The Ends of the Earth

Pierre to Gettysburg, South Dakota Thursday, July 22, 2021

At the end of my “zero day” in Pierre, I got a personalized tour of the city in Tami’s Corvette! (a gift from her mother)

She drove me by the state capitol

…and a number of life-sized statues of the former governors of South Dakota

There are 25 of these, called the “Trail of Governors”, peppered around the streets of Pierre in lifelike poses, really quite arresting.

Reasonably caught up with my sleep deprivation, I was able to get on the road before 7:30 the next day, to beat the heat. Tami had left at 5 to take a spin on her racing bike, we met and said goodbye 2 miles into my ride. 10 miles in, I passed a remarkable site, although it looks quite unremarkable in this photo.

I zoomed in and labeled what we were actually seeing.

That boring earthen bank is actually the Oahe Dam, with Lake Oahe behind it. The word kind of rhymes with “Hawaii”, interesting because it is almost spelled like Oahu, Hawaii’s most populous island. Anyway Lake Oahe is quite a thing, the fourth largest reservoir in the country, it stretches 231 miles between the two state capitals, Pierre and Bismarck. Its coastline is said to be longer than California’s.

By the time I hit my motel, it was 99° and I was definitely flagging. Luckily it was only 2:30, I was able to get an early steak dinner (great) and a hazy picture of the lake, with one of the few bridges that crosses it.

The next few days are slated to be in the low 100°s, so I will try to get to bed early and leave before sunrise each day. Tomorrow will be the first test of this.

Distance 58 miles, 4,267 total. Time 7 hours with stops. Elevation gain 1,329 feet

©️ 2021 Scott Luria

Lower Brule to Pierre, South Dakota Tuesday-Wednesday , July 20-21, 2021

The opening line to the movie 21, about an MIT professor who trained his students to count cards in Las Vegas. In my case, that chicken dinner was no winner, and I could only choke down a few bites. So it wound up being Cheetos and root beer that sustained me over those five big hills today, I left by 6:30 in the morning, but I should’ve left earlier. I encountered a small pack of dogs wandering free in the reservation at the top of one hill, they were mildly threatening but no major problem. I hear this is not uncommon. I sure I hope I don’t have to use that pepper spray.

About 10 miles in I encountered a disheartening sign “road closed.” Rats. The only other option was to turn back and backtrack 25 miles, over to huge hills and that pack of dogs. I decided to press on and try my luck. After 3 miles of gravel, I encountered a construction worker who told me I could press on if I wanted to, but that they were digging a pipeline up ahead. Sure enough, in another half mile was one of the most dauntingly steep down-and-ups I have ever encountered.

So steep I didn’t dare ride down the soft dirt, I dismounted and inched down clutching both brake levers. A guy in that white pickup rolled by and said “it won’t be fun going up the other side!” He was right. I could push the 100-pound bike ahead only a foot or two, then clamp on the brakes and take a step up, and repeat the process, almost like using a walker. Charming. Took me almost a half hour to cross, and I was pretty grubby at the end. Luckily though, pavement started soon after. I didn’t think to ask what pipeline that was, since they’ve abandoned the Keystone Project.

The rest of the day was a drama-free, and only moderately grueling. It turns out that root-beer-and-Cheetos, while a nutritional disaster, does give you the energy to kick you over those hills, without resorting to caffeine. I did get sweeping vistas of the Missouri, and realized the landscape had changed, I was on the edge of the Badlands.

Not a scrap of shade anywhere, had to eat my snacks with the bike propped against a sign and sitting on the grass. There were crickets everywhere, bouncing off me constantly, one determined little fellow hung on for 20 miles despite my hitting 38 mph and being buffeted by crosswinds, I wanted to call him Jimminy.

I’d better be careful, though, this is a public blog. Disney is very protective of their trademarks, on Cape Cod there was a sweet little mom and pop pizza shop called Geppetto’s, until they heard from the Disney lawyers.

