Great personalities. Quentin is the more vocal translator of the two, and Paul is nice and reserved. Over dinner, we're helping ourselves to second and third servings on Andy's buffet and I realize: today is my 25th birthday and I haven't really made a deal out of it at all. Just the way I like it -- what better way to celebrate than by being out on the road all day, logging 60 miles in beautiful surroundings, receiving warm hospitality and conversation from strangers? And I couldn't have picked a better menu of food if I had tried.
Paul and Quentin are heading to the exact site that I departed from the day prior, and I'm going where they just came from. We exchange tips for the area and bid each other
adieu and roll out. I tell Andy I'll see him in a few days at the conclusion of the tour.
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| From left: Me, Paul, and Quentin, ready to roll |
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| Day 3 itinerary |
Day 3 of riding will take me to Hill City, South Dakota, my approximate point for the next big milestone of the trip: Mt. Rushmore. I've got another 60 mile day ahead of me, but this time with lots of elevation gain. I'll put on about 4,000 feet of gain and then when I reach the apex of the day, a smooth descent of about 2,000 or so feet. Sweet. And the Nature will be different from the past two days. Instead of mostly flat grassland with the occasional bump or hill, the Black Hills are densely forested with streams and riverbeds sprinkled throughout. It'll also be more touristy with adventurers and outdoorsy folk driving around. This is both a blessing and curse. Blessing because I'll expect to see more people and presumably bike awareness is heightened with more bikers out on these roads. But the downside is that I'll never truly escape into anonymity. Cars will pass by and honk, RVs will barrel around the bends. The engine noises will echo through the canyon walls and off the steep hills.
The whole day isn't spent biking on these roads, however. Just the first 20 miles. The rest will be on hidden bike trails and back country roads with no traffic.
I take a break shortly after turning off the main strip around mile 20. I'm feeling pretty exhausted and need to shake out the legs, eat a can of sausages, maybe some peanut butter, definitely some more water, and check my phone for a mental break. I've somehow missed a voicemail from two friends back home, wishing me happy birthday. I listen to them a few times over and get all the mental energy I need to finish off the day's ride. It's so good to hear my friends' voices, even as a voicemail message.
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| I come across a large pond back on the trail which leads to Hill City |
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| Dinner set-up for Night 3. Camping stove and the requisite Tony Chachere's |
I pull into Hill City around 5 or 6 pm without any plans for lodging. A quick search on Google shows several campgrounds for RVs and campers, but nothing truly primitive. Should I cast it all aside and go pitch my tent a few miles out of the city, out of sight, so I can save some money? Maybe. I'll call a few campgrounds around and see what the rates are first.
It's a railroad robbery out here, and I should've known. Hill City is one of the closer sites for summer travelers to stay in and easily access Mt. Rushmore. Keystone is more like a lodge town, but Hill City is for the RVs. Campsites with high rates abound. With the sun beginning to set, I settle on the Crooked Creek Campground, the one farthest out of the little town and therefore the quietest.
CCC happens to be the bucket-list dream of a man named Lars, who has enlisted his wife and adult children as employees in the operation. Lars, a rotund, gregarious man with a 3-day old beard and graying auburn hair welcomes me in and introduces me to his youngest son Eric who runs the front desk. I ask for the cheapest plot of land to pitch my tent for the night and quickly get into conversation about my bike trip. Eric understands. He's a seasonal adrenaline junkie: he skis in the winter time and works at lodges (sparingly) and then joins his family for the summer to sock some money away and see his parents. That is, when he's not mountain biking in California. Eric throws in a towel and bar of soap free of charge so I can rinse all of the day's sweat away. He also lets me know that tomorrow is a lucky day because the breakfast canteen will be open and I'll get unlimited access to pancakes starting at 7am. He didn't have to tell me twice.
I pitch the tent next to the brook that runs through the campground. I've got to swallow my pride: this place is pretty nice after all. To have access to a shower and bathroom for the next 13 hours isn't a bad deal and hey, I'm on vacation too. Now it seems kind of silly to be saving a nickel and dime here or there when, partly, this trip is also about just
being and meeting the people along the way.
