Day 17 & 18: South Dakota, Iowa and the Fruited Plains

The way this blog is supposed to work is Tom takes pictures (by the hundreds) and I write words (similarly overdone) and that's how it goes. But nothing from me for the last couple days, it was the most grueling time I've ever spent on a bike or maybe anywhere else.

The bad started on the second half of day 15, from the Badlands to Murdo, which was 149 miles in the heat with southerly winds that picked up in the afternoon. The last 20 miles I had an escort of Jerry\MN, Tom and Karl (crew guy who rides 1/2 the time from Seattle), 2 in front, 1 beside, escorting me along. The next day started cooler and seemed doable. Then, as Tom said in his note, we missed the opportunity for protection and that turned into 146 lonely miles, the last 60 for each of us solo, just a drudging effort against the wind and more importantly the heat. 12 hours on any bike any day is a long day: it took a very cold bath to get rid of the hives from the heat on my legs. Then yesterday, day 17, a mere 115 miles. We started early (learning our lesson from the day before) riding with some faster guys for protection but I couldn't hold it, I was dry heaving alongside a cornfield 30 miles in (Happy Birthday Me!), and from there it took everything I could muster to not abandon the day. I couldn't eat or even look at food, could only stomach Coke, water and Endurolytes. Heat index which is heat and humidity was either 103 or 107 depending on who you asked, and the freaking afternoon wind was pounding. If you are 4 miles from the hotel riding straight into wind, every flag on the route standing straight out in the wrong direction, and you can only manage 8 mph, that's a half hour of time to really wonder what you're doing. Finally got to hotel. Wanted to go home. Sat in the cold swimming pool. Decided to see what tomorrow brought.

Through the whole day by the way, Tom was right there. Ok, he was telling the sag wagons not to stop for me, but still, he stayed out at least 2 extra hours vs riding off on his own in that miserable heat making sure I was still going. There were 5 or 6 people who left the ride yesterday due to cramps, throwing up or just exhausted, just that kind of day.

And then Day 18, this morning. It stormed overnight so everything was wet and we started 1/2 hour earlier (6:30am, just light) for a little more cool weather riding time. It got warm, up into the mid 80's, but the wind was from the north which helped push us south, and overall just a nicer day. Tom had to ride ahead with the fast pack to arrive early so we didn't see each other all day, he had a run in with a corn chip at dinner last night and fractured a tooth so had set up an afternoon dentist appointment waiting for him here in Denison. That all ended well, he got a temporary filling put on the tooth.  Best of all, the dentist didn't charge for the appointment being the hospitable Iowan that he was;  he also thought it was rather cool that cyclists were riding across the country and through his little (pop. 7600) town.  Meanwhile I went solo almost the whole day, 128 miles and 4800 feet of climb, average of about 17mph (vs 15.2, 15.6, the previous two), Tom was much faster.

But the important thing is we're out of South Dakota, maybe it's not the state's fault we were so miserable but good to have it in the rear view mirror. Into Iowa, we reached the state line after the first 15 miles this morning, and it's wonderful. Really, it is. CORN! and Soybeans. And CORN! Like a wall to wall shag carpet on a very bumpy floor with little lines cut out North\South and East\West where they put in roads, but otherwise CORN! that goes forever and is planted like wheat, not in wide rows, but as thick as shag. And quaint towns and then more CORN! that is everywhere except the valleys between the hills where a muddy brown substance flows between the rocks. Yes hills, almost 5000ft of them, rolling down, rolling up, nothing flat, nothing too severe, just rolling hills up and down. Tom likely has a picture of that. Some trees too for occasional shade, but mostly really it's CORN! Verdant and lush and lots of it. CORN!  (Tom here....once you've seen about 10 miles of corn fields in every direction, it's really not so exciting anymore....although Mike thinks it is.  Whatever makes him happy...or may be he's delusional from all that heat?)

With the last two nights being so rushed and painful, tonight was massage for each of us and Pizza Hut delivered to the room so we could fix things (cleat), wash clothes, and catch up on computer time. Roadkill... hmm, I recall the unidentified objects of today, before that frankly it was either grasshoppers or Tom's rear hub (metalic red) that I remember seeing.