Day 75 (7/30): Onida to Pierre, SD

Mileage: 32.8; 2,193 total

This was a short quick ride, with a long "cool-down" stop at the one gas station along the way.

I bicycled directly to the home of Joan and Jim, parents of Mary, a former client. Although Pierre, SD is a long way from New York City, Mary and her mother spend a week in NYC each December, and so over the past ten years I have gotten to know both Mary and Joan quite well! I had also met Jim before, on a trip that he and Joan made to NYC, and about a year ago met Mary's three daughters, Maddy, Merideth, and Jordan, when Leslie and I were able to join them for pizza in Brooklyn and to watch Mary Poppins on Broadway.

It was certainly nice to arrive in Pierre and be greeted by old friends.

On Wednesday evening we all assembled at Mary's to celebrate Maddy's 16th birthday. I was glad to meet Colin, Mary's husband, as well as a lot of other (nine?) members of the extended family.

In the 1800s steamboats would bring miners and other adventurers up to Ft. Pierre (right across the Missouri River from Pierre), where they would disembark and travel northwest about 280 miles , over the plains, to Deadwood, SD. Yesterday, for the first time in more than 100 years, a wagon train set off on the trail from Ft. Pierre to Deadwood: 300 people on horseback and in horsedrawn carriages, on an excursion expected to take 17 days. This historical re-creation took a lot of advance planning, as well as cooperation from the farmers and ranchers who own the land that the trail crosses--the organizers deserve a lot of credit for concieving of this idea and then doing all the work necessary to make it happen. After celebrating Maddy's birthday, Colin, Mary, Jordan and I drove out to "inspect" the wagon train at its first campsite along the trail!

On Thursday Leslie flies into town, and the next day we will be driving out to Mary's and Colin's cabin near Mt. Rushmore, planning to use that as a base for excursions in the Black Hills.