sioux falls to the bighorns

i definitely don't have the memory to cover this amount of days, but luckily every night i have been writing down about 1-5 words to help keep things in order hahaha.
back in sioux falls i met a Lakota native named Leon Bird Horse. He showed me around a little bit and we just compared pasts. He grew up on a nearby reservation and is the only person from his family to leave. he didn't like all the alcohol and what it did to everyone. so he came to sioux falls and is working for a landscaping company. sioux falls is the only city he's ever been to, but now he's thinking of moving to minneapolis for another job. crazy! in rapid city i talked to a couple of other natives and they let me try some of the food that they get from the government. it's good that they're able to get it, but when i was eating some cheese i definitely had to use my imagination to believe that it was actually cheese.
in sioux falls we got to see harry potter at midnight on opening night! this caused us levels of excitement too great to convey, as we had only been talking about it for the entire trip and even making up trivia questions for each other while biking. unfortunately, we dragged our host, travis along, and he did get a lot of good popcorn courtesy of phil, but im pretty sure it wasn't his choice activity. we didn't get back till after 3am and he ended up calling in sick from work because he was supposed to go in at 6am. well travis, all i can say is thank you for your sacrifice, it was not lost on us. you were one of the most amazing hosts ever! our route out of sioux falls was perfect and it was all thanks to you.
the word "sioux" is actually a french word used to talk about the Lakota people.
so for the first time, biking on the interstate is sometimes necessary, often the best and most direct route, and is actually quite pleasant because there is so little traffic going thru states with so few people.
after sioux falls we made it about 70 miles to mitchell where we stayed with Dave Stevens, a warmshowers host who had just joined the site a week before. he is a ref in the famed corn palace, which i guess is pretty cool but also could be seen as a big waste of corn in my opinion. Dave filled us in on the tour de france and took us out to a really nice dinner! a deluxe breakfast the morning after left us more full that we'd felt in awhile.
there are lots of pheasants in south dakota; it's the state bird but sd is one of five states where you're allowed to shoot the state bird hahaha.
so the nite after mitchell we did some guerilla camping and were awakened to a tour of 50 international, senior-citizen-aged cyclists heading in the other direction. they were supported and had fancy bikes and jerseys, but were also leaving at 5:30am and doing up to 120 miles per day! pretty bad ass for old timers. we met people from new zealand, trinidad, and the uk.
the landscape switched from corn to prairie and the sky seemed to somehow get even bigger, the sun even stronger, the sunsets even more magnificent, the winds stronger, and the stars even brighter even in towns with lots of light pollution. in short, the world is getting crazier day by day. people keep getting nicer too if that's possible; you know you can get help in south dakota and wyoming if you need it just by all the people who willingly stop of their own accord to see if you're okay when you're stopped.
we made it out to the badlands and used some borrowed motorcycle passes to cruise into the park for free, woot! we have sinced passed on those passes to other xc cyclists going the other direction, and they gave us their yellowstone passes.
the badlands seem to spring out of nowhere and are very expansive and beautiful. there were less tourists than i thought but we were biking thru late in the day and got to catch a wicked sunset from the top of one of the passes, it was absolutely ridiculous. we also saw a lot of prairie dogs, who didn't really appreciate our presence but if you're gonna choose to live on the side of the road in the badlands you should probably get used to people.
the town on the other side of the badlands is called Wall and is infamous for Wall Drug, a drugstore that's more like a mini mall and a huge tourist trap. it has delicious and dense donuts and the town served as a really good camping area for us. there are literally about 80 signs on the interstate for wall drug, it is quite bewildering and reminds me of howe caverns, shout out to lauri kaity and peg hahaha.
from wall we went on to rapid city and stayed with a family of 4- Dan and Mary are the husband and wife, remy is the 8 month old son, and tig is the dog. mary took us food shopping in a van which was kind of a novelty, and we all kind of made dinner together and talked about twins and buddhist monks. the next day i picked up a letter that my friend paul sent general delivery to the rapid city post office and it is one of the best letters i've ever gotten, i'll definitely be rereading it lots on the rest of the ride. it even came in a braille envelope, i mean come on now. i also went to the bike store to get a new chain and new brake pads, and to have my derailleur bent back into its nearly original shape, whoops. bike feels great now hahaha im glad to have my lower gears back cuz climbing climbing climbing is our future.
the black hills are what greets you leaving rapid city and there are more pine trees than you've seen on the whole rest of the trip combined. we saw mt. rushmore and the crazy horse monument, which is still a work in progress and should be absolutely crazy (harharhar) when it's completed! then we cruised downhill a bit into Custer, where we warmed up with coffee, soup, and chili, and then went back to our old guerilla camping habits. we went to bed early and got up at 7 for the toughest ride of the trip- 115 miles from custer to gillette, think hills and headwinds thrown into the mix, yikes! i wouldn't have made it without phil, i just didn't think i had the energy, but phil's constant good mood and energy plus the beautiful landscape plus a major stop and subway kept me going somehow. i thought i was going to break down and cry for the last 30 miles but at the end of the night i could just laugh it off. gillette is the energy capital of america, supposedly, and has the country's largest air-cooled power plant or something like that, and it is both ridiculously large and ridiculously bright.
gilette to buffalo (can u tell i don't know how to spell gillette) was beautiful and mostly downhill on interstate 90. and only 70 miles! it felt like nothing. we met those two other tourers who were going the other direction, they are exactly our age and their names are nico and caleb i think haha. we talked for awhile and were able to exchange good advice and stories since we had all just completed the journey that the other party was about to embark on.
buffalo is where we are now. it sits at the base of the bighorn mountains, where i am seeing snow for the first time in many moons. we are about to climb them, 10,000 feet in one day but we have heard stories and seen photos suggesting it is more than worth it. plus there is an 18 mile downhill on the other side! so we're about to leave, phil's just getting a bit of work done at the bike shop and then i think we're off!
for dinner we had hamburgers last night, but that would actually be about my 4th time eating meat on this trip. i have been dreaming about it and so for the first time in 8 or so years i am stopping being a vegetarian for the remainder of the bike trip.
john is one of the coolest people i've ever met. he is a great pianist and composer and let me try to play some of his music and gave me some to take on the trip and practice in my brain. it has been so much fun to stay at his house, definitely good times!
i just bought a plane ticket home for august 14th from portland to boston! crazy! only 3 weeks left.... hope we make it =0P