Finally the last hill was behind me, and I could cruise downhill into the 96° heat of Pierre, the state capital. They pronounce it “Pier” here. Spent a couple of hours shuttling between the post office and the FedEx stand, collecting my new tires, mirrors, pedals, the warranty replacement of my raincoat with the broken zipper, only the new camp pillow was delayed. Mailed in the frying pan and some other stuff back home, it was nice not to have my panniers so stuffed. The mile and a half to my warm showers hosts had a few more hills, but their home is perched on a bluff with a sweeping view.

Scott and Tami have recently retired from public service with the state government, and are both doing freelance work. They have been enthusiastic warm showers hosts, the only ones for miles, they’ve already had 11 guests this year. One was still here, Nathan, just graduated from Princeton with a masters in economics, he is biking across the country to meet his girlfriend and start his career in Philadelphia. My recent tailwinds were his headwinds, and he was taking a rest day.

I wound up following his example. We had a lovely dinner at the local popular steakhouse, but had to wait over an hour for a table and didn’t get back till well after dark. Installing my new equipment led to discovering new mechanical problems, and that I had misplaced my next Adventure Cycling map. Dealing with all this in the cool of the evening meant I didn’t get to sleep until 3AM, and I woke up still sleep-deprived, with Nathan departed, the coolest part of the day gone, and still a lot to do. It’s really Scott and Tami’s fault. If their house wasn’t so gorgeous, their hospitality so genuine and complete, and their company so enchanting no one would stay two days.

Distance 66 miles, 4,209 total. Time 10 hours with stops. Elevation gain 2,986 feet

©️ 2021 Scott Luria

Chamberlain to Lower Brule, South Dakota Monday, July 19, 2021

I thought it was Churchill, but it was actually Arnold Toynbee who said “history is just one damn thing after another”. I love that quote, just as I love history. Today I crossed my second Missouri River dam, the Big Bend Dam, which impounds Lake Sharpe without so much as waiting for Lake Francis Case to end. You’d think it’d have a little respect. There’s a doozy coming up at Pierre, stay tuned.

Fittingly, Big Bend Dam was completely unremarkable, not even worth photographing. All it meant was another big climb out of the Missouri Valley. I only did 36 miles today, to the last motel before Pierre, the Golden Buffalo casino. These casinos are getting depressing, they are all the same, with a smattering of customers operating the slots without emotion, slowly blowing money they don’t appear to be able to afford to lose. Every so often someone will win something, but it all appears to vanish a few moments later. Like the lottery, a poverty tax. Only this time it’s going to the First Nations, so I guess there’s some solace in that, that the former fleecees are now the fleecers.

The day started with a humorous coda to the stuck water bottle incident, I came back from the bathroom and my friends had all left, but there was this note.

The day was short, but involved one damn hill after another, in the ever-increasing heat. That’s why I needed the motel, the only campground had “no water”, was over one more huge hill, and it was not supposed to go below 80 tonight, unpleasant for camping.

I’ll have to go over that hill and five others tomorrow on the way to Pierre, again with no services, 60 miles this time. High of 96°. I need to get an early start, but the restaurant here does not open until 10 AM. There is no other food in town. After a roast beef dinner, I ordered the least-greasy meal available in a doggy bag, a chicken roll with french fries to keep in the fridge overnight, I will try to microwave it in the morning and choke it down before leaving at sunrise. From the vending machines, I bought three bottles of water, two root beers, and two bags of Cheetos for the least-stomach churning calories I could find. We’ll see how that flies.

There was some serendipity, I guess. I opened my cooking/food pannier for the first time in days, to see if I could make room for all this liquid. I had brought a frying pan and a little six-egg holder. Two and a half weeks ago, at that campground right before Charles Mound, I bought some farm fresh eggs, which reportedly can last a month if not washed or refrigerated. I had eaten three of them that first day. Now I discovered the egg case was leaking yolk, and was just beginning to smell rotten. Only a couple of things inside were contaminated, and I was able to clean things out without too much difficulty. If I’d waited one more day in this heat, it could have been a very different story.

