Finally Flat!

Wednesday, July 7th. I slept like a baby in the cabin. I have to admit, Josh makes an excellent big spoon. We were up fairly early (well, early for me) and had plenty of time a nice long shower. Really we just didn't want to miss the all you can eat pancake breakfast. The night prior our campground neighbors showed interest in joining us for breakfast. They had a car so we figured a 1 minute drive is nicer than a 5 minute walk. Why not? He's a picture of them at the ol' moose lodge.

They tied up their dog (we didn't think they'd let it in the restaurant) and piled in their car. Six people in a four seater was interesting, but it was also literally like 51 seconds to the restaurant. The place was indeed all you can eat pancakes for 1 dollar. But that was it. JUST pancakes. Nothing else included. Not drinks or sides or anything. Hell I don't even think syrup was included. In the interest of Josh-level-frugality we spent a grand total of 2 dollars. Tax included. Booyah. We ate comparatively quick but hung around and enjoyed the company of our new friends. After about an hour we all piled back into the car and made our way to the cabins.

When we arrived the office manager was waiting at our cabins. She immediately told the family that it was cruel to leave their dog tied up for so long with no water, handed them their money back and DEMANDED they leave. Immediately. She then turned to myself and Josh, clearly pissed told us check out was in 30 minutes and we needed to be gone. Josh was confused why such a nice lady would act out like that. I figured she was a dog lady, she did treat her Boston Terrier more like a child than dog. We were guilty by proxy. Certainly a bit of an awkward start to the morning.

It didn't take us long to pack, said our goodbyes and hit the road. We were theoretically exiting the black hills today and I was excited for the prospect of downhills. We were only a few miles outside Rapid City which is a larger city by South Dakota standards. On the way though, one of Josh's front racks broke. Who'd of guessed! For once a bike issue didn't happen to me! I could tell it was clearly stressing Josh out, so we stopped and evaluated. If we couldn't get it fixed Josh's whole front end would be off balance and difficult to steer. We called a bunch of local bike shops and no one had a replacement. Bad news. Josh even went so far as to call a welder. In the long run we just duct taped the mofo up. Seems to be holding fine. And just a few miles outside Rapid City look at what happened!

Milestone 15 of 35ish!

After Rapid City the terrain changed quickly. It always seems to do that, maybe it's just that were on bikes and have time to notice but literally like 10-20 miles and it's practically a whole new world. For the first time the entire trip I could see nothing but flat. No risk of mountains ahead. No concerns for hundreds of miles. I was truly elated. It was finally flat...

As we followed I-90 we noticed an axillary road running parallel to the highway. We both agreed it might be wise to get off the highway for a bit. And frankly it should be equidistant since it appeared to run parallel for quite some time. Along the way we came across some super weird humpbacked cows. Craziness.

I tried to make friends with that cow but he was being a dick.

We ran into a couple farmers while harassing the local bovines. They told us of a quaint park up ahead with a lake we could camp near. We decided it was probably a wise idea to make that the goal for the evening. The farmers made the directions seem real easy but I'm not gunna lie- we got lost like 3 times trying to find this damn pond! The sun was setting rapidly and I was getting concerned if we'd find it before dark. I'm still not 100% sure where the freaking farmers were trying to send us, but we did finally make it right as the Sun sinking low into a beautiful sunset.

We got most of camp set up before it was completely dark. And lucky for us being next to the lake provided plenty of mosquitoes to keep us company. It was a bit humid out and I elected to keep the fly off the tent for the night. Every freaking night we put it on and it never rained. I also blamed it for most of the sauna-like mornings we had. We laid there, talking about how we couldn't believe how far we've made it. The sky was crystal clear and the stars were beautiful. We made up sexual explicit constellations until we drifted off to sleep.

Trip Summary
Day's mileage- 48.2
Total mileage- 1531.1