Bike Odyssey 2014 – Day 43 (June 28) – Dis de prairie!

Many years ago my beloved late stepfather was admonished for doing a U-turn by a Zurich traffic cop, in words that he delighted in and which became family lore (apologies to my readers, since I stole this for my new novel): ‘Dis not de prairie!’ Well, dis – photo left – is de prairie. I love it. Huge skies, and in this photo alas you can barely seee the foreground (at this size), a long line of ancient rusted-up tractors, way past use. The Wyoming/South Dakota/northern Nebraska prairie smells gloriously at this season of a kind of apricot honey, thanks to a yellow-blooming plant that covers the prairie and lines the verges of the highway, bunching up as if yearning to cross. You’d barely know this aroma if you drove these long straight roads; but on two wheels the perfume is magnificent. As are the skies. We kept just ahead of the promised thunderstorms, shedding huge dark grey curtains of rain behind us, filling the rear-view mirrors.

We went through Upton, population 1100, the hugely self-proclaimed ‘Best town on earth.’ Locals laugh hollowly at this. Hard to figure what might have led anyone to claim it; Upton has 3 bars, two of them thriving cowboy/biker bars, plus ‘Remy’s’, and the Weston Inn (the final ‘n’ has come loose and is falling into the previous one), a motel featuring a board which I thought would say ‘Wifi, Cable,’ or at least ‘Hot and Cold Running Water.’ It said ‘Only Through Christ Jesus.’ This might of course be their wifi password.

Stopping in Newcastle, a fine old town, or once a fine old town, we sampled some of the most noxious sandwiches ever made, plus some chocolate-covered mini-bagels (Joe spat his out), and enquired about nearby Sturgis, World Capital of Riders and site of the world’s most celebrated biker rally – in August, so we were in no danger of being roped in – which produces a yearly newspaper. Excerpts are on left. Several pages were devoted to new admissions to the Biker Hall of Fame. Regarding the Ohio man buried sitting up on his Harley, enclosed in transparent fiber-glass or some such, I know how he feels (as it were). (In reality he was 82 and had been suffering from Alzheimers for some years, so he probably lost all sense of his impending fame.) After 5 hours of riding I’m ready for the fiberglass. More or less unable to de-bike without help. Wonder if Harley makes an Electra Glide with an ejector seat. Our destination, Chadron State Park, boasts magnificent camp sites. Under blue skies! Just what the doctor ordered.