Thursday, July 13, 2017
Start: Kadoka, South Dakota
End: Chamberlain, South Dakota
Mileage today/cumulative: 115 / 1,841
Elevation Ascended: 3,038′
Weather: Sunny, 71° at start; sunny, 88° at finish
3D Relive Video (approx. 1 minute)
When we cycle at home, we pay little attention to the wind forecast, unless there’s going to be a severe storm with wind warnings. We never look at what direction the wind is blowing because regardless of which direction we ride, at some point we have to change direction to return home. A headwind going out usually means a tailwind coming back.
Not so on this tour, when we are almost always riding in one direction – east. Because of that, everyone is obsessed with the wind forecast and groans when it has some variation of the word “east” in it. There was a LOT of groaning today as we rode 115 miles straight east into a 9 – 12 mph headwind. On top of that, we lost an hour when we rode into the Central Time Zone. The route wasn’t very exciting – we made one turn leaving Kadoka and didn’t turn again for 102 miles, and that was to get on the interstate for ten miles. Lots of rolling terrain that requires you to pedal all of the time. It was a very long day.
We did reach three milestones today. In addition to leaving the Mountain Time Zone, we crossed the official ABB halfway point of the tour. It was marked for us on the road and everyone celebrated for about ten seconds before getting back on our bikes and pedaling into the wind. We also rode over the Missouri River just before turning into our hotel. Other than that, not much to see today!
Tomorrow will be full of excitement. Just thinking of the sights may keep me up all night with anticipation. The South Dakota Tractor Museum in Kimball. The Puck U Bar in Puckwana. The Corn Palace in Mitchell! Holy cow!
And because we still can’t stop thinking about the Badlands, we’re tossing in another photo of us that the ABB staff took.
Hooray for my Two Peas in a Pod team. Rooting for you every day and missing you guys😩; however keep up the energy in those legs and stay cool♥️
25 days in and half way! That’s crazy. I want to try to start reading your blog from Day 1 and catch up, but I’m not seeing how to get to Day 1 and be able to see all of your posts??! (Sorry been a little self absorbed reconstructing a house). I have kept up on facebook, but would really like to hear the details. Can you tell me how to see all of your blog posts. Thanks!
Thx Dina. Here’s the link to Day Zero: https://www.ourpodlife.com/2017/06/19/bike-across-america-day-zero/
At the bottom of each post (below any comments), you can navigate to the next one. You can also search for any day by entering it in the search field. Or you can click on the Bike Across America word tag in the right column and they’ll all come up in reverse chronological order – then you can scroll to the bottom to advance to the next page until you’re at the beginning.
Thanks for following along.
Ride on . . . hope the wind is at your back from now on! Yes, those ‘Badlands’ are really bad in a good way.
Yeah!!!!! Half-way!!!!! Exciting, amazing, tremendous, monumental – way to go Team Pea :-). Love the OR-NH designation on the road. That’s worth framing 🙂
Eat a lot of corn and mark your calendars to return for the Mitchell Corn Palace Polka Festival in September.
Half way, whoo hoo! Congrats on conquering such a long and difficult day! Hope you had a long hot shower and a excellent meal! Recover…….. then do it all over again tomorrow~