Friday, July 30, 2010

Challis Hot Springs: Tourists and Tent poles

We had ridden 80 miles to Challis, ID and decided to check out a hot springs camp ground in Challis that someone had told us about. It was getting dark, and the hot camp ground was nearly 5 miles off the main road--10 miles from the town.

We arrived to a bed and breakfast/RV park/Camp ground. Not what we had expected. Women were walking around in dresses and a others were coming out of the hot springs with their shirts off--guys, of course. The hot springs had just closed. And one of the women in a dress came over.

"did you guys ride down here to get in the hot springs? or to camp?"

Andy: "Well we were thinking about going in the hot springs--are there not any others around?"

"No we own them all. They close at ten so we just locked them up for the night. Are you planning on camping here--we'll open the hot springs up at 8 am tomorrow morning--you can get in them after you wake up in the morning before you start riding again."

"how much are the campsites? just to tent"

"well it's $21 for the first two people and $8 for each person after that."

"No we definitely won't be camping here then."

At that point a long silence ensued. Matt started looking around for people who were leaving the small parking lot, hoping to hitch a ride into town. The lady just stood there. It was dark at this point and most people seem to think that once it gets dark we shouldn't be riding on the road. People also tend to look at a distance like ten miles as a great distance to ride a bike because they don't pedal bikes around often. The silence went on for close to a minute.

"ah. well I'll let you sleep in an empty spot then. I'll get in my car and show you. (laughs nervously) I don't like to walk really, even if its only a few hundred feet."

we showered her with thanks, hoping to get that slightly disgusted look off of her face. She walked 50 feet to her car and drove us 200 yards through a gate and pointed to a campsite.

"This isn't like New Jersey boys, you have to be careful about where you end up in Idaho!"

"Yep. Real sorry about that. We'll be more careful next time for sure."

The campsite was nice. The grass was mowed and it promised not to wake us up to sprinklers spraying our things (like it did earlier that morning in Arco, ID).

Matt propped his bike against the table and began pulling this off, getting ready to sleep.

"Andy, remind me not ever to listen to anyone who reccomends going to anything that has to do with tourists again."

"Ya I know, right."

5 minutes later Andy was talking on the phone to his girlfriend. Matt had set up his tent and was starting to eat when Morgan came back and said he couldn't find the tent poles.

"Andy come get the tent poles. We can't find them." Matt yelled.

Andy just sat there and kept talking. Matt went over.

"Andy you need to get off the phone and come find the tent poles!"

"I know. I think I left them in Arco." Andy whispered, still on the phone.

Matt turned around and went back to eating. It was the same sort of reaction he would have the next night when his sleeping bag got bumped into a waterfall at the top of a mountain. No visible reaction. These things are sort of funny, if not maddening, and they always happen. Getting visibly upset is only worth it when the social consequences are few (i.e. when its just you and your brother and no one else is around it's usually ok to hit him. he'll heal. no one else will think you're very violent, provided you don't leave any bruises, and your anger is instantly purged.)

Sure enough, Andy left the poles in Arco. (At this point it might help to explain that both the tents we're carrying are split up to distribute the weight properly. Andy was given the poles of his tent, Morgan carried the poles to the tent Matt sleeps in.)

"Do you mind if I sleep with you in that tent," Morgan asked.

"ya I don't mind," Matt laughed.

He then finished his food, completed his pre-sleeping rituals, legitimately tried to console Andy while brainstorming a solution (Morgan suggested calling the owner of the gas station in the morning--earlier that day we found out he was from Reading, PA and gave us free sandwiches, etc) and headed toward the tent (with poles in it).

The problem was solved. they went to bed anticipating bathing in a hot spring full of other tourists in the morning. Andy slept in the tent without poles, and life was fine. sort of.
That is a forrest fire. Nature is incredible. Death is the engine of life.


A few days ago we met a most extraordinary couple. They were riding their bicycles across america...with their 4 and 6 year old children riding behind them in a trailer! Yes that is right. The Murr family is pedalling across the United States and pulling their two children behind them in a trailer. More than three months on the road, they are riding to promote family invovlement, environmental awareness, and a healthy life style. You should check out thier website at http://www.murrbike.com
.SMALL town.



While at Jon Geruntho's place we have been learning to cook...and eating.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Pictures from the Tetons




Morgan never learned to skip.

