The first day in South Dakota, I saw trees and hills for the first time in weeks, and they were alive with the sound of music.

South Dakota’s Black Hills are the highlight of the Great Plains Route. The Mickelson Trail, which isn’t part of the official route, is the best way to see them.

The Mickelson Trail is a 108-mile rail-trail which impressively reaches grades as high as 4%. Normally, trains can’t go up a grade more than 1%, so rail-trails are always very flat. That must’ve been one hell of a train, and I bet it was limited in the number of cars it could pull.

There were a ton of people riding the trail, and about half of them were on ebikes (you can rent them in town). After about 2:00 in the afternoon, I stopped seeing many people at all. Everyone must’ve packed it in when it got warm. It was a bit cooler up in the hills, but reached 90 °F in town.

It wasn’t until the day before reaching the Mickelson Trail that I learned Mount Rushmore was only ten miles away. I had to go! However, the road there and back was narrow, with a lot of blind turns, and is heavily traveled by RVs. I managed to hitchhike there and back, in the name of safety.

Many people describe Mount Rushmore as underwhelming, and they’re not wrong. The mountain is bigger than you might think, but the faces are smaller. The photos you see make it look like the faces are practically the whole mountain.

While in the Black Hills, I had the summer’s first night of wild camping. Right next to a babbling creek, which provided a chance to take a creek shower and also some nice white noise for sleeping.

I took a detour off the Mickelson Trail to ride pavement through Spearfish Canyon, which was actually on the official route, whereas the Mickelson isn’t. I’d been told the waterfalls in Spearfish Canyon were a highlight, but I found the general landscape more impressive.

I was also told Spearfish is a great town, but didn’t spend much time there, aside from riding through downtown and the Black Hills State University campus.

The forecast was for 102 °F, and 100 is about where I draw the line, both for riding and camping. I made an attempt to find somewhere inside to stay, but struck out. For the first time this summer, I paid for a hotel room. $141. It’ll always amaze me that it costs so much only to have somewhere you're allowed to lay down for a few hours, both in terms of hotels and also apartments/houses.

Belle Fourche, SD is where you’ll find a monument marking the geographic center of the nation, not where you’d expect, thanks to Alaska. The monument had a lot of flags. The same was true at Mount Rushmore.

In less-famous parts of the country, do people feel more pride/connection with being American? Places like New York, California, New Orleans, they all have distinct, well-known cultures. Not that there’s no culture in places like Kansas or South Dakota, but it’s certainly less well-known. Is the identity gap filled with more self-perception as an American, rather than as a New Yorker, as a southerner, etc? I dunno.

Small towns take great pride in their local schools, and you'll often see the whole town decorated in school colors, businesses named after the high school mascot, and so on. It’s interesting to me, because these are the same places least likely to support funding public education, and also the same places where you’ll find people most critical of the public school system as a whole.

There’s an odd dichotomy there. There are many people who love their school, but not public schools in general. It’s like everyone believes their school is the only good one. Given that these are the same places where you’ll find many people who believe in American exceptionalism, I guess it makes sense. The exceptionalism doesn't make sense, but at least it’s a consistently held belief, I suppose.

While on the way out of Belle Fourche, at 6:30 in the morning, a van pulled up alongside me. The window was rolled down. The driver proceeded to scream at me.

“GET ON THE SIDEWALK!!!”

Just like that, my impression of town went from “nice enough” to “full of trashy people.” It didn’t help that it was one of the few towns where no one found a place I could stay. Most people are good people, but you notice the jerks, because they’re loud.

There was headwind all day into Buffalo, but I made good time anyway. In this town of 350, there was no one at the fire station, police station, or city hall. Not surprising, especially on a Saturday.

Before pondering my next move, I bought a banana and yogurt at the small grocery store, sat on a bench out front, and ate them. A local saw me, and a few phone calls later, I was at the town's small hotel. No one was there. A few MORE phone calls later, I was told to take one of the six keys laying on the counter and let myself into my room.

The hotel stay would’ve been super nice, if not for the guy in the next room practically screaming into his phone for hours. “Well tell him he’s a bitch ass f**got, that’s fuckin’ shitty,” etc, for hours on end. The end result was mixed feelings about Buffalo. I guess the people there are great, but some of the people who visit are garbage.

Bowman was a not-so-long day which felt much longer. Formidable headwind, cold, and a strong rain in the last five miles. If I’d been 20 minutes faster, I could’ve made it into town dry. Cold, wind, and rain shouldn’t legally be allowed in the same place at the same time.

Upon reaching town, I immediately went into a gas station simply to warm up before I started looking for somewhere to stay. I didn’t even say anything before the owner gave me a free coffee, then called the local police to ask if they could put me up in a motel room. I must have looked bad.

Every single room in town was full, thanks to construction of windmills nearby. A cop eventually showed up, and I was told to check in at the city campground, which was directly adjacent to railroad tracks. The wind didn't abate until after dark.

What is it with placing campgrounds and city parks directly adjacent to highways and railroad tracks? Nearly every small town does this, and it’s maddening. That’s the stupidest possible location for a public outdoor space.

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I am a carbon-based life form.