Total miles traveled: 2,309 miles
Oh Wyoming... you are so cold hearted. In fact, it has been the coldest five hours of our trip today. Believe me when I say that you will not be reading a single complaint about the heat from me! Please heat, come back. Today was not only cold, but also extremely wet. The rain began about five minutes after we left Sturgis, SD. At first the rain began with small pellets, but that only lasted a few minutes. Soon, it was pouring buckets of cats, dogs, and squirrels. That was simply the beginning because all of a sudden, it started hailing like little bb's. It was so painful, and I had the little red gun shot like wounds to prove it! It reminded me so much of our last trip when we were sitting at McDonald's drinking coffee and trying to get warm.
In case you've never gotten caught in cold, wet weather on a motorcycle, let me explain how it feels. You get chilled to the bone. You feel so cold that your bones ache. Your body is shivering so much that you have physical pain as a result. When this happens to me, I scoot up next to Ricky like a scared baby deer. If I am doing this, I can't really do any sight seeing because my face is pretty much smooshed up against Ricky's back. Yay for me being productive though because during our 3 hour wet ride. While we were traveling, I did the following: 1. Planned my first three days of instruction for next year, 2. Planned my 2012-2013 discipline plan and 3. Planned procedural instruction for day one. I felt very accomplished!
Many of the families we have encountered here I'm Wyoming and in South Dakota were very large. We've seen families with as many as SIX children. At first we thought it was just one isolated incident, but we soon realized that most of the local families have large family size. I have two theories for this. I think the cause is either 1. Religious/cultural to this area, or 2. It's so cold that they have large families to keep warm when they snuggle at night!
This morning on the South Dakota news, we heard the most hilarious news story ever. Apparently, the public pool is closed today. Why? Great question. Was it due to renovations? Nope. Cleaning? Not even that. Maybe the heat and/or fires in the area? Wrong! The public pool is closed today due to "a diarreha incident." I would be so sad if that story was about me! I mean it's bad enough that someone was sick, but now not only is your sickness known to all other visiting patrons, but also to the entire state of South Dakota. So very sad but hilarious to hear about a diarreha incident at 6 am.
The day began with beautiful, but slightly chilly (like sweatshirt at a football game chilly) weather. We made our way down to Mount Rushmore first thing, and boy oh boy, those handsome prez's did not disappoint! It was amazing. I can't believe that someone would be so patient and talented to carve not one, but four faces into a mountain. Man, I get frustrated with just stick figures! After our visit to Rushmore, we traveled to Deadwood. Deadwood is a cute little old western town. Of course, Harley Davidson had a store there too and we walked around the little old fashioned town. We also visited the legendary Sturgis. How cool! If we were just a few weeks later, we would have been in town for one of the largest bike rally in the country. There were great souvenirs and of course, a Harley Davidson store there as well. Some of their t-shirts were as high as $50 each!
Because of our weather incident, we are three hours behind our planned location. Tomorrow, we hope to travel to Yellowstone. I sure hope the rain and cold weather goes away before the am. If it doesn't, I might hang out at the Holiday Inn rather than traveling through that wet, cold mess of a ride.
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