June 4: Surprising Weather

Today the forecast was for cold rain most of the day, so when we arose to bright clear skies we all rushed to ride while the weather was good. It stayed that way until dinnertime, so we had a great day of riding. Most of it was on the Mickelson Trail again, with 9 miles of gravel road at the end.

I took off from Hill City just as the old steam engine was backing into the station.

The old steam engine backing into the station

From there it was a steady climb up to the Crazy Horse Memorial. There’s a lot of work left to be done there.

Then it was a steady downhill grade past lots of cool rocks to the town of Custer.

General Custer had his main base at the fort in nearby Custer State Park, conveniently enough. The actual Battle of Little Bighorn was about 300 miles northwest of here.

I had lunch in the town of Pringle. Pringle’s chips were not invented here (they were developed in a lab by Procter & Gamble), so I was free to eat Fritos instead.