The big question this morning was "Did you hear that storm last night?" I had not. I was dead to the world. Load was early this morning at 5:45 am, as we had breakfast at Dale's Restaurant, about a mile and a half from the hotel. There is a creek just behind the hotel and when we crossed over, it was a torrent of swirling red clay water. It must have rained hard. Skies threatened rain as we left, but were holding. We had a nice little climb out of Hot Springs - a bit hard as we had no chance to warm up before climbing. And we climbed all morning. By the first SAG stop at mile 32, we had climbed about 2200 feet with a couple of two mile climbs. What a way to greet the day. But the climbs took us through Wind Cave National Park where it is rolling hills (and some bigger hills) And gorgeous formations. We saw a few bison and a prairie dog colony. It would have been nice to have had the time to explore this park a bit more.
But we had more climbing to do - 5100 feet total today. After the SAG it was more climbing and on to the Crazy Horse monument. We couldn't get very close (without paying $20), but this will be huge when it is finished (not in my life time and perhaps not in our kids' life time). Still lots of work to do on this.
After a few minutes there, it was back to climbing, this time up to see Mount Rushmore. We had taken the boys to see this maybe 15+ years ago. Still an impressive piece of work. After an ice cream cone at the top, we still had 20 miles to the hotel, so back on the bike - a nice fast descent into the tourist trap town of Keystone for our SAG stop. Then the 2 1/2 mile climb at 6 to 8 % grade. Some said that it exceeded 10% a few places. From all my complaining, you get the notion that we did a lot of climbing today. But for the next 25 days, we only have one day where we climb more than 3000 feet, so the road will begin to even out. My legs are feeling better already.
Despite all my grousing about climbing today, it was a beautiful day. The threatening rain clouds yielded to blue skies and favorable winds, with the temperature in the mid 80s. And the scenery was spectacular. Some of the best of the trip. The Black Hills offer some fabulous sights and it is definitely worth a trip out this way.
After our rap meeting tonight, I had a chance to go to Mass at the cathedral here in Rapid City. It was just a block from the hotel. Only about 15 people there, but a beautiful, modern church.
Tomorrow is a relatively short day - less than 60 miles to Wall and the famous Wall Drugs.
Be well
Don
PS. Congratulations to Rachel Lustig on her first day as CEO of Catholic Social Services in Columbus! Hard to believe that it has been two months since I retired. I had a chance to call Rachel from Mount Rushmore today. I pray she enjoys the agency as much as I did and that it flourishes under her leadership. She has a terrific staff that works there. I still miss them very much.
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