1.19.2012

10.14.2011

I awoke hours before sunrise hearing sparse sprinkles, so I moved my bikes to a position beneath the park's shelter and picked up my tent and placed it right next to the shelter. Slept some more. Woke, brushed my teeth, saw the sign at the bathroom asking overnight campers for eight dollars. I only had a five and a ten, so I left the five and a note explaining why and expressing my gratitude for the place to pitch my tent. Rode back toward the highway and ate at the Oxbow:


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Just nearing the exit of the parking lot, I heard a fresh scraping noise behind me. One rope holding my bmx front wheel to my bmx frame had come undone. The wheel found the ground. I began retying, but a lady pulled up behind me in her truck, got out and offered me the most haggard looking bungee cord I can recall ever seeing. It worked, though...all the way to my destination.

I had been looking forward to reaching Howard. The town had built two wind turbines in 2001 as an investment in their future, rather than an immediate cost-saving project:


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Howard also opened the Rural Learning Center last year with the general goal of revitalizing and innovating rural areas. I'm into that, because my general perception of rural areas, having grown up in one and just spent a year in that one, is that they can easily become "stagnant" without the pressures of relatively higher diversity found in cities, so I was hoping to visit the center and get a more comprehensive idea of what it's doing. Leaving late from home meant cold weather was imminent, though, so instead I just stopped at the hardware store for patching glue, the grocery store for food, and was then on my way again, but I would still like to contribute to a place like the Rural Learning Center.

If I remember correctly, the first flat happened somewhere around here:


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Of all tires that could go flat, it was the one under the least amount of force...and the most difficult and time consuming to patch - the bmx's rear. Even with a 2.25 kevlar bead tire, I still struggled/struggle to remove the tire from my G-sport Ribcage rim. Even so, patching a tube while the grass rustled around in the wind was enjoyable.

Canova is the site of another Miner County wind turbine:


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Around it and across the road was no grass, but people were hauling dirt that covered it. I hope they aren't developing a subdivision. Har har.

I stopped here to stretch, eat some snacks, and watch the interstate that happens to be one of the few things many people I meet remember about South Dakota:


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Not many young people I meet are fond of it, but there's plenty to look at if your mind allows it.

Hoping to reach Menno, but unsure I could before dark, I stood at this intersection a few minutes before deciding to continue south:


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By this point I was quite exhausted and hungry as the sun was nearly out of sight:


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I turned west conscious of how difficult it might be for automobile drivers to see me without lights, thinking as I often do heading into the sun about a close family friend losing his family member because a driver couldn't see her cycling when both were headed toward the sun. Then I was disappointed to realize just how much the south-bound wind had helped me all day, and just how much it was hindering me going west. I reached Menno in the dark, thankful for all the drivers that entered the opposing lane to go around me, because the shoulder was narrow with the noise making ruts that slow down a bicycle much more than any car I've ever driven. In fact, I can only remember a handful of drivers throughout my entire trip who didn't do that. Maybe people are generally more attentive drivers when they live in places that deer and such frequent.

Slept in the city park under a shelter near some bins after a stray cat scoped me out seemingly seeking companionship though hesitant to receive it:


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My friend Scott had called me and wanted to know all my progress, so I gave an estimate of 84.5 miles that day based upon measurements of the 1994 South Dakota map I took from my grandmother's house in the summer. I've been telling people ever since that's been my longest day trip, though I knew I didn't actually know. Only now I realize I actually went 86.2...or so Google says.

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