The egg case was triple-wrapped in plastic and discarded in a bin outside, and I will ship the frying pan back home tomorrow. I’d only cooked eggs that one time anyway, in three months.

Distance 36 miles, 4,143 total. Time 5 hours with stops. Elevation gain 1,535 feet

©️ 2021 Scott Luria

Lucas to Chamberlain, South Dakota Sunday, July 18, 2021

D’oh. It didn’t rain at all last night, despite the 100% chance of severe thunderstorms, so I felt kind of foolish in this crazy hunting lodge, when I could’ve easily camped by the Missouri. Still, I didn’t think it was worth the risk, in tornado country.

It was a pretty uneventful day. Plunged quite steeply down to the Missouri again, actually the same Lake Francis Case that was damned up at Pickstown, steep enough that I worried about my brakes holding, but they were fine. The campground I would’ve stayed at is in the Snake Creek Recreation Area, but there is also a nice restaurant, and even though I wasn’t that hungry, I had a sizable meal because there were no services at all for the next 45 miles. I had copped a couple of frozen water bottles from the hunting lodge, and combined with some non-perishable groceries from the restaurant, I figured I would be OK. I was.

The climb back up the other side of the bluffs wasn’t as bad as the descent, otherwise it was just gentle rolling, with a hot tailwind. It got into the upper 80s, which is about as hot as I feel comfortable riding with a tailwind. A headwind, irksome though it is, is at least somewhat cooling. Tomorrow it’s going up to 94, so I will try to start early and get into a motel by the early afternoon. Yeah. We’ll see if that happens.

At least tonight, I found a lovely campground on the Missouri, at American Creek in Chamberlain. It’s so easy to meet cool people in a campground. I met Douglas, an English teacher who is taking a motorcycle trip from Oregon to the Pittsburgh area, to give support to his ailing grandparents. He is traveling alone, camping in a hammock, and in many ways we have been having similar experiences. We talked for hours about the people we’ve met, political issues, health issues, and life goals. A favorite book of his is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and he followed the exact track of the author for part of his journey. Also met Jenna and Jo, physical therapy students from Cincinnati who left this morning are trying to see the western national parks on the way to Seattle. They wisely made reservations at the campgrounds, but are still concerned about traffic, the heat, wildfires, and the drought. They had somehow wedged the lid of their expensive water bottle on too tight to loosen, and sought our help. This triggered an episode of Male Impotent Prowess Syndrome that would have made Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers cackle with delight. We failed, of course, but not before stifled grunts and groans, trying cooking oil, chilling with cold water, and waiting too long to give up. The ladies and the guys were gracious all around, but I wondered if we had been set up, to take us down a notch. Lord knows I needed it.

Distance 61 miles, 4,107 total. Time 8 hours with stops. Elevation gain 1,188 feet

©️ 2021 Scott Luria

Pickstown to Lucas, South Dakota Saturday, July 17, 2021

Today was a day of symmetry. I left precisely three months ago, so the trip is exactly one forth over. I also happened to pass 4,000 miles on my odometer today. If I can maintain this pace, even with the days I “took a zero” or had meager mileage, I should be able to complete 16,000 miles when the trip is over. I estimated I would need 15,000, so this gives me some margin for error.

Although I felt OK when I woke up this morning, I guess yesterday’s huge mileage, and the moderate heat, took its toll. Even with a tailwind today, my rolling average was only 9.3 mph, when yesterday’s was 10.8.

The day started auspiciously enough. I got to swoop down 3 miles to the Missouri River, right at the Fort Randall Dam, which impounded the 105 mile-long Lake Francis Case.

