Badlands to Rapid City: A taste of the West

It was 100 degrees. The badlands were quite remarkable for being simple piles of dirt. Beautiful, really. We spent plenty of time being honked at, smiled at, and simply passed by RVs and other fine folk motoring their way to a vacation spot around the fourth of July. At times it was frustrating, especially when they grew impatient. A lack of respect easily rears its head when tourists get upset. It's a completely different feeling when locals get upset, or even don't care about what you're doing. Anyway, we saw the badlands.

Upon our exit of the badlands we had rode about 40 miles. Scenic, SD was the next town, about 20 miles down the road. We were about out of water already and facing the kind of de-hydration that dries out your throat so that it hurts to swallow. A squirt of water is mandatory every couple of minutes. The wind wasn't unbearable, but blowing from the SW at about 15 mph. We completely ran out of water about a mile outside of Scenic. And so we began to understand what a lot of towns in the west were like.

It looked small enough from a distance, a few buildings here and there. It looked like it would certainly have a store to buy groceries from and fill our water. We were even thinking about heading toward Rapid City, SD (a bonafide city of about 40,000 people) after we rehydrated ourselves and had something to eat.

Everything looked closed as we got there, and the only road into the town that was paved was the main one. We passed an old church that was turned into an extras store, but was closed, a stone building that proved to be the original jail, and then rode around looking for something that was open. A hostel, a second-hand shop, a bar, a sort of grocery, an Indian shop, a museum, and a few other shops. All closed, boarded up. All seemed to be built in the 1950s or '60s. There was one shop that was open. We walked in. There were convenience-store items in the front: candy bars, chips, sodas and sports drinks, etc. In the back were some clothing items on a table, all for sale.

Starting to wonder if we had sweated out all our fluids, minerals, and other things that keep you healthy we grabbed the sports drinks. Then we asked the lady at the counter if there was anything else around:

Andy: "is there anything else around. A grocery store or anything?"

Lady: "no. everything else is closed. Sorry. We've got some chips and trail mix stuff over there if you want. The town is pretty much all closed down now. A few families left the town because of some problems and this is the only shop open anymore."

We ate a bag of Frito's and a bag of trail mix each.

Not any more than 15 minutes later the owner (of the town) walked in: An older lady who was maybe 5-3, 100 LBS, and probably could have beaten Matt in a boxing match; smoked between 4 and 6 cigarettes in the time she spent conversing with us and "closing the town down;" consistently interrupted herself to viciously yell at what could only have been her two young grand kids, who were making plenty of noise antagonizing each other; and was open enough to questions from Matt (who instantly took a liking to her) to close the town a few minutes late.

Matt: "So you own the town?"

Owner: "Ya, we own it. There are about eight of us now."

M: "and, uh, how do you come to own a town?"

O: "well it was founded it 1963, and through the years I just came about to owning it..."

M: "Oh, ya, that makes sense. So you're just closing it down for the evening now, then, huh?"

O: "yep. We're closing it down."

M: "the whole town?"

O: "Yes!" she seemed a tad irritated, but not so much as to imply that his questions, or maybe his existence in general, mattered much to her.

M "Wow. So..." At this point her grandboys interrupted the conversation. He started to talk back

O: "Ya would you mind getting that stuff off the table. I'm closing up. I'm late for something."

M: Oh. Sure... Silence--then the yelling at the boys, more silence as Matt piles a lot of bottles and bike stuff in his arms (where did everyone else go?) and walks the length of the building and out the door.

Everyone is outside. She locks the door. The town is now closed.

At this point it's apparent that she drives a golf cart around her town. That makes sense. And then:

Matt stood right beside her as she screamed at the grandkids who were insisting on riding on the space on the back of the golf cart (where clubs would normally go) instead of on the seat beside her. She knelt down and pulled with all her might on one childs arm to get him to move. He fought her off, laughing the whole time. Her voice was quite loud, high pitched: "You get up there!"

It wasn't working. After a long struggle the kids ended up sitting on the back as they drove, maybe 100 yards, down the street to what appeared to be her house. And in they went.

Two other cross country cyclists rode up. Luckily theystill had water and food. We decided to ride into the night and get to Rapid City, about 40 miles down the road.

We rode across Buffalo Gap through the night and arrived in Rapid at about 12:30 p.m. We stopped at the first gas station that was open to get some more food, water, etc. It soon closed and we were at a loss as to where we should camp. Figuring it would be the most forgiving in the morning we chose the Lutheran Church across the street.

And so the day ended. Finally.