“My gummy bears are produced with genetic engineering!”

July 11, 2016

Day Forty-One: Edgemont, South Dakota to Hill City, South Dakota

We backtracked a mile or so to get to the official start of the Mickelson Trail, in the small park in Edgemont, where we first read an amusing historical marker about Teddy Roosevelt’s long-ago visit to the town, in which he ditched the banquet organized by the local big-shots, and instead ate “beans and bacon” with some cowboys. I suppose this was the biggest thing that ever happened in Edgemont.

The Mickelson trail started off next to a highway, whose smooth shoulder initially caused me to wonder why we were riding on the slow crushed limestone surface of the trail instead. Soon enough, though, the trail moved away from the busy road and became much nicer. We had what we believed was the first sustained shade since the cold ride up and down Boreas Pass (“Where we didn’t even need it”, said Joy.)

We’d seen a few signs warning us to stay on the trail in order to avoid “rattlesnakes and poison ivy”, although I ignored this advice to investigate some unexpected yucca plants (I thought I’d seen the last of those days ago in Wyoming.) I had the idea that I could harvest some yucca seeds and grow some of the plants at home. A slightly ridiculous notion, since I can’t even keep a simple fern alive more than two weeks.

The quiet, shady area ended after a while, and the trail followed the highway again for several miles. We stopped at one of the trail rest areas to eat some snacks, and Joy, who for some reason on this trip likes to read aloud the writing on food packages, announced “My gummy bears are produced with genetic engineering!” Around this time, after I made a comment about something-or-other, which Joy didn’t like, she threatened to “put something nasty in your snack bag.” Presumably the disgusting genetically engineered gummy bears, which I loathe.

The Mickelson trail is pretty famous (multiple signs informed us that it was in the “Rail Trail Hall of Fame”!), so we were surprised that we didn’t see anyone else on the trail until mile 31. Not longer after that we reached the first town on the trail (after the start in Edgemont), Pringle, which was dusty and kind of bleak. We talked to three middle-aged men for a while, and learned that one of them had briefly lived in Utah twenty years ago, and still suffered slightly from the same culture shock that I experienced when Joy and I were there. We exchanged stories of Utah weirdness for a while, as Joy and the guy’s friends waited semi-patiently, and then Joy and I continued up the trail’s steady 4% grade.

We had lunch at a Subway in Custer, a super-touristy town, and then climbed away from the highway again, as the scenery got much, much better — trees, meadows, bluffs. The trail continued to be surprisingly empty, with the odd exception of a large group of grim teenagers running joylessly, presumably driven on by their stone-faced coach, who brought up the rear of the group.

On every long bike tour I’ve been plagued by songs that I cannot get out of my head while riding. Today it was the Beatles’ “Rocky Raccoon”, surely one of the most annoying songs ever written by Paul McCartney. I started thinking about the song because we were riding in the Black Hills of South Dakota, which the opening line of the song references. Joy swore that she’d never heard the song, and after my very lame attempt to perform it for her, I suppose she still has never heard it.

In late afternoon, after a day of steady climbing on the trail, we reached the entrance to the Crazy Horse memorial, an insanely ambitious, gigantic sculpture which will not be completed in the lifetime of anyone reading this. We talked to an older man volunteering at the memorial’s information center, and found out he was from Iowa. We always like talking to people from Iowa, where Joy is from.

Immediately after that was a long, fun descent to Hill City, a big-time tourist town, where I became perhaps unreasonably annoyed by the presence of all the tourists, especially a couple of cackling middle-aged women drinking and smoking on a bench outside our motel room. The sleeveless-shirt wearing, handlebar-mustached partner of one of the women eventually told them to cool it, fortunately.

Later, in our room, we watched a little bit of the Tour de France coverage, marveling at the ridiculously aerodyamic position that the leader, Chris Froome, was able to achieve on a long downhill breakaway. I jokingly vowed to imitate Froome tomorrow on the Mickelson Trail, and then we went to bed.

Today's ride: 64 miles (103 km)
Total: 1,593 miles (2,564 km)

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