Day 23: Rapid City to Philip, SD

(Quick note about the map - for some reason I cannot figure out google maps. I know there is a way to just add to my current map but every time I do it just screws up the original map. So, every night I've had to recreate the entire map. This is way too time consuming! If anyone can help me, please advise. Otherwise I am just going to show a map of where we are and where we plan to go the next day or two.)
I really enjoyed our stay in Rapid City! Its a neat town. They have a great historic downtown with great shopping, restaurants, bars, etc. I was surprised. We ate dinner at the Firehouse Brewery and Marc finally got to enjoy a true South Dakota brewed beer.

This morning we had a few errands to run before heading East to Philip, SD. A trip to the local thrift store was one of the errands. No, I'm not making Marc visit every thrift store (although I'm tempted!) Yesterday I lost one of my sandals. I strapped my sandals to the underside of my rack and when we arrived at our hotel, I only had one sandal! What a bummer as those were my only shoes (aside from the bike shoes.) So, I researched a local thrift store to see if I could pick up a cheap pair of sandals. We spent a few minutes in the morning trying to find the Salvation Army Store. Unfortunately we were also starving, so the search lasted a total of 2 1/2 minutes.

We ate a hearty breakfast at the Parkway Restaurant. They had the largest and best breakfast sausage ever. If you ever go to Rapid City (which I recommend you do) you must try their breakfast. Yum! Adequately stuffed, we were ready for our 90 mile ride to Philip.

Marc mapped out a route that would take us on frontage roads for the first 40 miles before we were forced on the interstate. Unfortunately we could not find the frontage road. That seems to be our peril with frontage roads - you can see them clearly from the highway but you can never figure out how to get to them. Some days I just want to jump the fence from the highway to get to the road.

So we are zipping down the highway at a fairly good speed (nice winds today) when Marc stops and turns around to check out something that caught his eye along the road. He comes back with a huge crescent wrench - probably weighing 3 pounds or so. He decides its too much of a prized find to leave behind, so he straps it to his trailer. ( Note: we spent lots of time and money trying to find the lightest gear possible for our trip and now Marc is picking up random heavy do-dads. Crazy!)

At mile 55 we stopped at the famous Wall Drug Store. What a tourist trap! I've seen this place on TV and its a bit less exciting than its made out to be. The store itself is a maze that leads from one room of junkie trinkets to the next. There is some wonderful Western Art if you pay attention to the walls and avoid the souvenir crap. I couldn't resist another cup of 5 cent coffee and slice of pie. This time I had the cherry pie (yes I know I've had cherry pie already but this one was completely different than the last pie.) The signs advertise "homemade pies" but their pies are definitely not homemade. Perhaps by today's standards - pouring canned pie filling into pre-made pie crusts is called homemade. Marc ate two of the famous "homemade" donuts. (Those on the contrary are homemade and delicious!)

After Wall, we still had about 35 miles to Philip. Along our route we stopped to take a few photos in a real life ghost town - Cottonwood. The sign advertises "Population 12", although you can see evidence of a much larger town in previous years. It was interesting.

I've been finding that no matter how long the ride - the last 10 miles or so are my toughest. I typically run out of steam at this time and start counting down the miles until we arrive. Today was especially tough as you could see our destination in the distance but the road was not getting us any closer to town. In fact, the road routed us further and further away from town. It was so frustrating! Whomever engineered the road decided to play a cruel joke and take travelers several miles out of their way before leading them back to town. ARGH!!!

We found the only motel in town and got a room for the night. The only hang up was that the owner would not let us keep our bikes in the room. With no other options in town, we obliged. She told us we could keep our bikes out in the shed so we wheeled them out the back yard area. The shed is also home to the family pony, Earl. I hope Earl doesn't decide to naw on Marc's handlebars. He's quite particular about his bike.

Tomorrow we are off to Pierre - another 90 miler. At least its supposed to be a sunny day!