Written by Chris

Day 40 – July 7 – 71 Miles, 950 feet climbing (Rapid City to Interior)

After being pampered by Lynn for three nights it was a little hard to leave this morning but it was time to get back on the road. We started the day with Lynn coming back across the street where she has been spending the nights to make us another amazing breakfast – this time it was biscuits and gravy. Her breakfast powered us through the first 40 miles of today’s 71 mile ride!

When we went out to the garage to leave, we were greeted by Lauren, the neighbour who’s house Lynn as been stay at and a little while later Julian, another neighbor who is a bike enthusiast. After numerous pictures, many of which included Charlie (Lynn’s dog), including some of him on Curtis’s handle bar bag, we rolled out of town a little after 7 AM. The ride out of Rapid City would have been anti-climatic except we had a light tail wind and wide shoulders which ultimately took us to Interior, SD, getting us into town before noon! Lynn and her neighbors positive energy helped to powered through today’s ride, that and three days of amazing food!

Back to the ride, as we rode out of Rapid City the traffic was light and we were surrounded by green fields. We saw a few deer and the temps were perfect. After having two days off it made for an ideal morning to get our legs and bodies back into “ride” mode. The new chains and tires (Dave, Nancy and my bikes) were a nice addition and should get us to Portland Maine. As we continued on we skirted the south side of the Badlands and eventually hit the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands, which treated us to a group of buffalo and a number of prairie dogs. Given that the landscape was similar to what we had seen over the past couple of days I asked if anyone thought it was “scenic.” Curtis immediately responded “absolutely” and he went on to talk about the green landscape, the flowers, the rolling hills, the Badlands, etc.

On the way to Interior we made a stop at a town called Scenic, which looked like it had a pretty interesting history. Most of the buildings were really old, including what I assume was an old jail made of rock that was no more than 6 feet tall. It had sturdy looking doors and iron bars over the windows. Just looking at the building would have been a deterrent to avoid crossing the local sheriff. Everything in town was closed so we ate some of the bounty from Rapid City and headed onto Interior.

Per our now familiar routine, when we arrived at Interior everyone grabbed a cold drink from the local store, we had a light meal from a taco truck and headed to the campground to set up our tent, get showers, etc. Tonight promises another amazing campstove meal by Curtis. Curtis has established himself as our defacto cook so we need to take advantage of his last three days with us. I’ve been advised that when Curtis leaves I need to plan some of the meals. Given my experience cooking over a camp stove next week may have some “interesting” meals.

Tomorrow will be another 7 AM start. This helps to avoid the afternoon winds but it also requires that the less experienced members of the team get up at 5 AM to organize and pack their bags..