Ride solo, meet people.
It never fails that a solo bicycle rider, parking their typically overloaded rig anywhere there are other people, especially other cyclists, will invite conversation. Those experiences make a trip interesting. Consider these particularly memorable interactions on my recent Great Plains journey, three of many.
Greg
It was a very long, hot day riding from Rapid City out to the literal ghost town of Scenic, South Dakota. The ride is dominated by treeless rolling prairie cascading from the Black Hills to the west, on the southwest end of the Badlands. It was hot, windy and waterless. I arrived midday hoping for something cold to whet my whistle as my maps indicated a Convenience store, but instead I thought I had rolled into a movie set. Dilapidated buildings with old signs and bleached buffalo heads, tumbleweeds rolling about, even an old stone jail. The roads in and out converged at a quiet intersection, with two gas pumps and a locked building as the only apparent signs of life. A truck with a trailer was pumping gas, and against the locked windowless building was the refrigerated oasis I was seeking - a vending machine! This was likely the greatest single profit center in this entire village!
I walked to the machine as I started to source some bills. I had a $1 and $5 bill, and it required $2. Nuts! I engaged the driver pumping gas, hauling a trailer with a religious native symbol on it, soliciting change for a $5 bill. Between he and his wife, from Oregon, they exchanged the currency I sought. I would have settled for a few bills for my $5 - I was that thirsty. I thanked them profusely.
I fed my bills into the machine, and out sputtered a Diet Coke - argh! I wanted regular for the sugar hit, but settled for a diet as it was cold and wet. More importantly, this old, weathered machine in the middle of nowhere actually worked!
Across the street was an old building, long and narrow with a continuous covered porch - SHADE!! I wheeled over to it and decided to seek its cover. To my surprise, upon the porch were plastic Adirondack chairs, carefully spaced with a small table between, screwed down to the old wood deck. It was as if someone had set this up precisely for travelers like me. I settled into a chair, and ate my crackers and hard salami, sipped my cold Coke and water, and watched.
Though this was a ghost town, travelers did drive through, pausing at the pumps, looking for signs of life as I had, only to speed away, some knowingly stopping to fill with gas. Amidst this activity, another cyclist appeared at the same vending machine, grabbed a beverage, and spotted me on this porch as I waved him over. Heading east from Billings to Ohio on a different route than I, and also having left Rapid City, Greg, a sprinkler fitter from California and about my age, sought and appreciated the shade as much as I, and we spent the next hour chatting about bicycling, life, routes, gear - all the stuff you expect two bicyclists would chat about. We concluded this made-in-the-shade porch with accommodating chairs on an otherwise abandoned building was the work of a church group that apparently had invested in this town. It was pure welcoming genius!
As we chatted, he wished someone would stop from whom he could finagle a Powerade. Lo and behold, a large white suburban pulled up a few minutes later, having seen the two loaded bikes parked along the building. A gentlemen rolled his window down and started asking about our trip, where we were headed, all with genuine interest. And he had a Powerade in his cooler! A wish fulfilled!
One final problem - water - as it is very scarce along this stretch and throughout the Badlands. We walked around the back of this building, and spotted a hydrant. Pulling on the lever, we heard a gurgling sound for a few seconds, as the pipes started to fill, and out gushed some very cold water! Like little boys, we gleefully danced around this hydrant soaking our clothing to cool off.
I was heading north into the Badlands, Greg was heading east toward Interior. We finally took our leave. Empty was the town of life and hubbub, but a visit full of surprise!
Crazy Mike
I continued north on dusty gravel roads for about 15 miles, entering the southwest side of the Badlands on the gravel Sage Creek Rim Road, headed for the primitive, waterless Sage Creek Campground. I arrived to this wide open, treeless flats with a single circular loop, around which vehicles parked and camped inside the loop. From the bluffs above, it looked very much like a teepee circle, or a circle of pioneer wagons out of some old western film. I found a spot with a table and a wind shelter inboard and claimed ownership for the evening. Nearby, a man was sitting quite motionless in his camp chair, looking east. Probably napping, I thought, as I was also wont to do.
Much later, after having pitched my tent, taken an exploratory walk in along the Sage Creek coulee and started my dinner, Mike got up from his chair and walked slowly to my site and just started chatting. From Wisconsin, 71 years old and retired, I supposed he speculated I was a solid chat prospect with my white hair and beard. Most of the other campers were younger folks with tents (no RV's allowed at this site). Perched on the table and hanging onto the posts of the shelter, we chatted for at least an hour.
"I've killed two men."
