to Valentine: Fighting the wind in the Nebraska Sand Hills.

September 3, 2017

When is gaining 150 meters over 40 miles harder than cycling over a mountain pass? When the wind is not your friend and against you.

We have a quiet night in the shelter at Ainsworth’s East City Park. No sprinklers pop up anywhere close to us. At first light we pack up and discover that a rodent must have been gnawing on one of our tent doors, there is about a inch square area of damage and a dime sized hole. We carry a small roll of “tenacious tape” to repair things like this. Still a damn shame though to have a hole in our fancy tent.

As we ride through Ainsworth and pass the water tower the wind seems to pick up. By the time we leave the protection of buildings and trees a pretty strong crosswind is blowing. So far we have been very fortunate with the wind, heading west like we are doing we can expect a couple of tough headwind days. So there can be no complaining about crosswinds today. Both of the small towns we pass through today lack a cafe. Johnstown has a nice shelter though where we eat our last cinnamon rolls we have carried from Norfolk.

Just as we are disappointed to find the Woodlake Cafe out of business, two cyclists come riding towards us. Steve and Lisa from Missouri are riding a couple of days down the Cowboy Trail, but just like us decided to avoid the loose gravel and goatheads on the trail itself.

Highway 20 keeps climbing into a rolling of grass covered sand dunes. As we saw the landscape change yesterday from crops to hay fields, today the fields change from man-planted grasses to more and more native grasses. Lots of yellow flowers also, and black cows. There are windmills and old telegraph poles along the railroad bed. Farms have disappeared to signs of ranches 2-5 miles pointing down side roads. It’s a lonely open landscape.

As advised by Steve and Lisa, we ride onto the trail just before the tall bridge across the Niobrara River just before Valentine. The bridge has tall steel supports and a wooden deck high above the river. We follow the trail for the next couple of miles into Valentine. By now we are hungry and thirsty; a McDonald’s restaurant helps us solve both those issues and a quick WiFi check of email. Next we shop at the IGA, and head for the city park about 2 kilometers north of town. Down a pretty steep hill we will have to climb back up tomorrow. Today is another warm day, about 35C or 95F. Patrick is not feeling so well, either too much beer last night, or an oncoming cold, and we consider getting a room. We go for the camping though, save those motel dollars for a cold and rainy afternoon in our near future. The city park is pretty nice with green grass, lots of trees, a small river and a toilet building with hot showers. All this for $5 a night. There are lots of flies though. We fix a pasta dish with a sauce package Patrick has carried since Lima Peru.

The setting sun is bright red because of the smoke from Montana in the air.