I have never seen such complete desolation before. A six-year drought and an especially rough summer has devastated the local economy, creating a hardy breed of human in the Plains of western South Dakota.
We saw a truck stop on the side of the road and went in to grab some food and fill our water.
A number of rough-looking men with cowboy hats sat at one side of the counter. We sat down at the other side and waited for a couple of minutes before a woman in her early 30s with blond hair emerged from the kitchen and looked at us, then at the group of men.
"Geez, would one of you please help them?" she said, with much irritation directed at the men.
An older man with a big pot belly, suspenders, and a scruffy white beard groaned with annoyance, threw down his napkin, and stood up. He walked a few feet towards me and Adam, stood directly over us, and gave us a stern and uncompromising glare. He stood silently, waiting for us to order.
"So, whaddaya got to eat?" I asked.
He turned around, grabbed a couple of menus, threw them down in front of us and continued to stare down at us. Perhaps customer service is a little bit different out here than it is back east.
He wrote down our orders and gave the note to the woman working in the kitchen. One of the men decided to speak to us, and asked us how far we had come on our bicycles.
"We've been riding since Portland, Maine," we replied.
"Maine? You know, there's a much better way to get west from there. It has two wings and it's called an airplane."
"Ah, but this way is much more fun."
"Fun?" snickered another guy, "Sounds like a lot of work to me."
After awhile, the men began to warm up to us. Though they couldn't understand what on earth would possess us to ride our bikes across the country, they accepted our bizarre pursuit nonetheless. By the time we were finished with our meal, they were engaged in debate about which route would be the best one for us to take through the Rockies. We thanked them and headed on. I suppose we received a fair dose of the local culture in the Great Plains.
