Bicycling the Lewis & Clark Trail
Pierre to Fort Thompson, SD

Friday, August 20, 2004
Distance Cycled: 60 miles
Average Speed: 11.2 mph

Today was a hard slow day. We had strong cold head winds from the EastNorthEast for most of the day. The hills were gentle but almost continuous, most of the road was in need of repair, but the wind was the main reason we were traveling so slow. We were all glad when we reached Hwy 47 and turned south and had the wind at our back. Suddenly for the same effort we were going about 8 mph faster. When we left the motel at 7:15 the temperature was around 58 but the chill factor made it feel much colder. Mary Kay did not take off her jacket all day. Seems hard to believe it is over 90 degrees at home, for the past couple of weeks in the Dakota's it has felt like fall is in the air.

Except for Ken and Jan, who always beat us in, we all arrived at the motel in Fort Thompson about the same time. The hotel is full tonight as there is an Indian Pow-Wow in town. The bad news is there are No restaurants in this town and the Casino is closed. So we walked over to the Pow-Wow only to find out that they were out of hamburgers. We walked back to the grocery store and bought stuff for supper and breakfast. The bad news is the motel broke their microwave 2 days ago, so we could only buy food that you can eat without heating. We are all a little sad about the food situation. Especially since tomorrow we will have even stronger head winds all day and it will be a 76 mile day. It is also supposed to get very warm, and it would be nice to be caught up on food intake.