Day 52: Three states, one rainy day (Yankton to Sioux City)

Well we didn't end up in Oz but it stormed all night long, rain and winds pounding our sturdy (new and improved!) tent. 

Today, South Dakota finally lived up to my preconceptions: it was flat. Flatland. Flat as a frying pan. 

We had decent weather - had a tailwind! - most of the way. I got real hungry near Vermillion and stopped at the Hyvee, the Safeway equivalent, for a sandwich and a mango. Funny how set in your ways you get. Like the shelves were organized differently here than in a Safeway, the fruit was stacked differently, even the way the pharmacy was set up. Anyways I sat in the cafe and destroyed the mango, juice dripping everywhere. Definitely earned some stares with this one. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do. 

We ran into another tourer, Brad, there too (seriously we find'em in the strangest places). He had just caught up with the Lewis and Clark trail in Sioux City. I didn't talk to him long because I was very focused on that coffee and those calories.

It started to drizzle, then pour, as we left Vermillion until we were maybe 20 miles from the destination. My case isn't really waterproof anymore so I just stick the phone in my jacket's back pocket. The temperature stayed around 70 though and the water was warm so the riding was still pretty easy. I chewed a whole pack of gum in 10 minutes like I always do. 

When I crossed the bridge into Iowa, Rachel was heading back across it. She couldn't find the state sign.. And we never did find any notice. So we maneuvered to the interstate and took a solid selfie there. From there, we had planned on riding five miles through Nebraska (man, no other state has taken the kind of shit this state gets. Singularly, every person we talked to told us not to go) but some friends of our warm showers host for the night spotted us and invited us out for beer. We happily obliged. Buffalo Alice ("BA's") is highly recommended. Plus Adam, the bartender and also a biker, fed us from his unlimited supply of tootsie rolls. Rachel ordered a pizza (girl finally got her cheese) and we rode south to Tom's house. He grilled up some awesome pork burgers and we talked with his wife Mandy and listened to his adorable son Jackson bang stuff together in his room. 

Completely worn out from the night before, sleep came almost instantly. 

Day 51: Teach a (wo)man to fish

Number one goal for the trip accomplished today! I learned out to filet a fish. Steve, the guy from the thoroughbred motel in white River, took me out to the Gavin's dam and I caught a bass and a blue gill. Two points for the foot-long collapsible Spider-Man fishing rod made for a theee-year old. 

Let the bass drop (Steve made me kiss it before we threw it back in) 

I was kind of surprised the blood didn't bother me at all. There wasn't much of it, to be sure, but yup, felt nothing except that I wish I'd had a lemon and some hot coals to cook it on.

It's hot in South Dakota, or its hot now that it's June. Finished up The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi splayed out on the rent-a-towel in temperamental shade at the KOA while Rachel hit up the town (hair cut + froyo). Yeah the whole world is good - post-humans get off this planet and find intelligent species and need an army to defend the race from the Galaxy. Most of the soldiers are old people who volunteer for the army and get their minds transferred to younger, suppler bodies in exchange. An interesting way to get around war destroying a generation of young men/women eh. Anyways some good ethics debated in this and the previous one. Whaddya think, real space travel in our lifetimes? A girl can dream.

And we finally got out ribs this evening and shit they were good. If you're planning on a cross-country road trip, I highly recommend you planning it around barbecue. We stood in line for the first place winners and devoured juicy ribs lathered in sauce, I coulda drank that. I kind of did. 

We ended with deep fried cookie dough of course, and then booked it back to the campgrounds even though Rachel had a flat cause thunderstorm and tornado warnings started appearing in our inboxes. We were going to sleep in the laundry room but eh it's 11 and looks like the storm has passed. Tent is still standing and we stand by it.

Day 50: Take us to the ribfest (Missouri to Yankton)

Woke up and still had the whole Missouri to ourselves. I made it through the night curled easy in my hammock.

They promised us flatlands! South Dakota isn't flat. Spent the day endlessly pedaling up and riding down the hills of the Yankton reservation. We have a lot of miscellaneous food from when my mom was here so we didn't really eat whole lunches so much as snack. 

This week ended up housing both Rachel and my hardest ride - you heard about mine but today was hers, because she didn't sleep much and because we didn't eat much the night before. Lesson learned. Man and some days your shorts rub and by the end of it I was feeling rawww. 

The whole day we were excited about the Yankron ribfest. No better way to celebrate halfway than stuffing our stomachs full of Porky. We rolled into the KOA at 7:15 or whenever and showers and set up camp and we're halfway to passing out by the time we showed up at the park, we were so hungry. But the lights were all dark and the streets empty and the food smells week and it turns out they were setting up..  for tomorrow. 

Um yeah so we ended up at the yesterday cafe - themed 50s diner - and I got a bud light before my meatloaf arrived and anyways never felt like that after a bud before.

Steve showed up and we went to Walmart which I have been to more times on this trip than ever in my life. And just for now I'm allowing myself to ignore their worker compensation problems and local-business displacement ethics and say that that place is kind of a wonderland for us. I got a child-sized (me-sized) collapsible spiderman fishing rod cause I've been trying to find someone to teach me how to clean a fish this whole trip but s'pose I need to catch one first.