Lewis and Who?

Since St. Louis I've more or less been following the path that the Lewis and Clark expedition took up the Missouri River, across the Rockies, and then down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. Quite frankly, I'm whipping those guys and their 40-man crew. They averaged only a few miles a day, pulling their boats upstream. I know these things (oh, and many more) because I've read enough historical markers and visited almost every museum along the way to gain a very intimate knowledge of exactly where they camped, where they shot 6 deer, where the boat ran aground, where Billy Joe got typhoid, everything.

Similar to how Lewis and Clark encountered new plants and animals as they trudged westward, I too have been finding furry and flowering things that are incredibly new to me. The other day I rode past a live skunk that was not 2 feet from me! I've also come across groundhogs, beavers, bison, and different colored squirrels- solid brown and solid black ones. I've also seemed to catch up to Spring as here in South Dakota there are lots of blooming wildflowers in the prairies. It seems as though I have left behind the seas of planted corn and am now entering a more remote portion of the country. Someone mentioned to me that the whole state of South Dakota has fewer than 1 million people. I can tell you they're definitely hurting for libraries... I finally found one in operation today. One I had passed by earlier has hours of Tuesday and Wednesday 3:45pm to 4:30pm and Saturday 10am-2pm. I have a feeling it will be like this for a while.

I'm actually breaking off the Lewis and Clark trail for a few weeks to visit Badlands National Park and the Black Hills including Mt. Rushmore. I don't think the guys will mind; if they knew about these places, they'd have gotten off the river and checked them out too.

To skip back a couple days, the above picture is from the Loess Hills of western Iowa. These are glacially deposited silt hills found only a couple of other places on the planet. I took a half-day off to go hiking at a nature preserve. I'm looking forward to doing more hiking in Badlands and possibly even Glacier National Park.

Some logistical notes since I haven't really covered much on that subject... I'm still pounding down the calories. Lots of people ask me, "How much weight have you lost?" Actually... I haven't lost any, in fact, I've gained about 3 pounds by my last count- and it's not fat. "How far do you go in a day?" I try to do about 80 miles a day, though some days the weather stunts me a bit or I push myself one day so I can have an easier second day. I think my biggest three days were 140, 135, and 118 miles. "Where do you stay?" Typically I camp every night, be it a state park, city park, or RV park. I try to spend less than $15 a day with roughly half of that going towards a campsite. So far, I'm right on budget. "What kind of bike is that?" I ride a Jamis Aurora which is technically a "touring" bike... that is, a steel-framed road bike designed to carry a load instead of speed racing. It has 27-speeds and I have used all of them (except the few you're not supposed to combine) thus far... with 3 mountain passes still ahead! "How much does that stuff in the buckets weigh?" It comes to about 50 pounds just after hitting up the grocery store for a food restock.

Alright... well, the skies are still clear for now so I'm going to push onward another 50 miles this afternoon! I can't imagine finding a computer until Rapid City and that's another 5+ days.