A bike travel day ........

Thursday's adventure - well the day had the potential to not be one of the best ..... I've been dealing with serious Starbucks withdrawal, serious ..... I was in the local grocery store this morning - to return some pre-packaged Starbucks Rick bought last night - very thoughtful, but it was whole bean (Rick didn't notice that on the package) - our coffee grinder is no longer with us so....... as I was rounding the corner from the dairy section to make my way to the registers - when what to my wondering eyes should appear ~ holy mackerel it must be a mirage ...... no it's NOT ~ it's a Starbuck's kiosk ....... I beg, I plead, I whine (oh so unbecoming of me) but they won't sell me a pound, no way no how, no matter how bad I tell them my withdrawal is ..... they are training and are not opening until Monday ~ can you imagine the nerve of these people!!!  Come on Tracey, suck it up and be brave......... so off I go.  After that start to a day I think I should just come back and hibernate for the day but alas, we roll the bikes out and head on an adventure.  

Above is a picture of the bikes along the side of Wyoming rte. 111 in Beulah, WY ~ population 33 (or was it Aladin, WY pop. 15).  I thought this was interesting landscape .....
We continued along through a couple small, and I mean small, towns.  One of the neat things about these parts is that there can be 50 miles between towns and 10 miles between houses.  With that said you can travel 10 or 15 miles without seeing another moving vehicle of any sort.  It is another aspect of these parts that I love.  

Above is the star attraction in Belle Fourche, SD - which is the "center of the nation" thus this granite marker, really pretty ...

After we left Belle Fourche we headed east to ..... St. Onge, SD (2000 census shows a population of 347 living in 121 houses!  A tiny town, but friendly!  We took the pictures below in honor of our friend Jack St. Onge ....... whose great great great great great ancestors settled here as trappers and fur traders!  So this visit was in your honor Jack - and no we didn't buy cowboy hats etc (there was no store to buy them in for starters!  We did, however, stop and hoist a brew in your honor (are you honored?)

After lunch and refreshment in St. Onge we headed back to Spearfish - at this point Sir Arlo had been alone for about four hours which is usually our limit ... along the beautiful back road we found this abandoned brick house along a calm creek (pronounced crick by the locals) where I promised Sir we would bring a picnic tomorrow so he can play and not be afraid of rushing water while Rick will probably explore the abandoned house!  I don't think I've mentioned today how much I love this beautiful area.  I think we should buy a piece of land here - we have always felt that somewhere along our travels, be it this year or five years from now, we would just "know" if we had found a place to stay for a while - this area is definitely a contender!