Breakfast the next morning is a treat. Small families trickle in and sit by themselves at tables. Young boys in tank tops, girls with braided hair, dads in mid-life with t-shirts tucked into their high-waisted jeans without a belt and their white New Balance tennis shoes triple knotted. It's vacation! I'm there by my lonesome, order some coffee and orange juice to go with those pancakes, and who else is flippin other than Eric, Lars, and the mom? Eric catches a break and comes and joins me at the table. We're there, probably 20 or 30 minutes just having one of those conversations that are so effortless on these trips: no ridiculous small talk about our resumes or trying to impress one another, we're really
talking. We're talking about things that move us, things that excite us and trouble us, and we don't really even know each other. Eric has to get back to work but Lars, exercising his political tendencies, comes and sits at my table, filling Eric's spot. I get the whole spiel, and it's quite interesting. I learn about his whole family, his whole family's business, travels, and dreams. Where the kids studied abroad, why a campground in South Dakota, why now? He's also curious to learn about why a city-slicker like myself from the nation's capital ended up here for vacation. He wants to know why I worked for a church for months cooking breakfast for people experiencing homelessness. 30 minutes go by before I tell him it's all well and good -- and I've enjoyed it -- but I do need to start hitting the road for my day's travel. We shake hands and he tells me to swing by the front desk on my way out.
I meticulously pack all my belongings into my two panniers, bungee cord my tent and sleeping pad to my rack, and brush my teeth. I'm starting Day 4 of the tour and I'm getting into the swing of it. I've gotten into a little routine, know just where everything is, and have my game plan for the day. Today I'll be sleeping in Rapid City (where exactly? Who knows, I'll figure it out later) but make a small detour to get to Mt. Rushmore. I swing by the front desk to bid
adieu to Lars and Eric. We shake hands and thank each other for the company.
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| Day 4 Itinerary |
Today's riding will be shorter, but terrible and unsightly. It will be about 40 miles (a 'rest day') but about 60% of it will be on the side of US-16, a heavily trafficked 4 lane artery that connects all the tourists from the airport in Rapid City to Mt. Rushmore. The speed limit is like 70 mph and it's never quiet. Also, there's no shade. Luckily, the first part of the day's ride will be in woods and on the other side of the granite formations. Here, the birds chirp and nobody drives past me.
The ascent for the day, and the hardest uphill of the entire ride, comes today. It is the 12% gradient ride up from Keystone to the visitor's entrance of the park. It is S T E E P! But, there's a great place to pull over and take a needed water break. The road hits a curve and there, off in the distance, is the sculpture. Cars are parked on the side of the road to take pictures and a new jolt of energy enters my system: I can see where I need to go and there isn't much left.
I pull up to the visitor's entrance, sandwiched in between two cars for the admittance line. I pull up to the teller and I ask how much it costs to get in, and she waves me through with a smile. Aha! Some things in life are free. Today also happens to be the day the US Women's World Cup Final is being played and the news of our victory comes as I'm sitting on a bench in the park eating a can of sausages. I talk with some grandpa who got dragged here by his family and jokingly offer to trade lunches with him. No cigar.
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| I was the only lunatic that day to ride a bike all the way to the top. Certainly won't be the last |
The descent back to Keystone and ultimately, Rapid City, is gnarly. That 12% gradient uphill sure is one helluva ride down. Cars are driving next to me, pumping their brakes as they make the turns and I'm here for all of it. Weighted down the way I was, I probably notched 40mph going down that hill and, yeah, I probably needed to change my undies after that one! That was a wild ride.
The day's riding continues on as dismally as I had anticipated. US-16 is horrendous and I can't wait to be done with it. But now I'm getting a nagging pain in my left Achilles tendon, right above my heel. I've never felt this pain before, but most certainly it has to do with having ridden 240 miles (if my math is right) in 4 days, the most I've ever done. My muscles feel alright, my lungs feel good, but this tendon is starting to give me hell. I'll troubleshoot when I get to the city.