Tina was a great contact in Grand Teton National Park. We spent a few nice days with her and a few of her friends there.

A few facts

  • Our most recent leg of the journey was 150 miles long. We rode for 11 hours and made it 150 miles.
  • We rode up route 93 through Idaho, into Montana, and headed west on route 12 over Lolo pass. This was the same route Lewis and Clark took on their expedition to the pacific ocean
  • We are now in the Pacific Time Zone
  • Matt, Morgan, and Andy ate an entire half gallon of ice cream in one sitting.
  • A River Runs Through It is a great movie.
  • Over the past week we have sat in 3 natural hot-springs. Life is tough.
  • We are currently spending several relaxing days with Jon Geruntho. Jon is a good friend from Albright who is now attending graduate school at Washington State University
  • We have now been on the road for 60 days.
  • Matt is currently working on something more substantial for you to read.
  • Pictures will be coming soon.
  • Our last leg of the trip will look like this: From Pullman, WA to Portland, OR to the coast, into Olympia, WA and up to Seattle on or about Aug. 13.

Idaho: Into The Wild

A recent conversation with a man pointed out that people feel good about accomplishment. An individual undertakes great things, or lesser things that are also great, primarily for the reward that comes with the accomplishment of that thing. He then went on to argue that survival for all species is an accomplishment. well, survival and the reproduction. isn't that what species are all about anyway--surviving and ensuring the survival of their species? He was saying that it's only natural that positive, healthy emotions follow such an achievement in order that the species does what it's supposed to--survive and reproduce.

So I had hiked a few miles into the back country of Idaho and was sitting close to the summit of one of the hills commonly called the Rocky Mountains. I was naked. And I was floating in a hot spring, my head on a rock, watching the moon come over the rock face right above me. The big dipper was above on the right, Orion's belt somewhere straight up, and only the silhouettes of different trees and plants were visible in front of the moon. I was out in the middle of no where. As far as my sense could tell no one else was around for miles.

I couldn't help thinking that maybe there was some part of me that was supposed to live like this. Wild and untamed, not unlike those previously prestigious explorers who had passed the same way 200 years earlier. Living like an animal.

Back to the guy and the sense of accomplishment:
He was making the point that he'd like to live in the wild. Each day would be a struggle to survive. Each day would be an accomplishment. He was convinced he would be happy that way. He was convinced more people should think a little more about living life a little bit more like that. If nothing else it might be a bit healthier.

We are animals, I suppose.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Pictures.

Feet and a pronghorn...

We got into the Park Rangers stash.

Funny looking legs for a Buffalo.

This is our new friend Matt. Matt works for the National Park Service in Grant Teton NP. Matt hosted us for a few days. He makes wonderful homemade bread.




Interesting bit of history.



It was dark when we arrived, but we made it.





We are still climbing.







It is a bit hard to see here but we had a rude awakening one morning when the spinklers started going off and soaked all our stuff :( We blocked the sprinkler near our tent with a sock and went back to sleep!







Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Fund Raising Update

We have great news. Because of what God has been able to do we have officially finished our second water project (in Piswa, Uganda)! We have now united enough people to raise over $10,600! In faith we will be accepting a third village to advocate for. The name of the village is Kitany. Kitany is within 20 miles of Piswa and will require a very similiar water system. As of now I do not have any pictures or much other information. Hopefully that will come soon... Thanks everyone and praise God. He has created a beautiful world and is pleased to walk with us as we serve as its caretakers.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

A quick update

We just spent a few heavenly days hiking and resting in Grand Teton National Park with Tina Mauro, her family, and her friends. This was a much needed break from our bicycles. We did two beautiful hikes, learned to make bread from scratch, watched some TV shows, went to a "worship in the parks service and much more. We are now in Idaho Falls and planning our route through Idaho. We are planning to go North to Pullman, WA where a friend of Morgan and Andy's is going to school at Washington State University. Last night we slept in a Motel after a wonderful couple that we were put in contact with took us out to dinner and put us up for the night in the motel. This morning we made the most of the continental breakfast and got a late start.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Starting a new chapter: Leaving Yellowstone and good friends behind

From Yellowstone it was on to the Grand Tetons National Park. That meant splitting ways with Leon and Mike, two friends who have shared part of our journey with us. And two friends that we will hopefully get to spend plenty of more time with in the coming years. They went north into Montana and we went through the south exit of the park.



