Big Ride Day 25

Photos from Day 25

We had a rather interesting start this morning -- I awoke to a wicked thunderstorm. I stayed in my tent for a while but then the lightening got really close and I had to bail out. Alot of other people were already seeking shelter. Apparently, the storm had been going on for some time and I just never woke up. Alot of people had actually heard the thunder about 4:30 AM and had gotten up to beat the storm. About the time I got up, the rain stopped and most people took off right away, having already packed up. I was left with a few of the stragglers to pack up my wet tent. I got to breakfast after almost everyone was on the road. We had breakfast at a restaurant in the downtown called Smileys. What a cool little town this is -- the guy who spoke at the gathering last night as the president of the Lion's club and the chair of the planning committee for the Big Ride was also a policeman and was hanging out with us at breakfast -- you gotta love it. The food was great!

I got on the road around 7:15 and went to visit this sculpture garden put together by an older gentleman in the town -- it looked very interesting but I didn't have time to stop. Apparently, one of the other riders interviewed him and got his full story. Anyway, going out of town, we had a pretty severe headwind and after the morning's events, I was pretty bummed and also pretty tired. One thing did picke me up along the way and that was that today, we crossed the halfway point! Winnie and Tom (from the ALA staff) were out there cheering us on complete with Pom-Poms and everything. I got to the small town of Wolsey along the way and stopped for coffee. I also met Doug there. We bummed around for a few minutes and then headed out to find that the winds had actually changed to a tail wind! With that, we cruised into the checkpoint easily and I felt much better. After checkpoint, we bummed around in town and went to some sporting goods stores and got lunch at Subway, then made the easy cruise to DeSmet.

DeSmet is the "Little Town on the Prairie," if you don't know -- Laura Ingalls Wilder lived there and wrote about the town in many of her books. We are staying in a really nice park near the town. After settling in, we got on a shuttle bus that took past the Wilder homestead and some of the original buildings she wrote about in her books.

Doug and I went and got a beer at a local bar before dinner. When we asked the bartender if had any microbrews, he looked at us quizzically and said "All we have is just regular beer" in a confused tone. We decided to have a Coors :). The beer just about put me out but we made it to dinner -- a baked potato bar, not that great. Afterwards, we headed downtown and it was amazing -- they roll up the streets in this place. Nothing was open, no one was around, it was amazing. We did find another bar with a bunch of big riders in it and they were actually signing a ceiling tile for the bar. Apparently, last year, the riders drank him dry and he really wanted to party it up with us this year too. A bunch of people showed up and it was a good time. I talked to Meg, the girl from southern California who is a sound editor for movies. She is collecting interviews from people across the country as she goes along and plans to open a cafe where you can listen to the interviews as you eat in sort of a jukebox format - how interesting! I love to meet interesting people and hear their stories. I must do more of that as we go along the next few weeks. After the bar, it was off to bed. A cool night tonight!

This page modified November 25, 2000