Trouble is, what goes down must come up, and crawling up the other side of the Missouri River bluffs was enervating, it was hot even in the mid-morning, and I was so bleary I didn’t even witness the odometer rolling over. I was also disappointed to be following US 18 almost the whole way, even on the official Adventure Cycling route, and I did not see a single other long distance bike tourist. All of this was mildly irksome, but nothing too daunting.

100% chance of severe thunderstorms tonight, but it was Saturday, so hard to find a free motel room. Ultimately stumbled upon the Sully Flats Hunt Club, in the middle of nowhere, the proprietor thought there would be a room available, even at the last minute, so I didn’t have to commit until I was 10 miles away and knew that I would make it. He took my credit card info and said he would leave the door open.

I needn’t have worried. This is the hunting club, there was nobody else around for miles. I just hoped Stephen King wasn’t hiding out in one of the back rooms.

From their website https://sullyflatshunts.com, it looks like they make their living running pheasant hunts, and skeet shooting, this was the skeet launching device trailer in the back. Guess it was too hot for that this weekend.

It actually looked nicer on the inside, and I was comfortable, with the whole place to myself. They had a full kitchen, beers in the refrigerator, and a pretty impressive man cave in the back.

Distance 62 miles, 4,046 total. Time 10 hours with stops. Elevation gain 1,499 feet

©️ 2021 Scott Luria

Vermillion to Pickstown, South Dakota Friday, July 16, 2021

For those of you that don’t know, “D’oh!” is the exclamation Homer Simpson makes when he realizes he has just done something stupid. I had two D’oh! moments this morning. My right pedal had been squeaking, and this morning I saw that the bearings were loose. Sean, who is also a bike shop mechanic, confirmed this, and that special tools are needed to repair it. I said “D’oh!” because I had arrived in Vermilion at 3 PM yesterday, and the only bike shop there is open from 1 to 5 PM. But Sean said it was unlikely that they could’ve helped me anyway. Instead, I ordered new pedals to arrive in Pierre, and be held for me at the post office.

The other D’oh! moment was when I looked more carefully at the Adventure Cycling maps, which I had glanced at yesterday. Always worried about getting reservations for weekend nights, yesterday I confidently reserved a hotel 70 miles away. Looking at the maps more carefully this morning, I realized I had skipped a panel, and at the hotel was actually 112 miles away. I’ve had some long days recently, but nothing that long. The reservation was nonrefundable, so the only alternative was to take highways, which would save me 18 miles, some dirt roads, and some of the hills. Ironic, because I had made a big detour just to be able to take the Adventure Cycling route. Now I was going to have to take the highways anyway. D’oh!

A great breakfast from Sean got me going, and I did have a steady tailwind. Maybe better this way. A southeast wind was really a blessing, and rare this time of year. I had been making meager mileage recently, so it was good to really make tracks. It was grueling to be in the hot sun for 11 hours, but doable, and reassuring that I could put in this kind of mileage if I had to.

25 miles in was Yankton, the old territorial capital of the Dakotas. They had a historic downtown, and an old highway bridge across the Missouri that had been converted to a pedestrian/bicycle walkway. I had seen this only once before, in Poughkeepsie NY, the Walkway over the Hudson, the longest elevated pedestrian walkway in the world. This one was almost as spectacular, gave me a chance to see the Mighty Mo for the first time, and to scoot over and tag Nebraska. I plan to be passing through it later, to do the highpoint, but you never know what might come up. For the appropriate soundtrack, I played Melissa Etheridge’s Nowhere To Go https://youtu.be/Hzr9YdRBqFA, and Pete Seeger’s The Big Muddy. https://youtu.be/24VOo7-ctKU

Anybody who has driven across South Dakota knows the ubiquitous billboards for Wall Drug, you pass dozens on the interstate. I saw only one today, and had to photograph it.

Just my luck, my hotel was at the top the highest hill in the region, I arrived sweaty and exhausted at 8:30 PM. It was a casino run by the Yankton Sioux nation, and did have a nice view.

