A little whining on the prairie

Ok, a lot of whining. This post is dedicated to Tawnya Dudash, who asked me whether I was going to write about everything or just the happy stuff.

Warning: some of this will be graphic and disgusting, so if you don't want to know - don't keep reading!

I'm actually writing this at 7am from a general store/cafe in De Smet, SD, the morning after a really crappy day of riding; coffee and a decent night's sleep are improving my outlook, which is good. The only other people here are local folks sitting together at a big table, telling stories about big storms, where they were during last night's storm and Wednesday night's storm, and tornadoes from their childhood, and it's all pretty funny. The day *after* a crappy day is often fun - you get to tell anecdotes! I'm just gonna complain.

Ever since I left the Black Hills - jeez, last Friday, so it's been over a week now - I feel like riding has been full of challenges that got really irritating yesterday. Unhappy bike parts (tires, crank and then the derailleur), really hot weather, and worst of all: the Plagues of South Dakota. I will itemize:

1. Locusts! West of the Missouri River these beasts are all over the roads - in layers. Flying up from the grass and the pavement, smacking me in the arms & legs & even face, and crunching under my tires... I first encountered them heading to the Badlands from Rapid City, and at the beginning I tried not to run over them. By the second day I was aiming for them. It was gross. I now understand how they could ruin a whole crop.

2. Biting flies! These seem to hang out with the grasshoppers, though I expect I'll encounter them again in Minnesota, Wisconsin and/or Michigan - oh boy.

3. FROGS. These are the worst, most disgusting road kill ever. East of the Missouri everything is wet - it was a snowy winter & rainy spring & summer, so there's a lot of standing water along the roads (the famous sloughs, pronounced "sloo") - and thus lots of frogs. I don't know if they think the road is one giant, hot rock or what, but they're all over the shoulder. Squashed, splayed out, in various stages of rot. Little ones mostly but occasionally a larger specimen. This is SO GROSS I can hardly stand it. I scream every time I run over one, which is often. (Already dead - I've only seen a couple of live ones and managed to avoid them.)

4. Bad shoulders. Not just my own shoulders, which yes are achy after a long day of riding, but the shoulders of the roads. Since Pierre, there have been many miles where there's about 12 inches of shoulder and then gravel - or no shoulder at all, with gravel. With just two lanes for traffic, which includes semi's and RVs, 12 inches to ride on is not very relaxing... not to mention there are SQUISHED FROGS all over the shoulder. And wind.

5. Wind. Now, I know that sometimes I'm excited to get a tailwind - well, always excited when I get one, which isn't that often. But yesterday I had to fight an increasing headwind the whole day. All 78 miles of it. Through the day I had to shift my gears lower & lower as the wind increased, until the last 15 or 20 miles I was basically in "granny gear" - what you'd use to climb a hill - even though it was totally flat! Just against the wind. I have never understood how air can be so hard to move through, but it was really a battle.

6. Butt. All the heat & humidity & bunching up of shorts with sweat & effort is contributing to a very sad butt, mine that is. I feel deep compassion & empathy for all those babies with diaper rash - that's basically what I've got. (And yes, I'm slathering various butt-protection products all over it...)

7. Worrying about thunderstorms. Now, I love a good storm - sincerely, I do. I've been through three this week, and called my friend Cyndi during each one, just because it was so fun & exciting. (I call her for earthquakes, too - she said there was one in SF yesterday - woo hoo!) The good, incredibly lucky thing is that I've been indoors for each one - on Monday at the golf club in Philip, on Wednesday in my dumb hotel in Pierre (where my bike was getting fixed) and last night, in a motel in De Smet. I had totally planned to camp here, but at the last minute a friendly local person pointed out it was supposed to storm & called around & found the last motel room in town for me. So I took it. Yay for me - this storm was crazy - lightning & thunder, wind lashing the rain in sheets across the road out front, for over half an hour. I was sooooo glad not to be cowering in my tent. The complaint about this is the past few days, with storms predicted during the afternoon, I've had to ride with a worried look over my shoulder, wondering if I was about to be hit out in the middle of nowhere. There's generally 20 miles between buildings out here on the prairie, so it's a real worry, wondering where to take shelter if I need to. I've been really lucky - so this compaint is mostly about the tension of worrying about it...

8. Worrying about time/deadlines. Yesterday my deadline was self-imposed, mostly: I really, really wanted to get to De Smet by 5pm so I could go to the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum. She wrote all those "Little House on the Prairie" books that the tv show was based on, and you can laugh at me if you want but those books really shaped my childhood imagination. When I learned just before my trip that this stuff was in De Smet (the little town on the prairie, where they ended up settling) I got so excited about seeing it.... but then the aforementioned wind (and impediment of frogs) made me go so much slower than I'd expected... I just barely made it here by 5:20pm. Turned out they had later hours for the summer, and I got to go on their last tour (of two houses & two schools related to the books). So that part worked out - but worrying about it all afternoon really sucked. And today I have to get to Watertown (60 miles from here) in time to get new glasses, at least ordered but it would be best to actually get them. So... I should get riding. If it's not against the wind I'll get there early, but if it's like yesterday that will suck.

OK. That's my list of complaints. Because I've now had coffee, breakfast, and a cinnamon bun for dessert, I can mention a couple of less cranky things.

A. The Laura Ingalls Wilder stuff was really interesting! To see the actual buildings was cool, but overall what's made the biggest impression on me is the smallness of towns & individual buildings (including a house dug into a hillside on the prairie, which was common) -- in the face of the immensity of the prairie itself and the ferocity of the storms - and winter. Yikes. Can't quite imagine living like that...

B. People in South Dakota are really friendly and nice and helpful. Well, they were friendly in Washington, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, too - but since I've been complaining so much about South Dakota I wanted to mention this. PLUS: the towns all seem to have "City Park" areas (they have signs pointing them out) where you are allowed to camp. That is so civil...

C. Even when I admitted to myself yesterday that I was hating the ride, I also realized that I didn't want to give up and go home - I just wanted the wind to stop and the frogs to go away, and maybe to be in the next town. (Or in Minnesota, where I'll get to tomorrow.)

D. Yesterday I hit the 2,000 mile mark! Woo hoo! Around Wednesday I'll get to St Paul, which I consider the half-way point. But 2,000 miles was exciting. This was also before the wind got too crazy so I was happily ringing my bell & all.

Now I need to get riding again. Hopefully will feel less whiny tonight in Watertown!!