Saturday dawned foggy, suboptimal. But it rapidly improved, and for once, everyone was ready; we set off for Grand Teton National Park around 7:30, planning to hike and bike and capture the great State of Wyoming.
The parking area at our chosen hike was already full, but not to be dissuaded, we parked on the shoulder and set off for Taggert Lake. Graham and I separated from Betsy and Kip along the way and added an extra mile onto our effort. We all glimpsed a fox at the end of the trail.
We prepped for the ride. Kip announced that it was going to start raining in twenty minutes. Sometimes, having instantaneous weather info is disheartening. Luckily, sometimes it is also wrong. Graham and I mounted our metal steeds and rode 34 dry miles on the bike trail system, from Taggert Lake to the town of Wilson and beyond, through neighborhoods, keeping an eye on the sky, but riding in partial sunshine, perfect temps, into the wind and trading off the lead.
We stopped for a quick snack at a school parking lot and took another look at the peaks and the sky, and we hot-footed it for home. We only got a little bit wet… An excellent hike and ride and a great day for 50 in the Fifties. Wyoming solidly in the books!
State 46, Wyoming 46 miles cycling, 4-mile hike at Taggert Lake, Grand Teton National Park
Tomorrow we drive again…destination: Rapid City, South Dakota.
It was often difficult to remember where we were on a given morning, where we had been, and where we were heading. Every once in a while, I would review in my journal:
States Captured: North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming
States Missed: Wisconsin (rain), Idaho (fire)
States to try for: South Dakota, Nebraska
Hail was expected overnight and 40-50 mph winds…
We met up with Sunday as she arrived, and we drove and drove and DROVE. Up and over the Continental Divide again, temps at 37 degrees. Fresh snows on the tops of the Tetons and wet roads through the pass. Descending, we passed through Dubois, which we had not seen since 1988 when we were on a ranch vacation as newlyweds. There were red rock cliffs, and the Dubois River was running red with mud.
We stopped for gas in a town called Midwest, which is as puzzling as Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania.
Kip took the wheel for a couple of hours and was fine as we traversed the northwest corner of the Black Hills National Forest. We stopped briefly to gaze at the Devil’s Tower National Monument. Smoke still hung in the air…
We were over 4,000 miles into the trip, no beginners, us. Our place in Rapid City was lovely, with a garden and a large outdoor seating area. We looked forward to using it as a base for three nights as we explored Badlands National Park and the many wonders of this area. We saw almost no motorcycles. We had successfully avoided Sturgis!
Ahh, but…
Monday came. I woke up at 4:20 because I was not at all happy with the plan. We had too much on our plates for this day: a drive to Badlands National Park and a hike and a very tough ride on the tour road. But with everyone having just arrived in Rapid City, we did not get off to the super early start which would have made this possible. We did get out at 8:30, but by that time, the temperature, which had been a cool desert 55 degrees at sunup, was starting to climb…
We drove for ninety minutes, dropped off our support Subaru, and KNK climbed into the minivan with GNB. Twenty-four scenic miles later, at the foot of a badland, stopped by a traffic flag for 15 minutes, Graham said, “Uh oh…”
We were running out of gas. Let me repeat that- running out of GAS. In Badlands National Park. To me, this was quintessentially BAD. I wanted to turn around immediately and go back to the gas station which the flag man said was two miles away, by the visitor center. Nonetheless, we stayed in line and eventually summited the badland, on a road so steep that I thought we might run out of gas simply because the car was on such a drastic incline. Against all odds (in my anxious mind), we made it to the hike parking lot, and we walked among the Badlands and picked our way over small crevasses and stayed safely back from the edge of supremely harsh drop offs.
And the sun beat down on all of us, and this bighorn sheep. He, and we, sought shade in vain.
Upon our return to the car, we rode on fumes down to the gas station. I noted the thermometer read 95 degrees. It was high noon.
Graham and I prepped the bikes and ate what I was thinking might be our last meal of peanut butter sandwiches and Gatorade. The desert winds were building out of the west, gusting around 30 miles per hour, filling the space as the heat rose to the sky. As we set off to the WEST (of course), it was 100 degrees.