The day off was marvelous. Grand Teton was not only a bit smaller--meaning less tourists--but maybe even a little prettier. And if nothing else it carried with it the promise of at least a few days off. We had a friend there.



We spent the night catching up with her and her family. We went hiking the next day, and are now in the process of staying at a log cabin that would sell for a few million dollars if the national park would sell it. It's right in front of the Tetons. So instead of anything else, here are some questions:

To what extent does a structure that someone has given a lot of themselves toward educate you about them?

Why do people who don't like the same symbols (or subcultural icons) as we do not immediately strike our fancy? or do they?

Why is beauty so expensive? And how does beauty affect those who can't afford it differently than those who can?

does love mean to watch someone die (physically, mentally, spiritually)?

What is home to you?

Does capitalism fail when everyone becomes so specialized they stop looking into what the other areas are feeding them?

Do you not connect with any one specific question when people give you a list of questions that could require a lot of thought? Yes.

Also. Matt is going to have a go at writing some short non-fiction stories regarding different people and experiences he has encountered on the trip thus far. So in the next few weeks, if a short story pops up it will be from experiences encountered on the trip.

Yellowstone: A Tourists Paradise

There's nothing quite like a bunch of affluent (enough) Americans driving full-size RVs around a 60-mile circle in the middle of a 2.2 million acre mile wilderness to severely distress a cyclist. Or anyone riding a bike, for that matter. Not only do middle and upper-aged men not always understand how big their vehicle is, but they also don't understand what it's like to be young, passionate, and riding a bike...


Yellowstone is gorgeous, but it wasn't the resting place some of the group thought it might be. At least not on the first day. Besides almost getting hit a few times each day by the same people who were living much more comfortably than we, the wind made things less than pleasant to ride in. We decided to take a day off from riding and hitch-hike around the park.



I'll only mention once that the same people who irritated us on our bikes irritated us as hitch-hikers because not only would they not pick us up, they wouldn't acknowledge us. There's something about affluent (enough) white Americans that can be enraging. Try begging on the street--or working on the same committee as one.



We got a lot of rides with, hippies, foreigners--people who were exploring the national parks of america from other countries--and a few kids our own age. All people worth consulting about the future of the country or personal substance. We really liked all of the people we met. We learned from them.

And so we saw the park. We ate lots of peanut butter sandwhiches. We slept. We read. We hiked. We conquered the tourists; being ourselves, well, tourists.

When Leon was asked why it was so natural for us to get so upset with the tourists driving their cars (almost) into us, getting in our way, and sometimes stopping to wiggle their finger and scream bits of advice like: "Ride Single File" he replied:

"I think it's because I've pedaled my butt off to get here--and at first glance it seems like they're getting a similar experience for a lot less work, with a lot more convenience and comfort. We're being forced to share the same beauty with a million others who don't seem to care about us, and who seem to be having a much easier time doing it."

And so we learned about expectations and the old saying about not worrying about what other people are getting for what they do.

Did I mention we also saw Yellowstone?

Bathing: Another sketch

The woods were dark. The outline of the mountain peaks were just differentiated from the sky by the light of the moon. The peaks were sharp and jagged rock, harsh features against the sky's gently burning stars. But they continued to shine. The breeze was warm. No voices could be heard, but the sound of the river and the moon's reflection on it could have caused one not to hear someone yelling at them from less than a foot away. The river was swift from flooding, higher than usual.

The wildness of the night threatened to demolish anyone who didn't respect it, who wouldn't stand up to it, who wouldn't worship it in some way or another. Just him and the wild. The out of doors. And so he stood there, feeling the breeze, taking in the stars and the mountain peaks and the rushing water and the cry of the wolf.

His descent to the water was quick, his entrance cold. The water rushed over him, and his body started to clench up. The stars still shown, and the wind was kind--warm. His hands moved quickly over the different parts of his body. Trying to get clean again.

The moon lined the muscles in his legs when they managed to break the surface of the water. Then all of him went in. Now the river washed.

The cold soon ended the bath. The moon displayed the naked body climbing out, up the river bank. The shadows on his back, hunched over on all fours to climb to flat ground. And then at the top he stood, shook himself, and moved into the cover of the woods before looking back at the moon to give his own kind of howl.

