Day 23 Devil's Tower, WY to Lead, SD

Last night, after dinner at the Devil's Tower KOA restaurant, we saw a couple bison in the field across the street.  They were in a fenced field, so obviously they weren't wild, but they're still fun to see.

There were also some longhorn cattle in the same field.

The KOA often shows the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" on an outdoor screen that has the Devil's Tower in the background.  I watched for awhile, but it was getting cold and late, so I didn't stay for the whole thing.  I never got to see the "real" Devil's Tower in the movie.  Just the clay version.

This morning we left the Devil's Tower campground and headed east.  It was a beautiful, crisp, cool morning, and the best was that we had a tail wind.  The first 50 miles practically flew by.  It was great!

We got some final views of the Devil's Tower.

The landscape was beautiful, with green fields, trees, and red rocks.

Here's some of the history of the U.S. Government's interaction with the Native Americans of the area.

We entered the "town" of Aladdin, population 15.  The store there is great!  It has a little bit of everything.

AND, the town is for sale!

When Kelly and I arrived at the "Welcome to South Dakota" sign, there were several motorcyclists there.  One guy joked about bungeeing our bikes to his motorcycle and pulling us along.  He wanted a picture with us, and the other guys teased him about his wife not liking it.  It was all in fun.

And, now I'm in South Dakota!

After the lunch stop, at about mile 50, we turned and headed south.  That's not normally something I need to share, but this time, it's a big deal.  We no longer had a tail wind, but a cross wind.  A very STRONG cross wind, which made cycling difficult.  I managed to get a couple of pictures taken of farm "stuff."

On that same road, I saw a sign that said, "Lead 26 miles."  Based on the route we were supposed to take, Lead was more like 40 miles away.  Hmmm . . . would I rather pedal 26 miles or 40 miles, especially when there's a difficult cross wind?  That's a no-brainer, so I suggested to Barb that maybe we could take the shorter route.  She agreed.

We stopped at a bike shop in the town of Spearfish and asked them about the shorter route, just to make sure it was possible.  It was.

Hilary showed up, and we asked if she'd like to come along.  She agreed, so we headed off!  Three renegade cyclists going off-route!!  It was still not an easy ride, with construction and hills, but in the end it saved us about 10 miles and 400 feet of climbing.  We also got to ride through the town of Deadwood, an Old West Style town, which looked like a great place to visit.

After I arrived at our camp for the night (Lead-Deadwood HS), one of the cyclists asked me how I liked that last hill (the one I didn't do, because I was a renegade).  I replied, "Oh, it was something!"

FYI, Lead, as in the name of the town, rhymes with "need."