waiting out the heat

We are in Kadoka, SD right now waiting out the midday heat. It is 95 today which feels devilishly hot. The locals are all shaking their heads at us. It is supposed to be up to 105 tomorrow and stay high for the next week and a half. Urg! Through Wyoming too. However it is 25 degrees cooler in Yellowstone right now. I have just found my motivation to climb 5000 ft of hilly roads.

Since I have some time to waste, I will write about things I don't have time to regularly.

We are riding highway 16 across SD which was the old main highway before the interstate. Now there is I90 which everyone takes, so 16 is pretty empty of traffic. The people we do see generally all wave at us though. However, they don't wave whole handedly, the just raise their fingers off the steering wheel while leaving the palm in place. I have decided to take up this waving practice from here on out. Its great because 1) I won't only have one hand on my bars, 2) It takes much less energy, 3) I can look nonchalant, and 4) If the person doesn't wave back, I don't feel as big of an idiot.

I have also been monitering Ira's waving habbits. He will always wave to a man on a tractor. The probability he will wave at a passing truck, grows with the trucks age. He generally never waves to cars. Of course, he will always wave to anyone who waves to him first. Whenever I randomly wave at someone, it is usually because we are going down hill and I am in a good mood for that moment.

Here is a picture of Ira and I at Pipestone National Monument in Minnesota.



Here is a pic of Ira being annoyed at me taking so many pictures.



Here is our first glimps of buffalo in S.D.



What else can I ramble about. Bicycle touring long term is different from the week, weekend tours Ira and I have done in the past. Then, we had a short period of time where we deffinatly had to get to our destination by the given time. On this trip, we don't need to stress out about these deadlines. However, psychologically, it seems easier to deal with the discomfort which comes from cycle touring when doing it for a shorter definite period of time. There is no way to get around it, cycle touring is a ritual in pain. Now my aunt was recently lecturing (Ok, Nancy, not lecturing, just communicating) to me I should use the term discomfort instead of pain. One way or the other, it can be very uncomfortable doing this, beside the hard work. Your butt hurts, (I keep getting really painful blisters) your neck aches, you get tired. Now with the heat, we have to deal with heat rashes, the threat of dehydration and being uncomfortably hot in our tent at night therefore being tired all the time. These are the negative sides, obviously. Why, dealing with all of this are we willing to continue on day after day. The answer is, I really don't know. I do enjoy seeing new things. There are obviously moments when I'm really enjoying cycling (mostly when on a downhill grade). I get a great satisfaction of pulling into whatever town we have set as our goal for that day. I get even more excited (the past couple of hottt days) when our destination has a pool we can jump in. (I just realized how many parenthasis I am using). I guess what it comes to is, I find this life style to be slightly addictive. Even though it isn't very fun a lot of the time, I have this drive to keep going. When we hit a stride and ride for 15 or 20 miles straight, in between every other second when I am bemoaning how my butt hurts, I can fall into a meditative trance and really think about things. What things? All kinds of topics, that would be enough for another log.

Enough rambling for now. Sorry if this is very disjointed, but that is how I am feeling right now. Also sorry if the spelling in my past couple of logs has been bad, the spell check on this isn't working at the moment.