Yup blog hasn't been updated lately cause we been busy

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Made it to Minneapolis! Time to celebrate.

We have bountiful amounts of internet, so look forward to some delightful recaps of this last week.

Baggie feet, that's what's up.

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The townspeople warned us about 50mph wind gusts today. We woke up it was rainy and super windy. I was ready to call up a loss for the day and hang in town (Dolan, SD) but then looked at the weather and it said the wind was blowing straight west! Weeeeee! We are literally flying to MN today.

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Anti-abortion sign next to veal box.

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The game 'is it a lake or farm run-off?' isn't that fun...

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First Primo of the tour!

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Nothing is happening.  It is windy and boring. Whoooeeee South Dakota.

Joe's 7th flat in 2 days boooo.

Black Hills Glory.

Whoa. Where to begin. Turns out Pizza Hut buffet day wasn't the only day a cyclist dreams about. Yesterday (Tues.Sept.13) was the best day ever! Sooo beautiful. Wowzer.  Rode out of camp down the Needles Hwy (87) in the Black Hills. Breathtaking! Absolutely breathtaking. Did some tremendous climbing but it didn't seem that taxing because the scenery was so rad.  Did some hiking on some giant stone needles that led up the sky. Road downhill forever.  Then we did some immensely technical climbing up 16A to Mount Rushmore. A lot of pedalling, slowly and for a long time. We saw FACES in stone gall dang it! It was so so great. There were tight hairpin curves, switchbacks, tunnels of stone, skyscrapers of stone, FACES in stone, pigtails (spiral bridges made of wood) and for whatever geological reason  ( native american spirits?) all the rocks were sparkly. 

Hairpin curve into a rock tunnel!

FACES!!!

Sparkly Rock

 

We had even more insane climbing up to Rapid City for the evening.  Some roadies passed us like nothing on our climb.  I scornfully shook my fist at them.

We stayed at Brad's house (warmshowers bike tour hosting website) and boy was he frickin rad.  Today we rode through the Black Hills, it was the most amazing day of our lives-- cause we met Brad.

Straight-up Winner

Today (Wed.Sept14), after some of Brad's fantastically delightful homeade biscuits, we headed east towards Wall, SD.   It was our first day riding when the weather wasn't perfect.  It was overcast and cold; it looked like it was going to rain, but luckly never actually did. We had to hit up the post office (touring cyclists lodge) to retrieve a lost bike pump, got some groceries, got going pretty late. After about 30 miles Google maps told us to go on a street that didn't exist anymore and we thus encountered 10-mile navigational fail.  We rode 5-miles into this valley in the Badlands where we discovered......a ghost town.
Not just any ghost town, but our ghost town. In our place, the Bad*ss Lands. We have decided to take over this town and populate it with our friends. We will be in contact with you soon if you are worthy enought to be recruited. Your assigned role is nonnegotiable.  I am the Mayor and Joe is the Sheriff. 

Here you will see our general store/bar.  The bar serves only whisky, tequila, PBR and the finest espresso.

We tried to get a group of 8 horses to quit their boring farm lives and join ours.  They ran along side us but ultimately couldn't commit to such pure bliss.

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Since we need more sappy shit on our blog...Today was special. When you think about riding your bicycle across America, today is the type of day that you dream about, that you yearn for, that you put in the thousands of training miles for, that you will remember forever. Today was simply special. Today we ate Pizza Hut all-you-can-eat lunch buffet.

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We were trying to make it to the Black Hills National Forest before dark, but it didn't happen. A awesome couple stopped and offered us a place to stay! Harold and Jill took care of us with showers, dinner and breakfast. Way awesome. Great folks. Their dog guarded our tent from the lone mule who wandered the night trying to cause trouble.

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Made it to South Dakota! Almost got busted by Wyoming police while toasting with wine coolers on the border....good thing we just stepped to the South Dakota side of the line and made faces.

 So we cheated our way from Riverton to Casper Wyoming. Sarah's broken derailleur hanger couldn't be found in Riverton. She rode 70 miles in a single gear to get there. We took June, owner of the Cedar Bar, up on her offer to ride along with her to Casper. We went to Ragged Edge Sports where Tyler ran to his buddies house to get the part. He fixed the bike right up like a pro and mentioned polo. P-O-L-O! So we went and checked it out. I remembered how much I loved polo and we met Cody, Courtney and Everette who let us stay in their back yard.

 

Cody and his 3 year old Everette. We missed getting a picture with Courtney. They make bike bags, hats and hammocks at http://www.etsy.com/people/tzines

The hammocks looked pretty cool.

 

The wind was killer and we didn't make it as far as we planned. A nice old lady at this farm gave us some extra water for the night.

This is the ditch next to Teapot Creek where we camped.

Breakfast in The Midwest! or Midwest anyway.

 Mad bike lanes though small town Wyoming! This is one in Edgerton.

And one in Wright!

We killed those Rockies! 

Made it through our highest pass yet 9800ft! It was a little scary camping in the mountains since we knew hungry mean grizzly bears were hiding somewhere in the night. We took every precaution to avoid an encounter: cooking away from camp, locking our panniers in a big metal bear box, not sleeping in our cooking clothes, 30ft bear spray in holster. We looked pretty ridiculous sitting around the campfire in our spandex.  Spandex Wilderness People! Our way back to camp after dinner was dark soulless trail of terror. Joe sang the bear song "Don't eat us bears, we don't taste good, got my bear spray in my pocket whoa there bears" and I played harmonica.  I thought I heard a "RAHrrrrr" in the middle of the night in the distance but it was probably just an elk calling his b*tches.

In our camp near Dubois, WY on some public land near the Windy River, we had to worry about black bears and rain as well.  As we tried to build a rain shelter and hang our food from a tree before dark I carelessly leaned my bike on its drivetrain side and broke my derailleur hanger! Booooo! I took out some chain links, picked a speed and turned the ole touring bike into a single speed. 

I was tempted to put on my skinny jeans, trash my helmet and tie on my hipster bandana.

Because I'm such a badass, I hauled 200-some lbs with one gear 75 miles, into the wind, standing to pump up killer hills to Riverton, WY.  We stopped in a local watering hole to get out of our costumes and get some internet. Little did we know we had entered into the home of the Ugly Mother F'ers a local biker bar. 

Since we were bikers as well, we hit it off with the locals!  We shared some beers and laughs.

 June and Scooter we love you!!!  

June, the bar owner, let us crash on the futon out back.

Great times!

Thriftstore China jacket gets America-ed.

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Bear repellent = harmonica and Prince on the speakers.

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Camping in the mountains tonite, grizzly country oooooo

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Buffalo be roamin and sh*t

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Tetons ! Eeeeeeha!

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So here goes my post. It goes to the day we left Twin Falls, Idaho ... youdaho.

Getting some "extra mileage" in on some bad roads. How did people shorten their extra mileage before internet phones?

Disc golf at massacre rocks park is pretty sweet, but dont believe the worthless hole descriptions.

This was our campsite at massacre rocks!

And again in the morning.

Gonna go race some mario carts.

Just droppin off some extra weight.

Sarah with Don and Julie Minton, some amazing people who picked us up on the side of the street and let us camp in their yard.

Crossing the snake river for the bajillianth time.

Made it to Wyoming!!!!

This is a delicious meal.

This is what your face looks like when your meal is this good.

We got to camp here for free too! We had to go all the way back to Idaho though.

What I can only assume is still the Snake River. On the way from Alpine, WY to Jackson, WY.

Group Portrait!

Made it to Jackson Hole, Wyoming where they have the best bike lane into town:

We can see the Tetons!