Sunshine Bible Center to De Smet

July 19, 2022

The horrid SW wind continued almost all night causing the tent to flap constantly.  I was kind of worried how I was going to roll my tent up in the morning. Fortunately, the wind had stopped when I got up and started rolling things up.  However the calm didn’t last long and the forecast wind out of the NW started howling just after I got packed up.

The first 14 miles from Sunshine Bible Center to Miller was straight north directly into the wind which by now was blowing at a steady 25 mph.  Jon and Eric, the two English fellows showed up and the three of us took turns pulling into the wind.  It was a life saver as we covered the distance to Miller in just under an hour. 

As we turned east we now had a howling tail wind.  Flying along at 20-25 was totally effortless.  The remaining 77 miles would be eaten up quickly. 

Just a few miles down the road was the “Chalk Celebration”  which marks the half way point on the coast to coast journey.  Everyone stops and signs the road in chalk and takes a picture.  After I had signed and rolled on the local police showed up and were grouchy about cyclists making chalk marks on the road.  Obviously this was the biggest crime being committed in Miller SD and  who better to assert their authority over than cyclists.

At the 44 mile mark of the route we came to the actual half way point in terms of mileage.  Marked on the road was the point where it was 2158 miles from the start and 2158 miles to the finish line. It was in kind of a busy point on the highway so stopping do take a lot of pictures was kind of out of the question.

Picnic was in the town of Huron where there is the world’s largest pheasant.  Another must stop for a photo on this magical mystery tour.

After picnic we still had 31 miles to go fortunately the howling west wind was still blowing and Ken T. and I rode into De Smet and camp in just over an hour and a half. 

As it was only 1:00 Ken and I decided to go find something to eat. In the local dinner I had the meatloaf lunch special.  It was great and washed down with a lot of ice tea.  I know what you’re thinking picnic, then 90 minutes later lunch.  True but supper will not be until 5:30 pm

Thanks to the howling tail wind the 91 miles disappeared in just 5:17 hours with and average speed of 17.1 mph.   

De Smet is the birth place of Laura Ingalls Wilder who wrote the Little House on the Prairie series of books. So, everything is named after her.  The streets, the parks, the buildings, the schools.  

Terry