A quick Google search of lodging for the area shows me that the KOA campground is the best gig in town. It's a short ride out of the city but will put me in a good starting position for the next day's behemoth of a ride to Badlands National Park. On my way over to the KOA I stop off at a Dairy Queen, you know, just to throw them some business. It's not like I was dying for a milkshake, hamburger, and fries after eating salty noodles, preserved sausages, peanut butter, and air-dried bread for the last two days. Wowza. Them there's good eating.
I continue on, and now I'm distracted by a Family Dollar, my grocer of choice on this fine bike tour. I stop in, buy some more Gatorade, noodles, sausages, and snacks, and ride into the KOA campground with dinner ready to make. My dessert for tonight will be that big bag of animal crackers I bought. First, I need to find some ice for my tendon. It looks like it's starting to swell a bit and my walk is a bit off, and luckily there's some ice at the front desk. Better yet, in getting into some small talk with the women that were running the desk, tonight is the ice cream social down at the picnic tables. It's a dollar per scoop, and I can have my choice among the finest low quality ice cream they've got. Cookie and Creams, please, two scoops.
Day 5 will take me to my final 'real' destination: Badlands National Park. From here, I'll pop a U-turn and continue back to where I've started, albeit a different route. My rest day was yesterday, which means today my big homework assignment is to get the roughly 70 miles to the camp ground at the park near the entrance at Interior. This should take good chunk of the day.
I wake up, and man you know what, my tendon isn't feeling 100%, and that's too bad because I'm going to need it all day long today. But I'm willing to push it, give myself all the time in the world today to get there. There's really nothing else to do. So I hop on the bike around 7am and begin the long, arduous ride away from the Black Hills into the barren grassland of the plains.
Two hours in, I'm feeling okay. I take a break for some animal crackers in the shade on the side of Route 44, re-hydrate, and continue on. A few more hours in and yeah, my tendon is starting to get really tight. The pedaling motion just isn't really feeling it. I try pedaling only with my right foot, and that seems to work for about 5 miles or so, but I won't be able to do that all day. I take some pain relieving medicine and try to stay as hydrated as possible.
Hours melt off the watch and before I know it, I've arrived at Interior, but in pretty rough shape. I'm hobbling badly whenever I get off the bike. When I re-mount the bike, I can't push off the ground to get a little start. It's swollen and all the skin around the heel is tight and plump. Not to worry: now I can rest a bit (but what about the next two days worth of riding still to do? It's looking unlikely, which is a bummer. And inconveniently I'm also the farthest distance away from my car -- there's no hope to ride back to it and push for it).
There's no room in the inn, the campgrounds are completely booked by RVs and armchair campers. There is literally nothing else within a 20 mile radius, so you know what bub, I'm sleeping here anyway, like it or not. My diabolical evil-genius plan is to ride my bike around the campgrounds and wait and see if any one in particular goes unclaimed. I find one spot and decide to post-up here for a while. It's looking okay. But by hour 2, the young couple arrives. Drats. Plan B: go around the campground and ask if anyone would mind if I pitch my tent on the other side of their plot? Surely somebody will be sympathetic to a hobbling biker who just rode 70 miles. The German couple says no (apparently there is a strict rule here: either one RV or two tents, but not both). The three-generation household says no. What about that sole Subaru? Subaru people are nice, I convince myself. It's worth an ask.
Jessica says "yes." Your name's Jessica, right? Okay, great. This will work out -- I have a plot of ground to call my own for the night. I set up camp, get out the stove and we cook dinner together at the picnic table. Conversation is going well until we get on the topic of 'the storm.' Whaddya mean 'the storm?' Apparently there is a pretty serious storm brewing out west and it may hit us this evening. We pull out the Doppler. I mean, you couldn't have gotten any more red or purple on that map! Hail, lots of lightning, gale force winds, the whole shebang. I look at my tent. My poor, poor tent. I ask it what it'd like on its tombstone when I bury what remains of it in the morning. There's no way. But the storm cells are rather narrow, no wider across than a few miles, so there is a chance it might over or undershoot our locale. Time will tell.
