Daily Summary

Amazing Sights In Badlands, Annoying Wind

The temperature was great today and it started out sunny for the time we needed good photos. I’ll talk more about the wind at bottom, but I’ll cover the 20 miles of Badlands National Park First.

Bad Lands National Park

I had no idea how awesome the sights would be. The park portion of the ride made this one of the best days. There are so many photos that I won’t go into detail on them all but will give an overview.

First, I included 2 videos up top. The first video is a panoramic view from one of the overlooks.

The second video captures the really cool “cheeping” sound that the prairie dogs make. You won’t see them in the video because they all hid as I approached, but you can hear them. I love the sound! There is also a picture of one in the photo list, and I took a picture of my foot by one of their holes to give you an idea of how big they are.

Next, I have photos of the sign entering Buffalo Gap National Grasslands and also Badlands National Park.

There are a variety of pictures of the formations within Badlands. One shows the colored layers. There is also one of grassland barely 0.5 miles uphill from the colored layer location. The landscape changed so fast.

I did see two buffalo, but they were pretty far away, and the pictures didn’t turn out. I also had bison sausage for lunch at the park’s restaurant.

The park had turn outs and overlooks all over the place, in addition to a 25mph speed limit for much of it. So, we had no issue riding. I enjoyed seeing all the kids climbing around on the rocks. I would have loved that myself if I had on real shoes. There are also places you can hike to the top of some of the formations. I may do that another time.

This is a park well worth seeing if you get the chance.

The Wind …. Again!

We had winds that were close to 20 mph consistently with gusts to 25 or so. This wasn’t enough to make things unsafe, but it was coming largely from an east to southeast direction. Thus, we had either strong crosswinds or strong headwinds the entire ride!

We had to work extra hard to make progress and went pretty slow, especially when including all the picture stops. A couple guys bailed at lunch at mile 30 because they were tired of the wind. The last 20 miles or so on the straight line heading east was a pain. 

This ride felt like more than 57.5 miles. The wind basically made flats feel like a moderate hill, so we were pedaling all the time.

I am not looking forward to tomorrow as it looks like we’ll have similar headwinds all day for 115 miles, in the rain (and possible thunderstorms), on the service road next to I-90 (so little scenery). And, I’ll be having to get up at 4:00 am for the pleasure of it …

The Quote Of The Day

I told everyone at the start of the tour that I over analyze everything. I’ve been going especially crazy looking at the weather. One guy told me as I discussed what we might expect after lunch, “Dude, you’re kind of obsessed with the weather”. So, I guess I’m living up to my forewarning!

The Hotel And Food

We are at an America’s Best Value Inn in a town with population ~600 and a small restaurant next door. The room is clean. They have food and served us really fast. It worked. Enough said…