Previous entry: "Alzada, MT to Nisland, SD" | Next entry: "Badlands, Grasslands, and Spicy Food" 08/06/2007 Entry: "Bear Butte to Scenic via Rapid City" Hello everyone! We are back to finish our update which we started but didn't finish in Rapid City: Bear Butte to Rapid City We slept in the day after the sweat lodge (see Nisland to Bear Butte) since we had stayed up so late eating puppy soup. We had the usual peanut butter sandwich/cold oatmeal breakfast until Grasshopper broke out some Michigan cherries. They dissappeared in a flash. We then hopped on our bikes and rode Black Hills-ward through Sturgis. It amazes me that an entire town can be completely dependent on three weeks of the year for it's income. There was very little other than motorcycle-associated businesses to be found. The Black Hills welcomed us with a climb that rivaled many of the mountain passes we've ridden. It was beautiful, but very, very steep. At times it reached a 9% grade, but luckily our spokes remained intact and we made it to the top for a glorious ride downhill practically all the way out of the hills. It was very refreshing to be back in trees, even for a short period of time. Karen said that the little town where we stopped for lunch, Nemo, reminded her of Vermont. After a short day of good weather, steep hills, and new entertaining songs written by Seager, we rolled down into Rapid City. We had previously arranged to stay with Vernalee, a woman we had met the night before, but upon rolling into the city we met Shawn, who looked at our bikes and saw our deaths staring him in the face. He insisted that we come to his house so he could tune up our steeds, since riding any further would certainly result in our demise (except Seager, whose bike was perfectly fine). Shawn worked magic on our bicycles like I've never seen before. It was like he was convincing them to work nicely instead of actually using wrenches and grease. We dubbed him "The Bike Whisperer" for his amazing capabilities. We went back to Shawn's house and spent a wonderful evening cooking, eating, and being entertained by Shawn, his girlfriend Cindy, his mother Fern, and his neighbor/family/fambor Tony. We had a wonderful steak dinner and ice cream and fruit pizza for dessert, spent lots of time playing with the polydactile kitten, Ferrous Mewler, and did not finish our picture or journal update because there was too much other stuff to do. We slept soundly and happily in both Tony and Shawn's houses. Rapid City to Scenic In the morning, Shawn pointed out to me that he had fixed my shifting and eliminated the squeak in the night. He is like a bike elf. He and Tony took us all out for breakfast, where Shawn offered to take us on a short hike in the Black Hills before we started biking. The weather was good, and we were planning a short day to Scenic anyway, so we agreed. He took us to Silver Mountain/Boulder Point, which we enjoyed climbing up. From the top we could see everything for miles around, and we took lots of great pictures (coming soon). We stopped at a bike shop on the way back to Shawns house, then returned to our bikes and rode to the edge of town with Shawn. Upon departing, our gracious host told us that we should call him if we needed anything at all until we reached the middle of the state. We all smiled and thanked him, and never expected that we would have to take him up on the offer. Hoping we would see Shawn and Cindy again soon in Iowa, we pushed on towards Scenic. Scenic, South Dakota is a small, historic town. Our Broadus host, John, told us that several people had been killed at the Scenic bar (possibly during the violence on the nearby Pine Ridge Reservation), and that the old sign on the front said "Indians Welcome" in English and "Indian Dogs Keep Out" in Lakota. It gave me a creepy feeling to know that. We met Wayne at his rock and fossil shop/museum, and he said that we could camp behind his building...but we should go talk to Twila about it, because she owned the building along with the rest of the town. He had some very interesting rocks in his little place, but it didn't look like many people came through to look at them. The entire town shut down by 7:30, which made very little difference because it seemed that the only thing you could buy there was alcohol and Native American Souveniers. We ate dinner next to the gas station in order to avoid the wind, and enjoyed our mashed potatoes and ramen along with a very entertaining narration of an ant vs. fly battle going on on one of our pot lids. For the first time in quite a while, we were able to get to bed early, which was good since we wanted to get out early in the morning to skip the heat in the Badlands. That's my part of the story. Read on for more interesting and exciting adventures!

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