What a bunch of jerks.

The jerks I'm referring to are not the chiseled land grabbers photographed below, but the the ones at Sellwood Cycle Repair who put me on a Kona too solid to use as a good excuse for packing up early and catching a bus home. Also, one could say Wade at Vulture Cycles is equally a jerk for building a bulletproof bike that even Dan can't seem to break. Instead of sitting at home, fattening up on beer and pizza, Dan and I are faced with the last thousand miles before we can call it a day. Truthfully, if you want a good excuse, don't go to these guys. Jerks.

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At the end our last bout with forward motion, we perched ourselves on the perimeter of Badlands National Park. For our Sabbath, we huddled into our tents to avoid blowing away in the gusts, occasionally emerging for the occurrence of digestion. Each time we appeared, the photogenic rock formations looming just down the road seemed to be calling, which led us to wonder, "Why aren't we on a hike today?" To our benefit, the fifty miles we traveled after our rest day turned out to be one of the more picturesque stretches of the trip.

Our originally planned route from the west end of the park would have required us to carry a day's worth of water, which we intended to obtain along with some snacks in the town of Scenic, SD. To our unfortunate realization, this township is more or less shut down. As we learned, almost the entire town was recently purchased, and the new owners had not yet arrived to get the place running again. In our search for potable water, we met the man now responsible for maintaining the facilities in this town of one citizen, one post office, and vacant, boarded up storefronts. He not only steered us in the direction of clean water, but also invited us to camp out pretty much anywhere in town. We chose the lawn of the Tatanka Trading Post after seriously considering the jailhouse. He also provided us with important intel on a questionable 40 mile stretch of dirt road which may or may not be maintained. In light of this information, we redirected through Rapid City, which led us into the Black Hills National Forest, past Mount Rushmore, and into the oil rich plains of eastern Wyoming. The ride through the Badlands and the Black Hills made for a satisfactory ending to the already great time we had traveling in South Dakota.

The one challenge we experienced in the Black Hills had nothing to do with the climbs, but instead what the land once was, and now represents. In response to a post 1849 gold rush within the Black Hills, the US government broke a treaty with the Lakota tribe and assumed possession of their sacred land. To rub salt in the wound, about fifty years later the US government funded a project to carve the likeness of four great American leaders into Mount Rushmore. The carvings on Mount Rushmore have succeeded in attracting tourism and thus turned the surrounding hills into an endless oasis of go carts, mini-golf, and other carnival amusements; nothing is sacred. Lucky for us, the entrance fee into the Mount Rushmore Memorial is waived for cyclists, allowing us to avoid paying directly in support of the obstruction.

The history behind the Black Hills brought forth critical considerations of the treatment of Native Americans, both past and present, and all over the country. Coming from a mixture of European migration, my existence in this land will always be marred by the truth of what it represents. If my ancestors hadn't crossed the Atlantic to find opportunity at the expense of others, I would not be alive, nor would the majority of us Americans. However, we can't accept responsibility for such things beyond our control, we can't pack up and go back to Europe, so there's no use in looking backwards. Instead, we should consider the opportunities looking forward, which honor Native American ancestry and culture, preserve the land they still have, negotiate the return of sacred ground, and stop waiting for these people to waste away.