Bike Odysssey 2014 – Day 44 (June 29) – Memorable Day

Today brought two of the most memorable experiences of our trip. We awoke in glorious Chadron State Park, one of the unsung jewels of America, here on the northern Nebraska/southern South Dakota border, not exactly a big tourist draw. Visitors to the Black Hills, to see Mt Rushmore and the wonderful mountain landscape, rarely come much south of Hot Springs. But they’re missing an amazing park, remarkable for its beauty, its amenities, spaciousness, and convenience for campers. Joe and I had hundreds of yards of creekside lawn and trees to ourselves. In the morning we went into Chadron seeking breakfast; the town seemed desolate on a Sunday morning. High Noon with Arby’s. Franchises; everything else closed. Then we chanced on the Bean Broker, a former bank renovated by owner Andrea Rising. She stripped everything back to its original floors and wainscoting, beneath as fine a tin ceiling as I’ve ever seen. The huge black walk-in safe is still there too, seemingly with tales of Bonnie & Clyde to tell. Besides the cafe where we had a fine frittata and latte, there’s now a separate bar, used as a music venue twice a week and for screenings of old movies. This was the kind of discovery that our trip was for, and the kind that no guide book will alert you to. (The similar venue in Fort Pierce, weeks and weeks ago now, had the same wonderful surprise value – secret America!) Of course none of this could exist in Chadron, Nebraska, were it not for the nearby Chadron State campus, with a fine music program and graduate MBA. There might be a few ranchers or farmers looking for a frittata and a latte, but probably not enough to sustain a Bean Broker, and allow someone with Andy Rising’s sophisticated taste and imagination to create a perfect refuge for cultured souls in need of solace and like-minded company.

Back on the road amid the stunning sweet clover perfume (that’s the name of the plant I was waxing lyrical about yesterday, Andrea informed me) from the prairie verges. We were heading for the heart of the trip, for me: Wounded Knee, where I was able to pay my respects, at the monument erected there, to the victims of the 1890 massacre that marked the end of the Indian dreams of being treated with any vestige of honor and respect. Anyone unfamiliar with the story of Wounded Knee and its 20th century aftermaths – the book which, like Marlon Brando’s fine protest, helped to turn America towards its past and its truth, and the infamous, disputed and fatal 1973 ‘Wounded Knee incident’ – has been deluded by the denial which, ever since the shame brought to these shores by Europeans, has become America’s soul. I was proud to bring off a perilous Harley Sportster-borne ascent (the Road King would never have managed the steep and crumbling rutted mud) to the Wounded Knee hilltop graveyard. The only proper way is by foot or horse: on the hilltop I found myself surrounded by a dozen riders. On the way to Wounded Knee I felt the same involontary shuddering that approaching a site of human – oh to be able to say ‘inhuman’ – horror brings on.

After the Pine Ridge reservation – the money the Sioux continue to refuse as compensation for their true Black Hills homelands, insisting that no money can compensate for their land, is said to be worth over a billion dollars, after 30 years of trust fund investments – it was back to the prairie straightaways of southern South Dakota. Few diversions; the occasional loose cow; a lonely store startlingly called Assman Implements (I searched to see the missing ‘P’ or ‘G’ that surely had gone missing, but no) which left me hoping in vain that the next store would be Titman Repairs; no campsite anywhere (nor on Rte 20, to the south) but an inexpensive motel – at last! – the Parkside Motel in Gregory, SD, clean, all the amenities in great working order. (Why is the West twice and even up to four or five times as pricey as the East, some motels asking $200 a night? – I know because of the sheer quantity of time on the phone spent seeking to verify accommodation of any kind – who can pay these prices? Are they richer in the West?). Quite a day. Long run to Omaha tomorrow, but the reward in store of friendly welcomes.