Pierre to Miller July 18, 2022

Pierre to Miller

July 18, 2022

Today we were supposed to be riding to Miller however the school in Miller exploded back in January when a drum of waste oil in the agriculture wing blew up.  So instead we are in the Sunshine Bible Academy which is 14 miles south of Miller.   It is a very nice place unfortunately there is nothing what so ever near it. In fact there isn’t even a vending machine to get a cold drink.

I rolled out of the Ramkota Hotel in Pierre at exactly 7:00 am into what had to be a 15-20 mph head wind and 70F temperatures.  The route followed the east side of the Missouri river in a south easterly direction which was directly into the wind.  As I rolled out of Pierre I saw that there is a really interesting looking military museum in Pierre.  Too bad I didn’t know about it yesterday as it would have been a good place to spend some time in the AC on my rest day. 

The route was to leave the Missouri river and go directly east at about mile 25.  I kept thinking that when I got to this point the head wind would become more of a side wind unfortunately that never happened. It was really quite demoralizing as you ground up one hill then have to pedal down the other side. Best that I could do was around 10 mph into the head wind.

As the day wore on the temperature just kept going up, as did the wind.  The shoulder or what there was of a shoulder was rough and broken up.  Grinding and more grinding.  I thought picnic would never show up.  Finally I arrive at picnic. It took 4.5 hours to ride 48 miles. 

At picnic there was a little store so I got a 24 oz bottle of Coke.  I poured the Coke down along with a couple of wraps and headed out.  By now it was well over 100F and the wind was just howling out of the SE.    

The farmers are busy harvesting the winter wheat and boy do they ever have some monster machines to do it.  The cutter head on this machine must have been 50 feet wide.  I stopped to take it’s picture then realized I was going to be hit by the straw which being ejected out the back and was being whipped by the wind straight at me.  I had to pedal like mad to avoid it. 

The corn is also looking pretty as it is well over 6 feet.  There were miles and miles of corn fields to day. 

Finally the pay off when we turned north for the final 4 miles into camp.  I hit 26 mph and wasn’t even pedalling. 

I don’t think anyone had a fun day.

Terry