-cut to scene in movie where sailor man is laughing maniacally and cursing the heavens as the wind blows him around and lightning strikes closer than is comfortable--
So here I am, laying flat on my back in my tent, arms and legs spread out like a starfish to keep the tent from blowing away with me in it. Guess the storm didn't miss us after all..... I am going bonkers! This poor tent is whipping around, the rain fly has been gone for a while now, every minute feels like an hour and there is no way I am going to sleep. That is, until I hear a muffled call from Jessica's tent on the other side of the plot. "IF YOU WANT TO SLEEP IN THE TRUNK OF THE SUBARU, YOU CAN. IT'S OPEN." I think about it.....think about it, and then start shoving what remains in my bike panniers and decide to leave them in the tent to hopefully weight it down enough in my absence to keep it grounded. Then, I bolt for the trunk. I crawl in, close the trunk, and -silence-. Everything is going on outside and I am dry, safe. The rain hits the window, not me. Something very primitive just clicks in my mind: I have shelter for the night. Shelter where I am safe, I don't have to struggle, and I can relax (kind of. Meanwhile, my belongings are getting doused with rainwater).
The night was, as you can imagine, not great for the ZZzzZzs. I get sleep in 20 minute increments, but it's something. When the sun pops up from the horizon - a new day! - I look around. Where's my tent? Where're all my things? They've been blown 30 feet across the campground and are lying face-down in a newly created pond. I go over to retrieve my things and my heart sinks. My wallet, cell phone, and paper map didn't survive the night's torrents. I'm angry at myself: "Why didn't I take it with me last night?" In hindsight it was so clear, but in the moment of duress, my blinders on, I didn't think twice about it. Now I'm really screwed. My tendon is still throbbing and hasn't reduced in size, I don't have a phone to call Andy or, well anybody, and my money and credit cards will need a fair bit of time to dry.
Time to think. At this point, I call the bike tour off. I can't physically ride anymore and I've got bigger fish to fry, like how to get back to Spearfish where my car's at. I need to ice my tendon and establish a bit of communication with family and friends who had been in touch with me. So, if biking is out of the question, I guess I'll.....hitchhike? That is one thing I've never done before, but it's always sounded interesting.
I don't want to be a bother anymore on Jessica, she's been so nice. She did make a sweet offer to drive me a bit in the direction I need to go, but it felt like overextending. Turns out there's a nice middle-aged couple from Chicago as our neighbors, and my easy-going conversation with them yesterday before the storm has bought me an offer for coffee this morning after explaining the travails of my tent experience last night. Karen and Fred Bell have rented one of these big Cruise America RVs, and they're plenty gregarious and nice. They ask about my tendon and how it's doing. When I start telling them, they cut me off -- "Let us drive you back to where you need to go. We're heading that direction today anyway." Honestly?! You betcha. We break camp slowly, and Jessica heads out. She's on to the next tale in her own journey, her summer road trip from Wisconsin.
I'm told to jump in shotgun with Fred behind the wheel. Karen is back at the breakfast nook and we get to talking. Karen's a schoolteacher in a suburb of Chicago, and Fred is a VP of an electrical engineering firm. He spends most of his job sitting on an airplane getting shuttled from international client to international client. Sure, the job pays well and everything, but really he lives for trips like these with his wife. Their son (never got his name), is a pilot in the military, stationed down in the Southwest. They represent Chicago well, wearing sports gear of the city and making pitches to visit.
We're not headed all the way to where I need to go, but more than halfway. Along the way, Fred and Karen decide to stop for a touristy side-trip at the Wall Drug Store. It's one of those kitschy places that advertise on billboards hundreds of miles away ("Wall Drug, Only 350 Miles Away"). You get the picture. The coffee is 5 cents or something and they sell donuts. We pull in and Fred and Karen go ahead and just buy me coffee and donuts and water and ice for my leg. I can't believe my luck, it's almost like they've adopted me for the morning. Of course I'm talking about my time with the church in DC, my plans about graduate school, being from Louisiana, all the little one-liners people like to hear on travels, and we really just have a great time.