Distance 94 miles, 3,984 total. Time 11 hours with stops. Elevation gain 1,713 feet

©️ 2021 Scott Luria

Orange City, Iowa to Vermilion, South Dakota. Thursday, July 15, 2021

I can’t explain it. Maybe taking that zero day and getting some things sorted out was just what I needed. Whatever, I was able to leave before 8, and cover 64 miles by 3. This is more like it. A nice tailwind didn’t hurt. It’s like Iowa was trying to say goodbye on a good note.

For all of its reputation for flatness, Iowa was surprisingly hilly, as my daily elevation figures will attest. Nothing too steep, but the gentle undulations added up. This was especially true today, when I passed through the Loess Hills, another odd remnant of the last ice age. The glaciers ground the rock into a fine dust, which later became soil that was blown by the westerly winds into dunes, made of dirt, not sand. This rich rolling farmland defines the Iowa-South Dakota border in this area, before giving out into the flatness of the Great Plains.

Crossing into my 11th state, I was amused by the way South Dakota chose as its defining feature. You could say Mount Rushmore was an amazing creation, honoring our greatest presidents. You could also say it was a desecration of the Black Hills, sacred to the Lakota.

I had plotted my route using the South Dakota bike website, which was fairly minimalist, and was surprised that it deposited me on Interstate 29. Fortuitously, a state trooper was monitoring construction at the on-ramp, so I could ask him if it was legal. He said it was, as long as I stayed on the shoulder, which was more than adequate. Not pleasant, with trucks whizzing by at 85 mph, but safe enough. Apparently, this is not uncommon in the west, where often the interstate is the only road available.

I had targeted Vermillion as the place to re-join the Adventure Cycling route, but it turned out to be the college town for the University of South Dakota.

My warm showers host tonight was Sean, a real kindred spirit. At 33, his job in digital marketing and his apartment in San Francisco were disrupted by Covid, so he spent last summer biking across the nation, from Oregon to Brooklyn. He passed through Vermilion, where he had friends, and decided to settle here for a while. His small house was sparsely furnished but quite comfortable, and he cooked me a fantastic meal, including cookies made from cricket flour. Tasty! Our conversation about long distance bike touring, life transitions, and the spirituality of our quests lasted well into the evening. How fun to make a connection with a total stranger!

Distance 64 miles, 3,890 total. Time 7 hours with stops. Elevation gain 2,244 feet.

©️ 2021 Scott Luria

Hawkeye Point to Orange City, Iowa Tuesday-Wednesday , July 13-14, 2021

OK, I’ve done my last touchstone in Iowa. Time to blow. My next destination is White Butte, highpoint of North Dakota, northwest of here. Rather than strike out on my own through the Dakota plains, I’ve elected to follow the Adventure Cycling Association Lewis and Clark Route up the Missouri.

Going that way will be almost 300 miles longer, and it’s a reasonable question, why on earth take such a detour? Especially after the delays waiting for the opening of Charles Mound, and my slow progress through Iowa. It really could imperil my ability to cross the Rockies before the early autumn snow starts setting in.

But I’m learning that this trip is more about the journey than the destination:

1. I’m tired of having to pick my own route, having to pore over state highway maps and find roads that have a good shoulders, pavement, and not too much traffic; and then transfer these routes to my mapping software. Too many times, when left to their own devices, RideWithGPS and Google Maps put me onto dirt roads. Then I have to stop, pull out the map, and figure out an alternate route, often while standing in the middle of an intersection with nothing to lean my bike against.
2. Iowa at least has a good state bicycle map, but North and South Dakota do not.
3. I’m lonely to meet other bicycle tourists, much more likely on an ACA route
4. I have a soft spot for old Meriwether and William. We have crossed their path numerous times on previous outings, including a cross country family trip at the 2005 bicentennial of the Corps of Discovery. I love how they got away with hilarious misspellings in their journal. Sacagawea is a particularly compelling figure. Continuing my theme of historical rubbernecking, I plan to visit the site of Meriwether’s suicide, on the Natchez Trace, when he was being summoned to Washington to account for discrepancies in the books while governor of Louisiana.
5. 15 years ago, when the route was being researched, I made a contribution, and am therefore one of the sponsors.
6. I can’t think of Lewis and Clark without recalling one of my favorite Far Side cartoons:

