{"id":71,"date":"2007-08-26T14:47:46","date_gmt":"2007-08-26T20:47:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/?p=71"},"modified":"2008-02-09T10:09:08","modified_gmt":"2008-02-09T16:09:08","slug":"tour-day-9-murdo-sd-to-interior-sd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/blog\/2007\/08\/26\/tour-day-9-murdo-sd-to-interior-sd\/","title":{"rendered":"Tour Day 9: Murdo, SD to Interior, SD"},"content":{"rendered":"

76.49 mi \/ 5:58:20 time \/ 12.8 mph avg. \/ 32.0 mph max. \/ 2608 ft. climbing<\/strong>
\nStaying at Badlands National Park Campground<\/p>\n

\"Photography<\/a>It seems like my previous tours have had a day, about a week or so in, that make me say “yeah, now that’s<\/strong> why I do these rides!” Well, I’m still waiting for that day on this tour. Haha, no, just kidding! Today was totally that day!<\/p>\n

Not only was there no rain today, there was barely even a cloud. That meant that my thermometer eventually reached 105 (I’m presuming it exaggerates a bit while in the sun, but even in the shade it said 97). It never really felt too bad though, probably because of that “dry heat” thing, as well as a strong south breeze.<\/p>\n

\"Badlands<\/a>The area west of Murdo was even more empty and “Dances With Wolves”-like than before; lots of rolling grassland with plenty of rolled up hay bales, but not a lot of cattle, and not a lot of buildings suggesting that the land belonged to someone. Since Old Highway 16 \/ Business 90 spent a lot of time quite close to I-90, I did see plenty of signs for Wall Drug and other various tourist nonsense. Last night in Murdo I spoke to an older local couple who was quite knowledgeable about the area, and when they found out I was getting away from the Interstate and going through the Badlands, they said “Oh…but then you’ll miss Wall Drug! It’s really quite something.” I was surprised they’d say such a ting, but then I figured that maybe it’s just what you’re used to. Living near one of the biggest cities in the country, I’m constantly inundated with crass commercialism; out here, there are usually no businesses in a town that are even part of a chain. So the opportunity to experience crass commercialism must be just as exciting to them as experiencing natural beauty is to me. I passed someplace called “1880 Town” that has a logo (and full-size model alongside the road that I saw) of a boy leading a dinosaur skeleton. I didn’t even bother to check if it was some kind of weirdo Christian fundamentalist thing. It is interesting to notice that a large percentage of vehicles traveling I-90 appear to be vacationers of some sort: either RVs, or cars and SUVs with bicycles strapped to the back.<\/p>\n

\"Notch<\/a>I did some more ups and downs today, climbing 50ft, then dropping 30, and so on. When I crested one hill at something like 2700ft., I looked to my left, and wow, there are some badlands! I walked off into the grass to take a picture, and almost stepped on a cactus. This was still a long way from the National Park, but then as I got closer, I could see the jagged cliffs rising up above the landscape.<\/p>\n

\"Badlands<\/a>The park is amazingly beautiful. Since it was a short day, and I crossed into Mountain Time at some undefined point (“gaining” an extra hour), I got into the park at around 2pm. Before going down to the campground, I took a hike up “Notch Trail”, which is labelled “strenuous”. Of course, that means it was almost empty. And it was<\/em> quite strenuous, and dangerous, with a rope-and-log ladder you had to climb and plenty of cliffs you could fall off. That’s my kind of trail, with a great view at the end (and really, you can roam free and go hiking\/climbing anywhere in the park). Then I rode over to the campground, realizing that it was perhaps the first time I’d rode at ~10mph without minding at all, because there was just so much for me to gawk at. I grabbed a campsite, worked on my bike a bit (there aren’t many trees, but each campsite has a wooden awning over the picnic table, which is really nice), and then got some dinner at the park restaurant while I waited for the sun to get lower. <\/p>\n

\"Badlands<\/a>Then it was over to “Saddle Trail”, another steep, treacherous climb, and plenty more incredible views, with the setting sun lighting up the cliffs. I climbed up to the very peak of a mountain and sat there all monk-like to watch the sun disappear. Then I turned around, and there was the almost-full moon rising. Perfect. I managed to get back down from the mountain without killing myself, and now the moon is even lighting up camp. Now I think I’ll go to sleep while listening to Calexico’s “Feast of Wire”.<\/p>\n

\"Day<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

76.49 mi \/ 5:58:20 time \/ 12.8 mph avg. \/ 32.0 mph max. \/ 2608 ft. climbing Staying at Badlands National Park Campground It seems like my previous tours have had a day, about a week or so in, that make me say “yeah, now that’s why I do these rides!” Well, I’m still waiting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bike"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gregie.com\/neil\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}