My diet has not been healthy – just as well I’m cycling it off. I’ve never been very skilled with campsite cooking and I’m getting fed up with tinned chilli, tinned ravioli or crappy packet pasta and sauce. I’m stopping to eat at most places I come to, partly for variety / partly cause it’s a good way to meet folks – breakfasts are always good but even in some of the bigger towns your limited to Subway or a variety of MacDonalds or Burger Kings, etc. Tonight I’m in Pierre and decided to have a Cowboy pizza from Pappa Murphy’s – I didn’t realise until I was presented with an uncooked pizza that Pappa Murphy do “takeaway to bake yourself” – luckily the boss was understanding when I explained I was travelling by bike and couldn’t cook the pizza – refund was given and I ended up eating Chinese takeaway with a nice view of the Missouri River.
So since I last posted I’ve left Wyoming and am now in South Dakota and this evening I’ve jumped an hour ahead and gone from Mountain Time to Central Time. Last night it was dark by 8pm so should get a wee bit more daylight in the evenings now (I think).
The last few days have been tough but good – I’ll see how tomorrow goes but might need to have a wee rest day. Poor Bertie seems to be holding up so far – lots of pedalling but not much love and attention. All my bruises are pretty much gone but still have a big lump on my arm – doesn’t seem to be causing a problem though.
So in the last few days I’ve been to Crazy Horse, Mount Rushmore and cycled through The Badlands.
Crazy Horse is the Native American’s response to Mount Rushmore and is still an ongoing project (and will be for sometime) – great to see it, even though it seems very destructive to the mountain; lots of artefacts in the museum but not a great deal of actual information past or present and there didn’t seem to be any Native Americans working there – except for the fellow playing a variety of flutes, made from a variety of different woods – loved the music and he had lots of stories and history to tell – glad I’ve been and would be interesting to know what it looks like in another 10 or so years time but came away with mixed feelings.
Mount Rushmore was heaving and worse by the time I left but definitely worth seeing. My history of American Presidents, apart from recognising names – well that’s pretty much it – but still good to see and also the methods and tools used to do the sculptures was interesting.
The ride to The Badlands from Scenic was dry and barren. Lots of prairie dogs (who have the plague, according to the signs). Before leaving Scenic I met Alvin, one of the Lokota Native Americans – we chatted for a while about a variety of things – Alvin was interesting to chat to, although I didn’t always understand some of what he told me – what I do know is that Alvin does not like Crazy Horse and tells me it is just a mechanism for getting tax free money.
I was approaching The North Badlands from the South – most people seem to do an in and out from the north – this meant there was much less vehicles on the road which was great but also made me a little nervous if something went wrong. I took the shorter route, which included 7 miles on a dirt track road – I flagged one of the few cars coming the opposite way, down – just to confirm I was going the right way. By the time I had got into The Badlands proper the sun was starting to go down a little which picked out the amazing colours in the rock formations. As well as the sun going down, despite drinking lots, I was badly dehydrated so it was off to Wall as quick as my weary legs could to pitch tent and get food and drink – but not before getting some photos of the very un-wild wild mountain goats, who were well used to tourists!