Just as I was leaving the campsite I was visited by Kelly from Bangor Maine, who was on a multi-year tour to visit all 48 states, on an e-bike rig that weighed 300 pounds. It was quite a sight, a huge cargo bike, festooned with multiple panniers, including a couple of pet shelter-type boxes (no pets that I could see.) “No pictures, please” he said. He’d been camping behind the bushes at the highpoint last night, heard me talking with Travis and Brandi but didn’t come out, thought we were just kids.

My nearest access point for the L&C route was Vermillion, South Dakota, to the southwest, and rather than zig and zag through the graph-paper grid of back roads I just took Iowa Route 60, a limited-access road that allowed bicycles but often had marginal shoulders. Always safe, with good separation from the traffic but the rumble strip often ate up most of the shoulder leaving only two feet to the gravel margin. I’ve gotten semi-comfortable riding these narrow strips, but it means constantly having a firm grip on the handlebars, never looking away for even a second. Exhausting over the long run, but saving many miles, and with far less hills. I know, didn’t I just say it’s about the journey, not the destination?

After 43 miles of this into a headwind, and with thunderstorms approaching, I ducked out to a motel in Orange City. 80% chance of severe thunderstorms on Thursday, so I took a zero and got caught up, somewhat. I did bike a mile to a restaurant…

Of course, the storms weren’t as bad as predicted, so I felt a little foolish. When younger, I was a lot braver about potentially bad weather. But something about storms in the open plains creeps me out, there’s no easy way to seek shelter, and this is tornado country.

Distance 44 miles, 3,826 total. Time 6 hours with stops. Elevation gain 426 feet.

©️ 2021 Scott Luria

Ingham Lake to Hawkeye point, Iowa Monday, July 12, 2021

Back in 1973, when Brian and I first started highpointing, there was only one guidebook available, just a pamphlet really: Highpoints of the States, by Frank Ashley. I still have my copy. He identified Rib Mountain as the highpoint of Wisconsin, Mount Curwood for Michigan, and Ocheyedan Mound for Iowa. All three turned out to be inaccurate, after more detailed survey information became available. As I mentioned in previous posts, Rib Mountain is certainly more impressive-looking than Timm’s Hill, but 24 feet lower. Mount Curwood is just 11 inches shorter than Mount Arvon. And Ocheyedan Mound is 15 feet lower than an imperceptible rise in a cornfield, later named Hawkeye Point.

My ride today took me right past Ocheyedan Mound, and I kept a lookout for it. I’ve been bemoaning the fact that most of these Midwestern highpoints are unrecognizable as such as you approach them. It’s too bad, the Mound at least looked like a hill from afar.

I had to go check it out.

I am a glacier geek, into moraines, kettle ponds, and drumlins, but I have never heard of a kame before. If you zoom in on this picture, you can see the details. Interesting.

The view from the top was expansive in all directions, but difficult to capture on camera. The view to the northwest shows the town of Ocheyedan, and somewhere behind it, 11 miles away, is Hawkeye Point, although you’d never know it. This was the first 360° view from a natural point on the entire trip. (I did get one from the fire tower on Timm’s Hill.)

To the southeast were hundreds and hundreds of wind turbines, but they didn’t show up well in the picture, I won’t even bother posting it. It was quite a sight after dusk, all those air warning lights.

Definitely worth the slight detour, but it did set me even further behind (I typically get late starts talking with charming warmshowers hosts), so I only had an hour of daylight left when I arrived at Hawkeye Point itself.

