June 19, 2003 Well, today was one of those days. We had a good ride because we achieved our goal, but we did pay a pretty high price for that. We rode from Pierre to Selby, SD - about 115 miles. So, what is so tought about that? We had two broken spokes today. The first one occured about 18 miles out when we were standing to rest the butts a bit. The second one happened about 18 miles later, and we were simply climbing a hill. Both broke at the hub - one on the drive side and one on the non-drive side. We all know about having to take the cassette off to fix spokes on the drive side, but some don't know that if you have a disc brake, you have to take the brake rotor off before you can fix the spoke. Well, two hours later! The Team is doing fine. Our will was tested today, but we are okay. The injuries are doing fine, and we seem to not be overly tired. We both have aches and pains where we normally don't have them. We think that is what happens with this level of mileage. The weather was interesting today. The temperature was very mild again - on the road mid- afternoon it was about 84 degrees. The sun was out - there was hardly a cloud in the sky, and - the wind was blowing like hell. It was from the south, southeast at 20-30 mph. Fortunately we were going north, but unfortunately, we had to go east a couple of times. When we were going north, we would average about 17 mph, and going east it would be about 10. We ended up with 14.7 for the day, so felt good about the way we handled the wind and climbing. The sights today came early. When we left Fort Pierre, we stayed on the west side of the river, and crossed the Oahe Dam. This is one of three dams that were put in on the Missouri River to control flooding and provide recreational resources (They managed to wipe out the Great Falls in the process, however - very nice of the Corps of Engineers, and typical.) After crossing the dam (the road runs right on top of the earthen dam.), we did a very long climb, and were treated to a wonderful view of the backed-up river. After that sight, there wasn't much exciting. We went through a lot of farm country, but then entered an area that was just grass as far as you could see. Ron mentioned to LaValle at one point that it was like riding through this huge lawn - green grass to the horizon. We did see a couple of other things worthy of mention: there was this huge field filled with very large, round bales of hay. We had seen these before, but never so many in one place. We also saw another large field that was populated with all these little wooden houses. When we got close, we could see that it was a huge pig farm with hundreds of baby pigs. We had to go through another construction detour today. We were traveling on Highway 83, and they had it closed. We were detoured through the little town of Gettysburg, costing us an extra 10 miles. The added miles were directly into the wind on one leg, and had a slightly helping side wind on the return. It wasn't too bad, but that gave us 23 miles of almost direct headwind for the day. Of course, we had lots of miles with a tailwind, so we won't complain too much. Selby is a little cow town of about 800 people, but it has a Super 8 Motel, and that's all we need. Our dinner came from the Conoco Station Convenience Store in the form of a cheeseless, vegetarian pizza, some cookies and drinks. The only other place in town didn't have anything we could eat for dinner. However, we will go there for breakfast, since the Continental Breakfast at the Super 8 really sucks. Unfortunately, out in this part of the world, you take what you get. The Super 8 is really the only show in town. Last night we had a very civilized dinner. We ate at an Italian restaurant, and they did some special pasta for us that fit our diets. It was wonderful food, and a fun place. While there, we ran into these three guys who are doing roughtly the same thing we are. They are Dave, Chris and the National Guard dude (we obviously didn't get his name, but he is doing his drills on the road as part of his tour.) We had fun exchanging stories, telling about plans and generally BSing about riding. It was fun to see some other people out there doing the L&C Trail. Even thought we had our challenges today, we had a wonderful ride. Besides, the worst day on a bike is better than the best day doing most anything else. Ron ...Note from LaValle The detour today took us to Gettysburg. I was able to mail some paperwork and other now "non-essential" stuff home. This is the third time we've been able to do this on our trip. Gettysburg is a nice town with all of the services you could want except a Walmart and Home Depot. Gettysburg prides itself on being the town where the battle didn't happen! Two moments stood out for me today (excluding the two broken spokes). One was at the beginning of the ride when I watched this deer stand in the open basking in the morning sun for quite some time. When I finally got my camera ready to take a photo, it had moved and was getting ready to run along the road. Ultimately it crossed in front of us and went east. And the last was at sunset when South Dakoka has a similar magic as the desert. I sat outside for a while and was able to enjoy the final moments of the day and say a prayer for world peace. Deer in field... Quiet moment - Selby, South Dakota