As the previous day had not ended where we would have been were it not for the storm, we started out, not knowing if we could do another high mileage day. We packed up our gear said goodbye to our wonderful hotel room, and all the puppies.
Back on the road, we took I-90 to Wall, SD were we stopped for a nutritious breakfast of soda, flavored milk and donuts.
Wall, is a pretty crappy place in my opinion, just a tourist trap for the most part, and after going thru there in the summer several years back, I had no real desire to revisit. It is however, the north entrance to Badlands National Park, which was initially on our list of places to visit on the trip. At this point, we were both getting quite tired, and had to make the decision whether to take our time for the final 500+miles and split it into two days, or just say forget it, and go at it semi-iron-butt style and try for our final destination.
After a little discussion, we decided that with Stacey needing to do some serious work on her dissertation when we got back, and the fact that we were needing a break from riding, that we would push really hard one more day get to Lincoln, and spend the night in our bed. Though I really wanted Stacey to see Badlands National Park, I knew that we could probably go there sometime in the future. Off we headed.
When we got to Valentine, Nebraska, about 3 hours away from home, we decided that we had to stop. Not only had we arrived in a place called Valentine, but we were way too hot and pretty hungry after our breakfast of sugar and, well, let’s be honest, more sugar.
When we spied Mike’s Taco Casa [my emphasis], we just knew we were in for a real “authentic” Mexican treat. And we weren’t wrong. Faced with a reader board menu of meat, fried meat, and fried potatoes (probably cooked with meat), Stacey opted not to order anything. While I braved the challenge. The chicken burrito and mexi-fries were adequate fuel to get us started on the road again (after a good dousing of water over our heads), but I have to say–we haven’t been back to Mike’s again!
After getting some food for the bike, too, we hit the road again. And after a few hours, we started to chase our shadows.
Stacey was getting excited along this route, because she recognized how close we were to home. And we were both getting a little travel weary and ready for home.
Here’s Stacey–valiantly giving the ‘two-up’ sign (yes, we realize this sign means other things as well) in the parking lot of our building. (If you notice, her hands are locked in a vulture claw position as she desperately wants to be clear of that seat.)
So happy to be home, but we couldn’t resist taking just a few more parking lot pictures.
(There’s actually a picture in our files of Stacey collapsed on the ground in here somewhere, but I think she was just being dramatic.)
total mileage for the day? Around 545 miles.Results: 2 sore butts.
Total trip Mileage: 2352
