Author: azcolin

#1. Surprise, I was awarded the golden stake, for consulting on dinner prep (it was a complex operation, they executed perfectly while I was off in the shower). 

#2. These come in two sizes!!!

Also a surprise, to me at least.  The smaller one belongs to a ‘standard’ dandelion.  I don’t know what produces the larger one.  Steve and Bob suggested a bigger dandelion, specifically genus dandelioness humongousnesses.  I kinda doubt it. 

52.6 miles today, 2239 miles overall.

We got off to a good start today.  😁  Not too long after we woke in Grant’s back yard, he appeared and offered to provide some scrambled eggs (the unscramble version of the eggs, produced by his backyard chickens).  They were great. 

Before we left, one of the cats came back to visit me (my cat allergy didn’t kick this time). 

Only 11 miles out from David City, we were in Brainard, and at the beginning of the Oak Creek Rail Trail.  It’s a truly fantastic trail; we were disappointed that it is only 13 miles long.  The surface was great and we enjoyed it thoroughly.

We stopped briefly at Loma, another town left behind by the railroad.  St Luke’s Czech Catholic Shrine can be found there.  It looked interesting but was closed.

The trail continued to be beautiful, providing at times, ample shade on this > 90F day.

The trail terminated in Valparaiso where Steve and I were troubled by the signage on this seat.

After a very thorough examination by Steve, I wish I had that on video), Steve and I executed first class naps on the same bench while Bob attended to some important business (mailing unneeded items home, and calling a VIP on her birthday (Happy Birthday Shirley!!)).

Then it was back on the road to Lincoln.  Bob took the busy road with a shoulder.  Steve and I made a wiser choice, and took this quiet road without a shoulder. 

Alas, our ‘wisdom’ only held for the first 10 miles, after which the road got busy.  Bob arrived at the campsite earlier  and significantly less frazzled than us.  He left soon after our arrival and returned with beer and ice cream.  We recovered quickly. 

We have now eaten, and were cheerfully thinking about another meal…

…until the wind picked up and we looked at the weather app.

It’s time to baton down the hatches!

70.4 miles today, 2070.1 overall

Today’s story will be told mostly by pictures.

We separated after stocking up for the day, and took pictures of one another so we would have something to show the police if we got lost.

I set off on the trail, which was beautiful as usual.

Steve and Bob quickly caught up and passed me on the road. 

The trail remained beautiful.

We reunited in the strangely Irish Town of O’Neill (see Steve’s earlier post) and rewarded ourselves with ice cream from the Dairy Queen.

After lunch I got back on the trail

Steve and Bob return to the road.

After getting my second flat tire of the trip, I jumped onto the road to make up time

We reunited again in Ewing, where we had our second lunch, of bananas and tortillas This time Steve was the chef because I was fixing my tire once more!

After the second lunch, it was only eight more miles to Neligh where we enjoyed ribeye steak grilled by Bob, on a fire produced by Steve.

At some point today, Bob was abducted and replaced by a better version of himself, who bought Coors Light, twice!

Finally, here are some pictures of today’s trailside flowers.

63.6 miles today, 1910 miles overall

We spent all day today on the Bridges to Buttes Scenic Byway (also known as Nebraska Hwy 20).  This runs roughly alongside the Cowboy Trail which is undeveloped here so pretty hard going.  The road, however, is great.

Initially the surface and the shoulder were both the stuff of dreams, as smooth as you could wish for. 

However, after 10 miles we got onto an older surface; the main roadway had been resurfaced, but the shoulder had annoying bone shattering cracks every three to five pedal strokes. 

It was like this for the remainder of our journey so we moved between the travel-lane and the shoulder as traffic permitted (the traffic was light and forgiving).

Having crossed the state line into Nebraska last night, I owed a debt of beer to Bob and Steve.  Resolving that debt was foremost on our minds, but we stopped to take some photos along the way anyway.

I couldn’t help but notice this oddly specific road sign (the same sign seems to be used for all picnic areas, but this one matched perfectly).

