Leaving Montana and crossing Wyoming and South Dakota

Days 16 to 19

Montana is a beautiful state full of high desert. It is very dry with beautiful big skys. As we left Montana, we rode through the Crow Indian Reservation and past Custer's Last Stand. The reservation towns are rather depressing, with their high voltage power lines and slaughter house right in town, things only found in low income areas. It's embarrasing to see the little bits of land we have crammed our native people on after we took their land and developed it. We stayed our last night in Montana in the town of Hardin which is on the reservation. We camped in the school lawn. We were allowed to use the showers at the town pool which was next door. The pool was indoors and was a beautiful olympic size pool with a hot tub that felt wonderful on sore muscles. The local 4H came to our campsite with ice cream sundaes for us! We also celebrated Dan's 60th birthday with lots of cake.

Wyoming was full of prairie and home to Devil's Tower (volcanic remains). Our first night in Wyoming was in Sheridan at a KOA campground just outside of town. It was a flat ride and I averaged over 15 mph that day! I rode with some new people who are faster riders and was able to keep up with them because there were no hills. I lose them on the hills, but can keep up on the flats and downhills. Rode our bikes into town for dinner. The town is really quaint with nice shops. Ate at Pony Bar and Grill. Some girls from a local girl's school met us at our campsite to talk with us about our ride. They are training for a two day - 100 mile benefit ride and had lots of questions for us. The next day we rode to Gillette, WY - the longest ride of our entire trip - 113.52 miles. I felt good today and averaged 14.2 mph even with it being an uphill day! We started the day riding 5 miles uphill through another construction zone of packed gravel. It wasn't too bad, not nearly as bad as the last one. The route up had beautiful views of the Big Horn Mountains in the distance. The ride down was great on the other side. One of our water stops was in Spotted Horse, WY with a population of 2. Saw lots of mule deer and antelopes today. The prairie had really great shaped hills popping out of it all day along the ride, quite beautiful. Lots of wild sunflower along the side of the road too. Today was the first day I made it into camp in time to help unload everyone's gear off the truck. While this is not really a fun job, it was an accomplishment for me to actually be there in time to do it. The people who get into camp first are the ones who unload the truck everyday. We camped in the town park in Gillette,which is a good size city. It was $10 night for dinner and I went to a great ribs place and had a wonderful salmon and mandarin orange mixed green salad! It was a nice treat! Ate with Cathy, Bill, Kari and Alison and shared a bottle of wine. That night some of the local kids harrassed us in our tents. They lit a fire up at the skate park, which was up the hill from where we were tenting and ran through our tents screaming "Fire" "Get Up" at about 2 or 3 in the morning. I, of course, was sound alseep and didn't hear a thing. The next day we rode 77.83 miles to Newcastle, WY. We had a tailwind the entire day and rode mostly downhill all day. This was my fastest average speed EVER - 17.2 mph!! Helped unload the truck again today. Saw Devil's Tower way off in the distance today. We stayed at a senior center that used to be a high school. We stayed in air conditioned rooms and had televisions to watch - what a luxury! It was a small town with coal trains going through regularly. The railroad has gone through most of the towns we have stayed in. Newcastle was an especially high traffic railroad town, which trains every half hour. Many people have been complaining of the train whistles all night long, but of course, I sleep just fine through them. The food that the lovely people at the Newcastle senior center made for us was worse than my middle school cafeteria food, but the people were very nice! A little girl across the street made some good money setting up a fresh squeezed lemonade stand. We sold her out in no time! The next day we entered South Dakota at mile 11. This was a beautiful riding day!! We rode 82.64 miles and I averaged 13.0 mph. We rode through the Black Hills National Park and Custer State Park. Many people rode off-route to Mt. Rushmore, but it was an extra 12 miles and had some serious hills. We have a rest day tomorrow and I plan on renting a car to go it then. Custer, SD is a great tourist town with lots of shops. We had a great, long downhill ride through Custer State Park where some people saw buffalo. I didn't see any from my bike, only from my car the next day. Stayed at the School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, SD. Rapid City is a surprisingly cool town with wonderful shops. It was a nice surprise for South Dakota. On the rest day I was a complete tourist and had an exhausting fun time!