Please turn the wind off. Thanks.

Today we rode 75 miles from the lovely capital of SD to Miller, SD. It was brutal. The winds were ridiculous! There were constant sidewinds the entire time! It was near impossible to draft, and I'm stubborn and rode by myself. Poor life choice. I wasn't too far behind Izzy and Sue, so they were kind enough to stop and wait for me. Man, that made such difference!

We had lunch at a really cute and inexpensive diner. It was stuck in time- it was right out of the 50s. You could get a burger for $2! That's actually something that I've noticed as we've gotten into these small towns...cheap food! I'm cheating at writing this update a day late in a little diner in De Smet. It's 50 cents for a cookie and a dollar for coffee!

So yes, since I'm writing this a day late, the ride has already become a little fuzzy. It's crazy how much the days blur together. We spent the night at the local high school. Oh, and I did laundry at the local laundry mat. That was another struggle. I ran out of detergent, so I was planning on just using the vending machine there. Of course they were out. Luckily there was an Alco across the street, so I rode over to get some detergent. It was another one of those all purpose stores- clothes, food, outdoor gear, cleaning products, greeting cards, electronics, and so much more! I guess it sounds like I'm just describing Target, but it's different when Alco is your only option. Well, I got my detergent and my backpack was full of dirty, smelly clothes, so I had to balance on my bike with one hand on my handle bars and the other holding my way too big bottle of detergent. Oh, and to add to the circus act, the parking lot and the path to the lot was not paved, so I was wobbling on gravel. I'm sure I was quite the site. After all that and struggling with the dollar change machine, I finally started my load of laundry. Kristin and Timmy walked in 5 minutes later, and then Deidre and Mike were dropped off by chauffeur Frank. Deidre bribed him with a candy bar. Smart girl.

Tim, Sam, Todd, and I went to the grocery to buy dinner. I got way too much food, but it's hard to feed one person with grocery store size portions. The left over Cheez-Its were donated to the rest stop snacks.