First encounter with the West

As we headed west of Pierre, the landscape changed drastically. The large expanses of corn and soybeans disappeared, and we instead found hills covered in prairie grasses, with far fewer grazing cattle to entertain us. If I didn’t find the middle of no-where before, certainly I found it west of Pierre. Not to say that it didn’t have its own beauty, by all means it did. The hills, while they created an additional challenge for us as we began to use our climbing muscles again, stretched as far as the eye could see. As I climbed, I lost all knowledge and sight of the expanse of land that lay around me. But when I summited the small hill, immense grasslands and large, rolling hills swept the landscape before me. The road went down, up, down, up, down, until finally up a bigger hill and out of sight.

We thought that on the road west of Pierre we would be relatively secluded and on our own. A sign saying “next services 66 miles” confirmed our belief that we would really be on our own. But the day we left Pierre -Friday- happened to be the day before a little biker rally in the small town of Sturgis, SD, about 30 miles north of Rapid City.  For those of you not familiar with this event (I wasn’t until we got to South Dakota…), from what I’ve since gathered it’s the biggest motorcycle rally in the nation. The small town of Sturgis (roughly 2000 people) increases by at least 10,000 bikers, but I’ve heard numbers far higher than that... So instead of being relatively on our own for the 66 miles, we instead hugged the shoulder the whole way, being passed by countless numbers of loaded motorcycles headed to Sturgis. I guess I don’t have such a sophisticated appreciation or understanding of motors, but it seems like the louder the bike, the better it is. The sounds of cicadas and prairie birds was constantly drowned out by the buzz of engines.

We rolled into Midland at about 3pm, a town that consists of a couple of bars and a convenience mart. The tap beers were only $1.50 which turned out to be very hard to turn down after my second beer with the knowledge that we still had 30 miles to pedal to get to our intended destination for the day, Philip. Fortunately we had a tailwind all the way to Philip (pop. ~800) and got there by 5pm, just in time for happy hour in the largest town for 100 miles in all directions. If you’re ever near Philip, SD on a Friday night, the
Saloon 78 is the place to be. There was a steak roast-$15 for a GIGANTIC cut of local ribeye with all you can eat garlic bread and potato wedges. The grills got set up and you grill the meat yourself. We ate until we were thoroughly stuffed and retired to play pool the rest of the night.

After Philip, Brint decided to go to Sturgis to pick up his bike shoes which his neighbor had brought out for him. I headed south into the Badlands National Park.