De Smet to Watertown
July 20, 2022
Yesterday’s howling tail wind was today’s head wind. The route was a series of north and east legs
arranged in stair step fashion. Of the
61 miles approximately 45 of it was north and 16 of it was east. With the wind
just howling out of the North West a person had a head wind about 75% of the
time, and a tail wind about 25% of the time.
The first leg was a 15 mile section which ran straight
north. This put the wind coming at you
at about the 10:00 o’clock position. Working
as hard as I could I could do about 12 mph.
It was a terrible road with a 24 inch shoulder which had a rumble strip
reducing the actual riding area to something around 16 inches. And then there was the trucks! Huge side dumper trucks with huge “B” units.
They were going both directions and you were passed every couple of
minutes. I was so happy to make the
turn.
About 6 miles down the second leg, which was heading east so
I had a tail wind, I thought my rear tire was soft so I stopped and sure enough
it only had a few pounds of air in it. I
thought I had a puncture but when I removed the valve cap there was a huge rush
of air. The little valve had come out of the valve stem. Ken T came by and he helped me thread the
little valve back into the valve stem and we pumped the tire. It fixed the problem and I rode all day on
it.
Today’s picnic was right under the water tower in the little
town of Hayti. The central business
section looked pretty much closed up but they did have some really huge silos.
The route was though a lot of corn fields which alternated
with some sort of bean crop. Barry and I
had fun in one of the corn fields taking pictures and marvelling at how high
the corn is. The corn stalks are at
least 7 feet tall. It is just amazing
that it has gotten to be such a huge plant in such a short time.
On one of the little lakes we rode past a lone pelican was
catching fish. It looked like the
pelican was doing ok as I saw him catch a couple of fish in the short time it
took me to ride by.
Even though it was only 61 miles I was glad to get in as the
wind had just worn me out.
Terry
1 comment:
Glad you had a safe ride. What shall we title your pics? Creatures of the corn? Cyclists of the corn? Is this movie material?lol
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