State Changes, Time Changes, and Sprinklers!

Hello to all!

Day thirty five we left South Dakota and entered into the land of Nebraska. We had a pretty solid ride of about 70 miles, going from Martin, SD to Valentine, NE. Nothing too exciting comes to mind, just the vast openness and rolling hills. We did pass into a new time zone.  When we got to Valentine, we decided to stay at a city park that they had. After setting up camp and falling fast asleep, we woke to sprinklers spraying us! We decided to move across the street to a church. But soon we awoke again to find the sprinklers. This happened two more times, as we just moved our tent to where we thought it would be dry. It turns out we are not the quickest thinkers when it’s the middle of the night and we wake suddenly. When we woke in the early morning by the sprinklers, yet again, we decided to just get up and get going.

On day thirty six we went from Valentine to Long Pine state park. It was a day of wind, and we just had to keep pushing through it. Hills are not so bad, at least you know that at some point you will be going down, but with wind, there is no let up. You have no idea if there is going to be a gust or if it will change direction. Wind wears at the rider like a river on rock. We got to Long Pine somewhat early, thanks to our very early start in Valentine.  We were able to dry out some of our stuff and even enjoy a few good beers next to a beautiful creek. Then we got eaten alive by the skeeters, so we turned in. It was nice to have a good nights rest.

We moved along the highway from Long Pine to O’Neill on day thirty seven. We had a kind of late start to the morning and Dan realized about 0.01 miles into the ride that he had a flat. So after we fixed that we were off! We took our time, and even rode for 10 miles on one another’s bikes. We both agreed that it felt weird on someone else’s bike. But it was nice to see what you really like about your own and what you might want to change. O’Neill was great. We had free camping at Carney City Park, which also provided electricity and showers! We felt like royalty…. Well kinda.

Day thirty eight we started off with showers and a contintal breakfast from a hotel we didn’t stay at. We tried to look for a breakfast place around town, but couldn’t find one. Then we decided to stop in at the hotel. It was delicious.    The ride was pretty easy.  A little wind here and there and some small hills, but nothing that we couldn’t handle.  We passed though quite a few towns, but each seemed to be less populated than the last.  We ended in Randolph, leaving ourselves a short ride to Sioux City the next day.