Rochford to Hill City

Back to bicycling today. Glorious day — sunny and in the low 70’s. And the scenery — it never quit!

Paula, Deb, and Barb rode from our campsite in Hill City today to Rochford. Tam, Kim and Leslie drove to Rochford, and bicycled back to Hill City.

The Rochford to Hill City group had about 5 miles of downhill, 10 miles of gradual uphill, and 7 miles of downhill. Lovely! We enjoyed the aspens and pines along with the shale that continues to sheer off rock faces. On our final approach to town we saw two does, each with a fawn that looked freshly hatched. Kim said one had twins! Incredibly cute. Each Momma was very careful about how she hid her baby from us.

Road Trip!! Wall Drug and the Badlands!

What should six people do when the wind is blowing at over 20 mph. Not ride their bikes, that’s for sure! What do the bikes do? Hibernate! 

Bikes are all stowed in Leslie & Paula’s rig. Kim brought back lovely pastries from a local bakery which we thoroughly enjoyed while we planned our Wall Drug and Badlands driving tour.

The drive to Wall Drug allowed us all to tease each other. Kim & Barb had given us a walkie talkie so we could tease between the two cars also. Wall Drug hadn’t changed much since Leslie & Paula had been here over 26 years ago. We found a “sprizy” (surprise present) for Nicki & Kim which will be fun to have them see when we return. After a lunch, we headed out to the Badlands.

Once we arrived there, we enjoyed the scenery and took lots of photos. The wind howled, but since we weren’t bicycling, we coped just fine. We drove the Badlands Scenic Byway, then played with some dirt roads to get us back on track to return to our campground. We saw bison, prairie dogs, and a magpie. Just grand! It was a long day, but beautiful.

Check out our photos of Wall Drug and the Badlands:

Day 1 on the Mickelson Trail: Deadwood to Rochford

What a lovely day!!! We drove to Deadwood to let off three of us: Kim, Deb, and Leslie. Then the next three drove down to Rochford to ride towards us.

Kim, Deb, and Leslie rode all the hill climbing turns to arrive at each false summit to continue rolling on. The scenery was delightful with ponderosa pines, aspens, green fields, wild flowers, red wing black birds, and even a white tailed doe that jumped across the trail in front of Kim.

We met Tam, Barb and Paula when we were about 8 miles from our endpoint. We shared a lunch and hints on what to look for as we each continued in the direction we were heading.