We were eager and felt strong at the start. I was leading on the flats, trying to keep the wind off Graham and his very heavy recumbent. We had about twenty two miles to go to get to the place where KNB had left the minivan and grabbed the previously-dropped off Subaru. Logistics, logistics, logistics…
We arrived at the base of the first hill. I was doing okay until about 100 yards from the top.
Graham said he knew when he passed me that I was in trouble. Remember, under normal circumstances, I climb faster than Graham does, with a lighter rig.
I had forgotten my meds for overactive bladder that morning, with predictable results, especially under such a physical and mental strain. Yet I continued to pull us along the flats for a time, until Graham mercifully switched out and took the lead. Unfortunately, that didn’t help, and I slowed, and s l o w e d. The wind was knocking me backward, and the heat enveloped me in a womb of misery. Every breath I took dried my teeth and nasal passages with the effect of opening an oven door on Thanksgiving Day. I was in the place where altitude puts Kip, incapable of happiness. I pulled into the next pull-out, and there, overlooking the brutal badlands of South Dakota, I pulled out.
Graham locked my bike while I sat, miserable, on the curb. He asked a family of three in a large SUV if they could spare some cold water for me. My own was hot to the lip. And in an act that demonstrates the kindness of strangers, our new acquaintances held a family meeting and decided that they would take a detour from their own plans and drive me to the rendezvous with the minivan some 10 miles up the road. They said they just could not leave me there.
As soon as I sat in their back seat, I recovered completely. I wasn’t sick, I was just Done. Or more accurately, Cooked. We chatted about their hometown, Pittsburgh, and about the golden rule. And as we climbed the last hill in air-conditioned comfort, I knew I had made the right decision. It was now 105 degrees. And the hill was one that would have been a major challenge at 60 degrees. There was no way I would have made it. I could done myself permanent harm. I feared for Graham, who was cycling on…
I owe an unpayable debt to that family from Steeltown.
So I retrieved the car and drove back to Graham as fast as safety would permit. I saw him fighting the wind under the blazing sun and directed him into the next pullout so I could turn the car and meet him there. When I arrived, I found him standing in the scant shade of the only tree in the entire park.
We loaded his bike, and then I drove back to get my bike while Graham worked on his own recovery. We headed out of the park and to Wall, SD, home of the famous Wall Drug, but we didn’t fall into that tourist trap. We got sodas and agreed that we had made a good effort under impossible conditions. I felt deflated, but not defeated. On a different day, at a reasonable hour and temperature, I think I would have had a good chance. Someday, maybe, I will pass this way again. But Badlands went badly. Nuff said.
We had two more full days to explore the region, and there was plenty to do.
On a certain Tuesday, Kip and I ventured alone to the Crazy Horse Monument early in the day, arriving just as it opened to visitors. This monument was conceived by the Lakota (probably) and entrusted to a Polish sculptor. He devoted his life and the lives of his wife and ten (!) children to it. He was a brutal taskmaster. Once, his son fell with a bulldozer seventy feet. When he found him unharmed, he said, You got the dozer there; you get it out.”
During construction, one of the best decisions was his wife’s. She made the call that the work would commence with the man, not the horse. Otherwise, we would have nothing to look at except a horse for forty years.
For this truly monumental undertaking, they set themselves up for the long haul. They built a workshop and living space and filled it with European antiques and a Steinway baby grand. Their home is now part of the museum, and you can see it all right there, but you can’t tickle the ivories. I would have been tempted to play Dust in the Wind.
The other fascinating work was a gate hammered in iron and ( copper?) featuring intricate likenesses of Black Hills animals. It was completed in 1982 and must have been among his last works. No repeats. Every animal unique. I found it very special, especially since we had seen many of the animals on our trip.
Afterward, we went shopping for food for our farewell barbecue and for Kip’s foster family in Wounded Knee, deep in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, southern South Dakota. This sojourn to meet the teenaged boy he is fostering from a distance is something Kip has been looking forward to for many months. We bought sweets and fresh veggies and fruits and dried meats for N and his grandmother, E.