Back on the road, they drop me off at the Verizon store in Rapid City. We part ways with hugs and handshakes, and I get Fred's business card to keep in touch. I spend the rest of the afternoon borrowing kind peoples' phones to make phone calls to people back home and begin figuring out my phone situation. Across the parking lot is a Target and a fantastically helpful store associate, Zuriel, who, having nothing better to do in the Electronics section of the Target in Rapid City, South Dakota, commits to helping me iron out my problem. We're going back and forth and eventually, after getting in touch with Andy just up the interstate in Spearfish, we come down on a game plan to get me back to his place for the night. You see, Andy's got a friend who lives in Rapid City (Gena) who is planning on driving up to Spearfish
tonight for the
monthly meeting of the Dakota Rural Access group, a group Andy is in. It just so happens that today is the one day this year that Spearfish is the site of the local gathering (the meeting spot rotates around the region so members share the burden of driving) and Gena is more than happy to let me hitch a ride if I meet her at this obscure dentist office's parking lot on the other side of town. What luck!
I begin the ride from Target to the dentist's bidding Zuriel goodbye and many thanks for his help. Man, my tendon is hurting still, but it seems like if I can get this bit of riding done, then I can call it quits for good. I make it all but two miles to the dentist's before retiring at a gas station due to storm clouds brewing. I just didn't have it in me to push the remainder -- every pedal stroke felt painful. I loiter around the gas station for a while before deciding to go introduce myself to the attendant. What else am I gonna do? She's stuck here, I'm stuck here, why not. I get to asking her about whether someone might be freaked out by a hitchhiking request and she said no. See, I've come around to swallowing my pride: I'm going to hitch the last two miles so I don't miss the ride with Gena. On cue, a pickup truck pulls up and I walk up to the man and kindly ask whether he'd be put out if he could drive me two miles up the road with my bike and all. He seemed genuinely excited to help (is that a bad sign when you're asking to hitch?). Never got his name but he was a roofer and contractor by trade, pretty amicable guy and had no trouble talking. But two miles goes fast in a car, and we pulled into the dentist's office.
Not much longer after, Gena arrives. Separately in other cars, members of DRA congregate for the caravan drive up to Spearfish. There's Gena, Sherryl, Rick, and Carol. So what's the gig with DRA anyway? They're a regional community group concerned with the environment, uranium mining (which is big money out here, but disastrous for the Nature), farm-to-table movements, and general ecological policies. It's a group of farmers, teachers, and regular folk who care about their community and what lobbying interests do to threaten the peace.
The DRA meeting in Spearfish is wonderful. All around me there are middle-aged people of graying hair, ranching jeans, tye-dye shirts, and quiet demeanor. Plus, it's a vegetarian and vegan potluck and Andy encourages me to eat as much as I can. It's great news, because I think I've only eaten two donuts today. I've forgotten to eat pretty much all day long. The meeting is being held at the back of the superfoods grocery store in town, and a various cast of characters are presenting their developments and brainstorming strategies of community organizing. It's a delight to be a part of. There's also a few younger people my age, mostly PhD students at the local university who present research and find their groove with the older folk.
As I make my way back to Andy's I part ways with Gena and all the nice DRA people who have made my evening spectacular. I weirdly feel invigorated (maybe it's the food nourishing my body and brain, or the fact that I will soon get to change clothes and wear something that doesn't smell like dried sweat).
My actual journal entry from that day sums up this blog post nicely. I'll write it here:
7/9/2019
Throughout the day I was somehow reminded of the phrase "I will make a way out of no way." I woke up in the trunk of a stranger's car in Badlands National Park, not knowing how I would finish the day. Would I stay in Badlands? Would I make it to Rapid City but be stranded? Where would the meal come from, how might I communicate without a phone? All of these were answered as the day progressed. I must give thanks and remain humble, for strangers helped me throughout the day with no promise of reciprocation. I will continue to pay it forward.
The closure of the biking portion of my summer road trip was upon me, and I learned much from it. Above all, it remains the people I met along the way. While I logged about 300 miles and visited some places on my bucket-list, I wouldn't be anywhere without the characters that made it possible.
Speaking of characters, the next chapter of my summer road trip begins with a funny man named Randy.....