We found the ‘Bordertown Saloon and Steakhouse’ in Kilgore and I was delighted to discover it was ‘$2 Tuesday’, so my debt repayment was quite economical (the chips cost the same as the beer). We had a great chat here with Lucy One Star and Edgar, from the Rosebud Sioux Reservation,  whose son was working behind the bar.

In the early afternoon we found ourselves in the central time zone, and missing an hour from our day.

I tried to call in a complaint…

After our refreshments we found a spot to eat lunch and pretty soon we were all napping, then looking up at the lovely cottonwoods.

When we arrived in Valentine we saw a sign for $0.99 ice cream cones at McDonald’s.  It didn’t take us long to decide those were a good idea (possibly for breakfast tomorrow as well).  Then we headed to the city park, where we intended to camp, and had another refreshment.

The campsite is nice (and cheap), but the facilities are rudimentary.  We’ve managed to shower and do some laundry; I’ve rigged up a laundry line between a tree and my bike, which may or may not hold all night.

Now the mosquitoes are out and we are trying to make dinner without becoming dinner ourselves (and largely failing).

A final note, we have become suspicious of the cows…

We eventually saw bison…

…with other wildlife working on the evidence of its passing.  I think his dung-ball blew away.

I moved him back next to it but it didn’t seem very happy about that

At least not initially, but eventually he gave it a warm embrace.

59.8 miles today, 1739 total

We left the KOA in Rapid City at about 8:15 this morning, and headed straight to a store to get our usual breakfast of bagels and cream cheese. Conveniently, most bagels come six to a pack so it’s two bagels and a third of a pack of cream cheese each, and off we go, ready for action. There was no convenient park on route so today we consumed them road-side, within sight of I-90. Fueled up, we were ready for a straight shot east with a north westerly wind helping us along.  Here’s the root from my GPS, note that red is faster and blue is slower.

There were undulating hills for most of the first part of the ride so we had fast downhills followed by slow climbs over and over again.

The road was straight.

The scenery was beautiful.

Steve got another flat (that’s not very interesting anymore) and I spent some time with a porcupine.  I set my camera to portrait mode and took another couple of pictures.

Apart from those incidents, the most interesting development of the day was the howling crosswind, it became quite a challenge.

By about 1:00 p.m. we ran out of asphalt and had to make a decision about gravel versus freeway.  We did this while we ate lunch in the shadow (sun and wind) of Wicksville Community Church.  We are not sure where the community that goes with the church is,  because there was nothing for miles around.

So we got on the freeway and if you look at the map above that’s the first long red section. We were blazing.  It was great.  We got off at the next exit to discuss strategy. There was a sign indicating roadworks ahead and a maximum vehicle width of 12 ft and that sounded suspicious. Luckily, a local woman pulled up in a big SUV and said “this looks like three men with way too much energy”.  She was able to tell us that one of the freeway bridges was being replaced and both directions of the freeway were running on the remaining bridge.  She told us about a nice gravel road and she mentioned a bit of a hill.  This road had been on Bob’s original plan, so we set off and as usual the scenery was beautiful.

And then we saw the hill!

This is where a chart is useful (see below).  The big divot is  where we went downhill on the freeway and then went very very slowly back up on gravel.

It was worth it though because the view from the top was smashing.

After that we had a few more inconvenient gravel climbs (chump-change compared to the big one), followed by a very satisfying long downhill on asphalt.  We made our final approach to Wall at high speed on the freeway with the wind at our backs. 

We rewarded ourselves with milkshakes at Wall Drug.

There are signs quite literally all over America for Wall Drug. It’s a strange little, or not so little, store designed to sell all sorts of trinketry.  Is it worth a stop? Maybe; we enjoyed our milkshakes but didn’t indulge in any additional commerce.

Bad news, Steve has had his 5th strike (flat).  But I was a little ahead on the road so I don’t have a picture.

I sat down under the only roadside tree I’ve seen for miles…

…and was chatting with my parents for about 20 minutes before I noticed the porcupine almost directly overhead.