The drive through the South Unit of Badlands National Park, mostly within Pine Ridge, subjected us to a stop by Native American Tribal officials to check our COVID status. They asked where we were going and our names. They said we needed to wear masks if we left the car. Local radio the whole way down was talking Covid, all accurate and detailed. Precise numbers of the vaccinated by vaccine and by sex. only 33 percent vaccinated… It was a stark reminder that we were entering another country, with its own laws and customs. I was reminded of my trip through an INS checkpoint between El Paso, Texas and Guadalupe Mountains National Park, though there was no sense of a veiled threat here. and the officials did not check our back seat and trunk for immigrants…
We stopped at the Wounded Knee Memorial site to find a confusing and informal sign and a man who swooped in like an eagle and sold us a dreamcatcher for an exorbitant price. It was a sad point in the trip, seeing that nothing of substance marks the place where so many people died.
Just up the road a piece, it was easy enough to find N’s house and yard. It was filled with Res dogs and two little girls, and a new swing set and a trampoline. Another little girl and a neighbor showed up to watch. The food was tramped into the house, and N asked if they could keep the coolers. They have so little…
E was very happy to get a large supply of Depends and even and especially the reusable shopping bags. The whole family was on hand to greet us, and it really felt good to get a chance to meet each other after solely phone conversations from the beginning of the relationship.
Life is rough. The kids are barefoot. A puppy named Lucky with his eyes barely open is pushed down slides and lands on skateboards. The young here have to grow up fast, and basic survival is an achievement. But N is attending high school and doing very well in class. He and Kip share an interest in strategy video games.
The trip was 3.5 hours, round-trip, and eye opening for us, if not for Lucky.
Back at the house, after GNB returned from their day at Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse, our final dinner as a foursome was a resounding success. The time for us to part ways and head in separate directions was upon us. Destination GNB: Green Bay, Wisconsin. Destination KNK: Crested Butte, Colorado.
Epic trip. Excellent friends. Enormous country. And it was far from over!
Early on a Wednesday, KNK set off for Colorado to visit Laura and Joe in their native surrounds. Along the way, I hoped to add a bit more challenge to my 50 in the Fifties list for South Dakota, so we planned a stop at Wind Cave National Park for some hiking and a cave tour.
As luck would have it, this particular Wednesday was the 105th anniversary of the founding of the National Park Service. Cave tours were FREE! Kip and I set off on a one mile hike highlighting some of the above ground beauty of the park. Most folks see the cave interior only, so the trails are lightly traveled and lovely.
We saw the sacred Natural Entrance to the cave, which is about 12-15 inches in diameter.
Underneath it all, the most complex cave system in the world. It is still under active exploration. Our female ranger was a caver in her younger days, so she was the ideal guide for the trip. She explained the intricacies of boxwork, lace, and popcorn. It almost sounds as if she were opening a UPS package from Harry and David, but she was describing cave formations. There was one little boy who was very curious and active, monopolizing the tour and completely uncontrolled by his parents. We figured they were really eager for the school year to start.
Afterward, we drove the prairies of Wyoming into Cheyenne, singing “Goodbye, Old Paint.” Or at least I was singing. Kip was enduring, like that little boy’s parents. We were hot on the trail… the Oregon Trail! We found the ruts to prove it, in little known Guernsey, Wyoming:
We are travelers taking our place in a long tradition, laying our tire tracks near those of our forefather- and mothers, who I noted were never mentioned on the sign… : homesteaders under the Homestead Act, Mormons seeking salvation, ordinary people risking it all in hopes of striking it rich, and, later, cattle barons and railroad tycoons. All of us occupying and claiming for our own purposes land that had been cherished for generations by its original inhabitants.
Guernsey was, somehow, both on and off the beaten track, and proved one of the most thought-provoking spots on the trip for me.
Our Air BNB was a 1920s era house that was only marginally clean and had spoiled milk in the fridge. But it also had fresh almond milk and a quiet neighborhood, and a bike brigade went by just as we arrived. I would have like to join, but my bike was locked up.
So there you have it. We came to South Dakota, we saw it, and we tried to conquer it. With Betsy, Kip, and Graham’s support, I took on the challenge of riding the tour road in Badlands National Park. I only covered 12 miles, but they were the toughest twelve I ever rode. I hiked an extra coupla miles. I spent time on a Reservation and met some new friends there. I didn’t accomplish all I had hoped for, but I did everything I could.
South Dakota puts me in mind of Vermont as far as 50 in the Fifties is concerned. Short, but incredibly hard.
STATE 47: South Dakota- Badlands National Park: 12 miles cycling, 1-mile hike; Wind Cave National Park, 2-mile hike