Day 47


Look at this little treasure.

Looks like something out of a sci-fi movie...



I would have understood earth science a lot better if this were my classroom in 9th grade.





The colors are fabulous. Imagine stumbling upon this for the first time!





We ditched our bikes at our campsite for the day and did some hitch-hiking around yellowstone. Seeing the sights out of the back of a truck is almost as good as from a bike. Andy might have been pleased about a day off.





Countryside.







This was Matt's rear wheel by the time we wobbled into Cody, WY. We had trued it on about 10 different ocassions and it wasn't having any more. 6 broken spokes. We had to buy a whole new set up.



One of our numerous close encounters with Bison. "I feel like we dodge a bullet everytime we ride by one of those things and don't get charged" said Leon.




Old Faithful.




Progress.




I am not sure what was more ammusing, all the people taking pictures or this big elk.




The Grand Tetons



Sure glad we swung down from Yellowstone to see this place!



Dinner time.




First time for everything. They were serious!













Friday, July 9, 2010

Big-Rock Candy Mountain: Lots of treats

It had been quite a ride to the top. The kind of ride that's easy enough to pedal, but once you've done so much of the same kind of pedaling--uphill, of course--it begins to wear on your legs more than the other kind of pedaling (downhill). When you're heading up a mountain you're in the lowest gear, but the hill is never-ending and both the lack of hope that the top exists and the increasingly difficult grade make the experience everyone feels in their legs the next morning.



A number of people on road bikes kept riding by. I was thinking about writing a post on the difference between cyclists in the east and cyclists in the west--the ones we were passing were saying things like "good luck," "Enjoy your ride," God bless you," and "You deserve a medal!" Out east we were lucky if we got much of a nod a lot of the time. I was thinking about the socio-economic status that usually comes with being a cyclist and wondering what other factors, besides location, might have contributed to the difference in attitude. A few miles down the road we came across it: Cycle America.

Cycle America is an organization that people can pay roughly $6,200 to in order to organize a cycling trip across the United States from them. The trip is complete with route, bike repairs/spare bikes, food, water/Gatorade, snacks, set-up pit stops, laundry, sleeping and basically anything else you could think of/want on a bike trip.

There were 90 other people going over the mountain that day, 45 of them going across the country. (the other 45 were stopping in SD). Most of them were middle-aged to 81 years old. It was a vacation for them. They were pleased to spare some water, Gatorade powder; we were pleased to take a few granola bars and banana's off their hands; they gave, we took. It was a balanced relationship.

But really, it was good talking to a few of them. They were very nice, most of them quite interested in what we were doing, and we were likewise interested and willing to give advice about the rest of the mountain.




On our way up we also re-met our friend Mike and pedaled our way to the top together. His company made things easier as he was somewhat new and other all sorts of interesting information about the experiences he had been through thus far in his life.




After pedaling six and a half hours we reached the top. In honor of our good health Andy climbed a steep rock summit so he could say he was 10,000 feet above sea level. The rest enjoyed some treats our sponsors probably don't want us to mention.



Now after six and a half hours of riding uphill, there's nothing like not pedaling at all for 22 miles. We stopped several times down the side of the mountain, not because we were tired, but to look at the beauty that was the Big Horn Mountains. A vast glacier is said to have carved out a canyon and different rock formations just east of Ten Sleep, WY that ranks among the top landscapes we've seen across the country.



Mike mentioned: "It almost makes me want to believe in God again." I think just about every skeptic agreed with him. We heard their voices in the wind coming through the canyon.



Mike was supposed to meet his dad in Ten Sleep at 6 p.m. but as mountains always take more time to climb than you think and rarely offer cell-phone reception; and many people move slower than one, his dad came up the mountain to make sure all was well. It was, and when we got to Ten Sleep we ate (a lot) dinner at a lovely (the only) restaurant in town. We sat outside. We sat next to a lovely young man who kept saying (or was he yelling, we weren't sure) things like "I like my women like I like my whiskey: 12 years old and all mixed up in coke," "Ya, get out the stripper pole," and "give 'er the gas sonny" (referring to the man who just got in his hot rod along the sidewalk). He also kept mentioning things about heroin that made it quite hard to concentrate on what anyone at our table was saying.