I spent half of that setting up camp in the campground that was right there. Then I hurried over to the highpoint, which, for all my scoffing, has been nicely improved. Until recently, it was just a feed trough on the Sterler farm, but the family passed the land on to the state, and it made an interesting park there. When life gives you lemons…

• 

• 

There was one other couple there, Travis and Brandi,

who had done Illinois (on a no-access date, but nobody stopped them) earlier that day and were heading to the Badlands. They were from Portland, Maine, she had just gotten her PA degree and was starting in the neurosurgery department at Maine Medical Center in a month, they were trying to see as many highpoints and national parks as they could. Brandi’s mother has done all 50, and will be joining her on Granite Peak next month. Brandi is also trying to run a marathon in every state, and has already done many, as has Travis. They were an impressive couple, and we talked until after the sun went down, I’m afraid I held them up on their journey.

I lingered until it got really dark, finishing my Subway dinner and taking as many pictures as I could in the meager light.

Tonight was the Mars-Venus conjunction, but there was enough ground haze that I could only see Venus and the moon. It didn’t show up well in photos. Didn’t get to sleep until after midnight.

Distance 74 miles, 3,782 total. Time 10 hours with stops. Elevation gain 1,348 feet.

©️ 2021 Scott Luria

Clear Lake to Ingham Lake, Iowa Sunday , July 11, 2021

Hallelujah! The stars seemed to align on this Sunday morning, and indeed Mars and Venus were in conjunction above. I slept well, my caffeine withdrawal is largely done, and it was perfect weather today, with a fair wind and moderate temperatures. I was able to leave early and make it to the somber memorial in the cornfield before 9 o’clock.

It’s marked not by a sign but by an icon, Holly’s trademark Wayfarer glasses, recreated in steel and anchored to concrete posts. The stark effect is diluted somewhat by scores of glasses left as tribute.

The land is privately owned, and the farmer has been generous to allow tourists to cross the quarter-mile to the spot where the plane was found. I walked it with a family who had driven up that morning from St. Louis, en route to a Twins game in Minneapolis. Like my buddy Brian, they are trying to catch a ball game in every stadium in the country.

This is the shrine itself, really quite modest when taken in toto, although the individual elements are poignant.

I checked in with Jane, Eric, and Ellen as I walked out. I recall many discussions with Eric back in 1971, as we tried to decipher the lyrics of American Pie. I was there for a total of 45 minutes. One last footnote, the local newspaper article framed on the wall of the motel.

I talked for an hour and a half with sister Sarah, the English literature professor, and we explored my morbid fascination with the sites of these tragedies, both of our writing projects (my blog, her sabbatical), and how we felt about Dad’s recent passing. When we finally hung up, I saw I had covered 25 miles while we were talking. This trip has been enhanced by long conversations with both of my sisters, Anne in particular has a knack for reaching me at ideal times, like Lake Itasca and Music Man Square.

I mentioned to Sarah that I found the endless, mildly rolling cornfields around me, peppered by hundreds of wind turbines, to be not boring but somehow moving. She suggested I take pictures, but they just don’t capture it.

There was only one blot on this perfect day. Another bridge out, this one would necessitate a 9 mile detour (added to an 85 mile day), and I didn’t want to keep my warm showers hosts waiting that long.

I decided to just bull through it, crossing that muddy stream and moosing the bike up the steep rubble; I got filthy, I could have hurt myself, and it took half an hour anyway. Maybe not the wisest choice.

I got to Curt and Cindy’s lovely home on Ingham Lake at 7, and over dinner I learned how they had both retired from school teaching in Texas in their 50s, and returned to their native Iowa. They have a podcast encouraging people to make the most of their retirement, with big, active projects, and I hope to contribute to it when my trip is over.

Distance 85 miles, 3,708 total. Time 11 hours with stops. Elevation gain 1,845 feet.

©️ 2021 Scott Luria