Heat, Headwinds and South Dakota
Greg, Linda and Jim can probably really appreciate what the group went through today. It hit 105 today as we entered Pierre. The majority of the route had 30 mph head to crosswinds. It's 7:30 p.m. and part of the group hasn't made it to the motel yet.
We're in Pierre, South Dakota tonight. A fair share of the group sagged in. At this point, one person went to the hospital for heat related illness, but has been released and back with the group.
It was a tough day. Survival was the name of the game.
The day started early. I was on the road by 5:45.
We only had a short distance on interstate today, fortunate after yesterday's challenges. The rest was the wide open rolling hills of South Dakota. The route took us through Quinn, Cottonwood, Philip, Midland, and Hayes before arriving at the capitol city.
We're at the Governor's Inn tonight. The staff here has been awesome with water, tea, beer and fresh cookies waiting when we arrived. I had to chuckle, though, the maintenance guy said, "Wasn't it hot and windy when you were here last year?"
Tomorrow will be another tough one, seems like they all are right now. 87 miles to Chamberlain. More heat and more wind is forecast. We'll hope recovery is quick for everyone, and that they will be able to ride. We'll just go as far as we can go.
There were several farming lessons today. One of the riders was very curious about silos -- i.e How are they filled? Doesn't the grain get crushed? How does everything come out? I explained what I knew about silos and silage, but after the conversation I started paying closer attention to the landscape. Most producers here don't have silos, I presume because there's no corn, and that there is an abundant supply of pasture here. I figured out he was referring to the grain bins. So much for my lesson on the silage process!
~Lisa
posted by Lisa Meester @ 7:33 PM
2 Comments:
What a day. Linda and I went back to read what we wrote last year. The maintenance man sure was right when he said, "Wasn't it hot and windy last year when you were here?" Linda votes this as the hardest day. I had some days mixed up in my mind earlier. This was the day that Albert got sick. As he said, "The heat is inhuman!" I remember that Linda ran out of water a little before Barbara had set up an impromptu stop. Linda didn't say anything but we could see Barbara's truck way up in the distance. When we got there, Linda was a little shaky and she sat under the truck in the shade for a little bit. She recovered and we finished - slowly. Albert was at the truck and he looked and felt awful. Albert rode in slowly with Jim - the only day on the entire ride that Albert rode with us instead of way ahead of us. I looked at the photo of Jim, Linda, Ear-ring John, and me in the hotel lobby. We were grinning so big we were so happy we were done. I think this day was the day we saw the most bikes on top of the vans being sagged in. I don't believe we had 30 mph winds on top of this - WOW. This day will make good stories for you in the future - take care.
Greg and Linda from Bloomington, IN
This was absolutely a difficult day. Hills, heat and headwind. The only "H" missing was humidity. Last group got in at 8:30. Of course, we lost an hour too; but still means they were in the saddle 13 hours!
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