This caught me off guard, naturally, but my reaction was forced to display calm. Mike was a Vietnan vet, dishonorably discharged after 6 years as a Sergeant, suffering from PTSD. Carefully inquiring of the circumstances of this remark, he indicated he had shot another soldier in his platoon that was supposed to guard the unit derelict in his responsibility. He warned him that if he didn't shape up immediately, Mike would shoot him, for it was either "I shoot you or the enemy shoots us!" Disobedient, the guard was shot and killed. Mike was discharged after a court martial and stripped of his benefits, though he had aspirations of a career in the military. But he admitted to being "a bit crazy in the head".
The second episode involved another man pulling a gun on him in a junkyard that Mike had entered to ask for directions. A shout-down and scuffle of some sort ensued and Mike shot the man. He was acquitted under self-defense, but spent time in jail. The rest of his life was spent quietly in Wisconsin with his wife, working for a company building fiberglass enclosures for trucks until it was bought out by a large eastern firm and he was laid off. He just retired after that.
"What brings you to Sage Creek?"
He was here in the 1980's when the area was less improved than it is today. He was alone here, in this blissful paradise, and decided to return to relive the experience. He grumbled at all the people, that it wasn't the same place he remembered.
"But look at it this way: these are mostly young folks. Tents are all they can afford, like perhaps you in the 1980's. And it brings them out to appreciate this immense beauty, and hopefully carry on with its preservation." He grudgingly agreed.
I did not know what to believe of his story, but knew just to listen. I sensed that Mike was cloaked in a blanket of regret and deep sadness, but also repentance, and genuinely appreciated just being able to talk to someone else about his life and trajectory, someone who would listen, who perhaps could relate to his story. I was there, could embrace the opportunity, and realized that age matters in this situation, for his admission of homicide would likely have scared off the younger campers.
We parted the next morning, wishing each other a good journey.
Jason and Seth
Bruce is not a person but a place - a small town north of Brookings, South Dakota - off route a mile where it was hoped, after a long morning ride from DeSmet, one could stop in any of three tavern/restaurant establishments indicated on Googlemaps for something cold to drink, a spot of lunch and the relief of shade.
I rolled a back-road into town, and followed my instincts into the center of town - the wide main street area. The first place I spotted was Jay Street Pub, in front of which a man with a long mane and a bandana cap was unlocking the door, his young son beside him after getting out of a golf cart. I rolled up, thinking they might be customers, but with no beer or "open": signs on in the window.
"Is this place open?" I asked.
Expressionless, he replied "No, but you can come in."
With token resistance to validate both the sincerity and the security of the invitation, I sensed an opportunity of engagement and accepted. Built in 1910, the exterior was a bit run down, the interior dark but for the glow of a few backroom lights and the sign headers on the beer coolers behind the bar, revealing a gloomy, time-worn interior with a few tables and a pool table. I took a seat at the corner of the bar, while thanking him for the opportunity to cool off in the welcome shade of a darkened bar.
Seth took a seat next to me while his father, Jason (as i will call him) tinkered a bit in the backroom. He offered and I accepted a Coke (full sugar!). Eight years old, he was done with school for the year (third grade) but regretfully admitted the need for summer school as he did not do so well in homeschooling. His favorite class was "computers" and his worst "math". We talked about school and home life until his Dad reappeared behind the bar.
Over my leftover pizza and the Coke, we chatted about the bar business in tiny Bruce, South Dakota, and how he came to acquire it. Jason was careful not to slam the competition, but over the course of 30 minutes recited the intrigue of a new bar competitor and restaurant in town, and how it came to be out of business so quickly. With all the drama of a high flying merger and acquisition story, an offer from the competition to join up (declined) and his collective wisdom of 10 years owning the business after a layoff from a solid career in wind turbine maintenance, Jason was cool, almost complacent about his circumstances and the bar. He identifies the need to make physical improvements, but held off with strategic caution due to the downturn from COVID.
He owns the bar free and clear, bought it well, is profitable and proud. This could have been a lesson for any business management student - it had all the ingredients.
His vision for the future: for his two kids to be able to work here as he watched Seth deftly serve another Coke and fill my water bottles with ice, and for the business to be able to have another employee/manager to allow him to move back into another job. He tells this with a fatherly gleam in his eye for Seth.
Time to go. "How much for the Coke?"
"Two dollars."
I handed Seth $10 while telling Jason "$2 for the Coke, and $8 to Seth for doing all the work!"
That was $10 well spent - the advantages of a solo journey, revealed in the cool shade of a darkened bar, a guest of the proud Owner.
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