Best Town on EARTH

Sunday, July 6th. Josh woke me up about 5:45 today. It sucked, but I had agreed to it and we really did need to get a move on. We showered, got ready, and hit the road. The plan was to follow I-90 to Moorcroft then drop Southeast along CR-16 toward South Dakota. If we made good mileage it's highly possible to reach the border tonight. We had t0 make some stops first though. We rode back to Walmart where Josh bought a raincoat. We also stopped by the post office to ship his old rain gear back home. All in all we were ready and on the road to Moorcroft by 8:15. Not too shabby.

On the way out of town a trained passed us. Sometimes you have to keep yourself preoccupied when biking...

All in all the ride to Moorcroft was uneventful and easy. Fairly flat, nice in cool under the morning Sun and it was a quick 30 miles. We stopped in town for a quick lunch and made our way to CR-16.

I expected the road path to begin getting hilly any time now. Once we got to South Dakota we would be in the Black Hills. And while I know nothing about them I imagine they're rather hilly. So I was mentally preparing myself for this.

Another 10 miles or so down the road I started having an issue. The shirt I had bought was too lose, and the wind was flapping against my body every time I pedaled. At first this is no issue, but after forty miles of flapping my poor man-nip was getting chaffed and bleeding! I took pity on my man-boobage and took the shirt off.

After that smooth sailing! I came across an antelope of some sorts. Going along with the theme of the day I decided to race it!

It was a close race, I let him win.

We continued on down the road until we came to a small town called Upton. I had seen it on the map and thought it might be a suitable place to stop and rest. God was in I in for a treat when I got to here. The sign alone screamed "amazing."

Sure, I had to make fun of the place, but the town really had some charm. It was cute. In a dilapidated sort of way. We stopped into a convenience store to grab some items. There was a lovely young girl inside who talked to us for a while. She was very friendly! We asked here if there was a cafe or anything in town I could get wifi and she said no, but that I could sit in there conference room and use theirs. So we took a break, Josh wrote his journal and I went online a bit and wrote 50+ postcards. While I was writing them my good buddy Dave Gould (hi Dave!) sent me a bunch of Frank Rizzo audio clips. For anyone who doesn't know Frank Rizzo you're missing out. God he's hilarious!

We stayed until 4ish and laughed until we cried. I felt bad, I think we overstayed our welcome a bit. Sorry! But thanks again for letting us stay! You're a doll.

I lost your name, but thank you mystery girl!

We left town quite refreshed and in good spirits. There was still plenty of daylight left and we were making solid time. The town of Osage was 15 miles down the road and Newcastle 30 miles. If we kept this pace up we'd definitely make it to the South Dakota border tonight! The land was beginning to get a bit more hilly like I had expected. I was just real curious to see if we'd make it.

Right before we got to Osage Josh had to piss. I felt the need to poke fun at him and his new safari-style hat. Enjoy.

As we pulled into Osage the wind was really picking up. Not normal "annoying" wind. It was that wind you feel before a storm comes through. The sky was darkening fast and we even heard some rumblings of thunder in the distance. Osage was little more than a few houses thrown together. We pulled off the road and found a bar and went inside. Figured they had to have some grub, right?

The bar was nothing special, and they really didn't have much food. They had some frozen pizzas so we ordered like 5 (they were small). We sat and talked to the bartender for a while and she told us all about herself and her family. Apparently her son had passed away which was very sad. About a half hour after arriving a few local boys showed up. They told us the storm was approaching and should break any minute now. We stepped outside just as the lightning started sparking like crazy. It was pretty sweet.

The rain came down and came down hard. It became obvious we weren't going to make it any further. I just wanted a safe place to pitch my tent so we didn't get struck by lightning (not really many trees around, ya know?) We asked the bartender if we could pitch the tent out behind the bar. One of the locals heard us asking and he offered us the fire station for the night. Apparently he's a volunteer and had access to it. We gratefully accepted! The fire station was only a minute away so we hopped on our bikes and he let us in. Check out this place....

Pretty sweet huh? So what did we do? We had about 4 beers each, got hammered, and dressed up like fire fighters! I mean, what else would you do? We drunkenly say in the ambulance and realized we could totally drive this thing around and no one would be the wiser but decided against it. After all, these people were super generous to begin with.

All in all a solid day. We made good mileage, met good people and had good times. Sorry today was a bit video heavy but I think it was worth it.


Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 67.0
Total mileage- 1381.7