A good day. Finally arrived in Sioux Falls for the last stop in South Dakota. Another milestone was reached today---they have now cycled over 2,000 miles!!! This time, I'm stealing a phrase from my Mom, who's following along on the blog.....no hills, spills, or chills today!! They are now fully in farm country--soybeans, wheat, corn, and grain silos every where. Not huge, corporate farms, but smaller, individually owned farms, with houses and barns and silos.
In these parts, grain silos were placed about every 10 miles because that's how far a steam engine could go before it needed to refill it's water. It's fascinating to learn these little factoids. One oddity is that they like to add colored chips to the road surface. I'm not sure why, but there's a decidedly pink tint to the road.
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| Silos |
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| Pink Road |
Yesterday's oddity was lawn mower races. Today's SAG stop at Canistota featured a mini-pedal-powered tractor pull contest. Some of the riders even entered. You'd think they'd have had enough of pedaling!!
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| Not Too Much To Say About This!!! |
Overall, it was a pretty easy day, even with the headwinds and crosswinds that still are present. For Terry, it was a pleasant temperature, but everyone else thought it was very hot and muggy. I guess riding in Tucson has really conditioned him to the heat. He can certainly take heat better than cold. Fog was a pretty big issue early in the ride, but it burned off after a while.
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| Visibility Was About 3 Telephone Poles--Enough To Go At Normal Speed---Just |
With low mileage and easy climbs, everyone got in reasonably early. Once again, Zippy soon dove into some french fries and pie a la mode---actually had two "modes"---and has become the envy of all those riders who put on weight just by looking at ice cream. Yesterday, Mike, the Ride Leader and official photographer, took this photo of Zippy---which pretty much says it all as to how he is perceived now.....but he added the caption, "But He's Mighty". You can probably guess the missing word behind Terry........Bar. Sometimes Mike has to work hard for his photos.
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| But He's Mighty! |
Everyone is looking forward to tomorrow's rest day. Some people have to go to the bike shop--Zippy for a new helmet, Matt for a new pedal crank, and probably others for other items. Before tonight's dinner, Zippy, Steve, Dan & Travis had to do some laundry. Unfortunately, there were no laundry machines at the motel, so they set off to walk a mile to the nearest laundromat, with their dirty clothes bags thrown over their shoulders. So, the guys ended up sitting in a laundromat, doing laundry on a Saturday night, watching reruns of Seinfeld. They recalled that the last time they did something like this was back in college.......that's a LONG time ago for all of them (sorry, guys)!! It was such an unusual sight, they had to document with photos.
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| Terry Looks In Serious Need Of A Shave |
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| Steve, Dan & Travis Looking Clean |
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These are the same guys that were in the first photos of the trip, dipping their rear wheels in the Pacific. Nice that they've stayed together! Now they have to walk a mile back to the motel. Somehow, after all this riding, this doesn't seem quite fair.
Trip Stats To Date: 27 days. 2,030 miles. 70,390 ft. climb. 4 States............and rolling...........
Next on Route: through Minnesota and Wisconsin to Lake Michigan.
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