I might also point out that when a young man came out of the bar with a six-pack of beer, a bottle of wine, and a young lady I had seen him trying very hard to talk to at the bar an older man in a big truck driving by yelled "Hey nice work" and winked at him. Everybody knows everybody. I wondered if he had been after that girl for quite some time. Some towns publicly congratulate people for personal achievements, some towns personally congratulate people for private achievements soon to be public problems. Yeehaw!




And before I go on I'll mention that the dinner was lovely and meeting Mike's dad was a real treat. Probably two of the nicest people we'll meet on the trip.

Back to the point about everyone knowing each other:
They do all each other, and they all seem to have a lot of money. It was probably the nicest town without a grocery store we had seen yet. In fact, it might have been the nicest town we'd seen--because it was so small. It's easy to have bad sections of big towns. But anyway, the combination didn't bode well for camping there. An old man stopped in the middle of the street, obnoxiously turned around and told us that we weren't allowed to camp in the park. We were just standing around on the Ten Sleep Park's very green, very well watered, very well maintained grass.

That comment prompted us to sleep on the church's grass across the street. It was well watered too.


And so the journey continues, inches of (precious) grass at a time.

Through the Big Horn Mountains

This is Andy speaking.
Yesterday we set up off the Big Horn Mountains. We climbed, and climbed, and climbed. Thirty miles up. At five miles an hour we climbed just about all day.

The views though made it all worth it. I have never seen such lush forests. A sea of pines. I had also never seen snow in July. By the time we got up to 10,000 feet we would have been cold had we not been working so hard.

Then we went down. Maybe the most euphoric hour and a half of my life 30 miles down through a prestine lake, ten sleep canyon, and lots and lots of peaks.

In so few words I was more pleased with life than I had been in some time.

What a day.
We made camp in a pastor's yard and slept quite well.
These pictures are not ours because my camera died, but this is what we saw yesterday. This guy is a better photographer is than us anyhow...











Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Camping: Another Sketch

The wind is nice when it comes through the bottom of the rain-fly--through the screen sections of the tent. Most of the time it doesn't, though. So I lay and try not to think about how dirty I am. I'm wearing leg warmers, shorts, a t-shirt, and a jacket--that way I can't feel any part of my skin sticking to the sleeping bag. I try not to let any part of me touch any other skin--then I can feel the stickiness too. My arms are close to my body and my hands folded over my chest. (I'm laying flat on my back.) I keep my legs apart, and try to move my calves as little as possible because every time I do I can feel that the uncovered parts of skin stick to the sleeping bag. It's disgusting. I don't know when I'll get to shower again. It's a sort of hopeless feeling, laying there in my own filth realizing this is what I'm doomed to for an indefinite period of time. It's hard to get used to, harder than I remember. Between the two of us in the tent, the smell is not any kind of pleasant. I put in my headphones and try to pay more attention to how tired I am. The pile of clothes beneath my head is not always the best support, or clean, but it's not a rock, either. And this has become beautiful to me. Soon it will just be normal, peaceful in most senses.

As I adjusted from life in a host's home to life in a tent, this was a typical experience. I often remembered not only that life without a shower was once normal to me, but also that entire cultures live without showering as often as I do. Adjusting does seem to get harder with age. So I pray that I'll always be given the strength to put up with the difficulties of adaption in order to put myself through experiences and ways of life much different to mine. I'm not sure of a better experience for the human soul.

One hour internet limit at the local library...

We have taken the liberty of exploring a few run down buildings like this one. There are hundreds of ghost towns out west.
I am not sure how these things formed, but I am glad they did.


Morgan taking in the view.

Climbing is good fun...as long as you can get down.



I would like to hear the story behind this.




A typical lunch...






The highest Andy had ever been outside an airplane...not for long.





Tourists...








It was 110 degrees, but it was beautiful. Like nothing I had ever scene.







All business.










Rapid City to Custer: A Peace-Bringing Experience

Rapid City woke us up gently.

After that it was a series of bike shops, libraries, grocery stores and the like before heading into Custer State Park to visit a family Matt knew from CA. He spoke very highly of them, and was pleased when the other three mates found them as charming as he did.

