South Dakota Day 4

Day 4 in South Dakota. I keep saying this but the scenery was so different and so beautiful. You learn to appreciate each "kind" of scenery. The mountainous Black Hills, the Badlands with all the buttes and valleys and rocks, and then the plains with all the rolling hills. You could see for miles.

Anyway, we stayed in a mini cabin in Murdo and the morning started with some oatmeal and a quick tube change.

One thing that has always plagued me on these tours is breaking spokes. On my first bike tour across Minnesota I learned that spokes could break... I broke 4 of them! On this bike ride... somewhere on day two I broke another spoke. There was NO bike shops for almost 200 MILES. Fortunately I was able to press on with my wobbly wheel. There was an army of people trying to help me get a spoke and I am grateful for their efforts. We never did get one.

 Thought that one was a special piece of art....

 Miles upon miles of absolutely beautiful scenery!

Originally our plan was to stop in the town of Chamberlain across the great Missouri River. Getting to Chamberlain was going to be interesting. We needed to ride 10 miles on the interstate or add several miles going a "bike friendly" way. YOLO... we took the interstate.

 It wasn't that bad. Most cars moved over and the shoulder was very wide. It also was mostly down a massive hill. It went quickly.

 The Missouri is HUGE compared to most of the rivers I've driven over. The bridge was daunting.

 Thankfully there wasn't a lot of traffic. Sharon was scared out of her mind!

We felt pretty good and pressed on through Chamberlain. It wasn't many miles after leaving Chamberlain that we realized our mistake. Today was the day I was shooting for a century but it didn't happen. We were exhausted! Usually the first 50 miles of the day are no big deal and the remaining miles are tough. These were really tough... and slow. We made it to the booming metropolis of Kimball and parked at their campground. It was rocky and didn't have a shower. There was a small hotel across the street. We ended up at the hotel.

Day 4 Data
Miles: 95.3
Elevation: 2,359
Moving Time: 6:42:10
Average Speed: 14.2