Diary

Mileage:  84 miles (136 kms)

Elevation Change:  2641 feet (805 meters)

Weather: cloudy & cooler in am, hot in afternoon

Morale:  Great, but tired!

Incidents:  Reached the halfway point!

Daily Summary:

If the circles of Hell for a cyclist are hills, heat, headwinds, and hundred miles, we had them all yesterday.  Fortunately, Mother Nature was kind to us today and our day was a lot easier.  A big storm blew through in the night, and we woke to cloudy skies,  cooler temperatures, calmer winds, and wet roads.  We had “just” 84 miles to do today.  And despite the serious looking elevation profile, it was relatively flat.  There were three attention getting climbs, but they were all relatively short.   We, and everyone else, took it easy today, being still very tired from our huge effort yesterday.  As you can see on the route picture, we followed the Missouri River Valley , through the Crow Creek Indian Reservation, down to a town of 2300 called Chamberlain.  Chamberlain is an old steamboat town.  The river is completely devoid of commercial traffic now, as far as we could see.  This area has a distinctively Midwest feel to it because of the river, but retains a western atmosphere as well. Christopher took the day off, but we met up with him at the first SAG stop, which was our HALFWAY POINT!  Yippee!

 

In the photos below you see us at the halfway point, then a view of the Missouri River Valley—quite pretty.