Hank – Given that it was going to rain all the darn day, we decided to spend today in Deadwood. (I needed to rest anyway because I woke up at 3:30 am this morning. I used the time to write down and refine a song I’ve been working on in my head for the last 3-4 weeks)

Deadwood was pretty dead today. The Wild Bill Days are over and everyone had cleared out. We walked around town and checked out more of the old buildings. Deadwood is essentially casinos, gift shops, and bars and restaurants. So when it’s not party time it’s very quiet. I had a Father’s Day steak dinner and we stopped by the Family Dollar store for groceries during the walk back to the hotel. The hotel internet bandwidth is limited so instead of a video chat with the kids we had to settle for a conference call. Regardless, it was great to hear them and catch up.

We’ll ride out tomorrow to the Whispering Pines Campground about 25 miles away. On Tuesday, we go to the Spokane Creek Campground, which will give us a 30-mile day and we’ll visit Mt Rushmore along the way. On Wednesday, we’ll ride about 40 miles to Hot Springs, SD during which we’ll check out Custer State Park and Wind Cave National Park. We’re doing shorter mileage days because of the expected rain and because each day has over 2000 feet of climbing. Hopefully, we’ll be in Chadron, NE on Thursday.