Illini 4000

View Original

Day 37: You Don't Know Small Town Until You Know South Dakota

This morning Jay offered up the dedication who spoke of Doug and Brick friends of his who also battled prostate cancer.We could not have asked for better conditions for today’s almost-century (96 miles).  For the first time in a while the scenery seemed to change and we swapped the usual cornfields for…mostly nothing but rolling hills and cows. According to Mack, “today finally felt like we are making progress.”  We spent the whole day on a road off the side of the highway (one panel of cues, woo!).  There was a slight tailwind, around 70 degree weather, and nicely paved roads. Our last rest stop took us to a literal one horse town where we befriended a white pony tied to a sign post and spent some time at the only storefront in town, a gas station with about four shelves of goods.Kadoka, where we are spending the night tonight has a population of 654 people. If you went to an average Chicagoland high school picture your graduating class starting their own civilization, and that is the size of the town we are staying in. Unfortunately, we had to break our amazing no-team pasta and lentils streak, which was still pretty good, especially after a long day.After seeing no less than ten ‘Wall Drug’ advertisements today on our ride I am excited to finally see what all the hype is about tomorrow.Home of the Free Ice WaterMB