As I shove my possessions into my bike bags, Dave comes out and offers, once again, for me to stay an extra night. “It’s going to be an uphill ride to Mount Rushmore. The first section out will be on a bike path and you will just love it. You’ll go by the Crazy Horse…
I could have been looking into a mirror. A mirror that adds 30 years and changes my race. Mary is making breakfast for me. We are exchanging facts about our lives and have found surprising similarities. Mary also grew up with four brothers and is the only girl. She grew up in and around Minneapolis,…
I had never heard a baby deer sneeze until I biked to the Severson home in Custer, South Dakota. I ride up their long, inclined driveway and see a woman with joyful looking woman smile at me as she opens the door. She peeks in the house and lets Dave know I showed up. “You’re…
After leaving Andy, I still had to deal with the construction. The flagger had moved her car up the road so now she was in front of me. As I bike up, she says, “I talked to the pilot car, they’ll take you.” I smile and thank her in response as I approach the line…
I think about South Dakota a lot. The day I left Newcastle, Wyoming, I slowly packed my things up at the motel where I’d spent the night. It was the first motel I had paid for, after biking for almost four months. I had spent the last 6 days biking across a hot, dry desert…
I’m pretty sure I grow more ‘childish’ with every passing year. My dreams only grow bigger and bigger, as I crawl into smaller and smaller spaces…by that I mean, caves. On my first bike tour in 2011, Sheena and I visited Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. We went on the Wild Cave tour, where we were…
Dogs bark callously. There is a pair of two who are separated from the park only by a fence; my presence seems to have disturbed them deeply. There’s a lot I could say, and that needs to be said about the last few weeks. I spent a week on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. In government…
Today, I got a late start sector appreciating the opportunity to be a tourist in Sioux Falls. Raeann and Kristen took me to the Farmers Market, Falls Park, and the Sidewalk Arts Festival. Then I changed my tires and brake pads. After a short few hours of riding, I’m at home for the night! For…
There are some things about bike touring that become banal. After seeing thousands of cows and corn fields, they don’t seem glamorous anymore. Despite the lack of glamor, here is a collection of scenes from my bike tour that I don’t get to see in my non-touring life. They serve as a reminder that there…
Today, I rode into Sioux Falls, where Raeann and Kristen are hosting me! Here they are, with lots of tomatoes from their garden!
where's mat 