We arrived about 8 p.m. after a leisurely ride through the black hills, complete with a stop for ice cream, a few brief rain showers and some amazing views. The next day we hung out with the family as they showed us around in their minivan--a much needed day off. We saw Rushmore, a number of information centers on the area, did some laundry, ate--we're always eating, and the family was more than happy to feed us--and topped it all off with a Fireworks display in Custer (the Mt. Rushmore fireworks were canceled).
It was a splendid time.

Among the things we visited was the Badger Hole. I wondered why people went to see a big hole in the ground at first, but once we got there, it did seem pretty clever. The dirt was all kinds of different colors from years of formation--OK, if you've checked out the link you know I'm kidding, so I'll stop. If you haven't checked out the link yet, do so.

If you still won't: he was a poet. He's most famous for "The Cowboy's Prayer." The Badger Hole is his house. He was South Dakota's first Poet Lariat. Quite brilliant, really.

His house sits in the Black Hills. It's not grand, or on some huge hill with a ridiculous view. Though the woods surrounding it is beautiful. It's just peaceful. It has a big porch in front looking across a dirt road into the forest. It has a cozy living room with a guest bedroom immediately off to the right when you walk in. It has a book case with a more-than-lovely book collection. It has a modest kitchen, and his room is attached to the other side of it. It's a fancy cabin--it's well built, well decorated (for a man who was never married), and cozy enough that even the most urban of us could picture themselves sitting in by the fire reading a good book with a cup of wine or coffee.

Walking around it, however, I couldn't help but wonder about how peaceful he actually was. He lived something of a lonesome life. He was engaged three times to the same woman, but he fell ill and that relationship didn't quite work out. He read a lot by the fire, I'm sure. He wrote a lot. He cooked his own food and chopped his own wood. He lived a simple life. He lived an ideal life if you ask the kind of person who likes to sit and think--there seems to be a whole movement, or maybe a few of them towards living simply and contemplating life, really thinking about things, etc. I suppose it's the same sorts of people who are a bit fed up with the society that has emerged. The desire to return to only what we need, to the simple pleasures, the natural pleasures; that seems to be what these sorts of people are looking for.

All four of us fall into these sorts of ideas, or types of people with ideas--however you'd like to go about stereotyping or categorizing this sort of thing. Well, to some extent we fall into them, at least. And so we go on longing, looking for peaceful serenity.

Looking at the Badger's few things I could envision myself living there in peace. Reading and writing at night, drinking and eating good things, keeping to myself and having friends over occasionally. And then I figured I'd get bored really quickly. I figured it wouldn't be quite as peaceful as I thought it would. I'm not to the point in life yet when I can be peaceful in any situation yet, especially one with no capacity for passive stimulus--that is, the ability to be passive while being stimulated by something at the same time. But Badger was much older when he built his house in the Black Hills, so I figure I've got some time to gain the sort of disconnection from electronics and man-made beauty, the need to assert myself and the like so that I too may one day live in peace, where ever it is that I do that living.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

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.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

A few less words...

I am typing this from a library Kadoka, SD. The wind has been terrible over the past few days. Mostly blowing from the South and gusting above 30 mph most of the time. This is keeping us slow. We have camped the past two nights but have had a pleasant time.

We also keep meeting folks that are doing similiar things to us. Just in the past few days we have camped or ridden with two guys pedalling from Conneticut to San Diego, two guys pedalling from Florida to Alaska (one of whom has ridden over 1 million miles...http://www.dannychew.com/) a guy WALKING from Philadelphia to San Fransisco, a guy riding from New York to Hong Kong (this is Leon who we have befriended) and two Blugarians pedaling from Pennsylvania to California. WOW! I guess because there are so few towns is South Dakota everyone is funnelled into the same area...

I(Andy) never really understood what people meant when they said "big country." Now I get it. Many of the towns we pass through only have 100 or so people in them. Sometimes 500 if we are lucky. Everything else is just rolling hills covered in grass and cows. The wind is big, the sky is big, the hills are big, the sun is big. They all seem to persistently point out just how great their creator must be.

Five thousand words...

We road to a car show and Morgan really like this one. He offered the guy to trade him straight up for his bike, but the guy did not bite...

Paul Bunyan had the day off, but here is his ox.

Tourist trap.


This is Leon.


We crossed the Missouri. One of the more beautiful areas I have ever been in. Not quite sure how the pioneers got across though...







We hope to get to Mt. Rushmore by Saturday evening. We are looking foreward to this and riding as hard as we can to make it happen.