Midland, SD - Stroppel Inn The hot mineral bath was wonderful!!
Along the road... little, and even littler babies
Jodi relieving her sore feet in a bucket of ice....aaahhhhh
Ben -loungin'98.18 miles (includes riding around town after to find some food)
13.5 mph
Today was full of really nice rolling hills - they were just the right grade and length. You could start coasting up them after each downhill. It was nice riding. A cyclist we met in Rapid City told Margo and I about this great hotel in Midland, SD that had a geothermic well where you could get a hot mineral bath for $3.50. Midland was at mile 34 though, so we were really hesitant about stopping and getting all relaxed and then having to ride for another 60 miles. We also weren't that excited about getting that far behind everyone with such a long detour. We decided we would go and check it out. It was an old hotel run by an old couple. They had two mineral baths, a hot one and a somewhat hot one. Today they were about the same temperature though - 105 degrees. It was a concrete vessel with water being continuously cycled through it. They drain it and clean it every night. It was really hot when we stuck our heads in the vessel and we didn't know if we should do it. We couldn't stay in long, because we couldn't afford to get dehydrated. Margo decided to flip a coin. Heads won, so we decided to do it. Adam wimped out and just waited for us in the lobby. For $3.50 we even got a nice bath size towel, which was a huge luxury compared to our wimpy camp towels we've been using. We went in for about 5 - 10 minutes and it felt wonderful! The woman gave us cold water and homemade cookies after and her husband showed us her salt and pepper shaker collection - which could be the world's largest. It was in glass display cases on every wall of their living room. What an adventure for $3.50!!!! We even were able to catch up with the end of the group at a post office/store/antique shop in Hayes, SD. There were strong headwinds for the last 25 miles of the day which made it really tough! Some people got sagged in early today. It was a hard day for everyone. Pierre is the capital of South Dakota and a pretty nice city. We camped at the city park on the Missouri River. It was very humid. No more arid nights. I was dripping with sweat just sitting in my tent. My allergies were also back in full force! The dry western weather was wonderful for my allergies, but now they are clearly back. I rode 200 miles in the last 2 days! I've never done that before! We also entered the Central Time Zone today! I'm only an hour behind now from home! It was very inconvenient for sleeping though. What would have been 8:45 was now 9:45 pm and it was still way too hot to go to sleep, even though we were totally exhausted! Had dinner at a mexican place with about 10 other big riders!
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