Canton, South Dakota

 Pushing into and leaning against the relentless twenty-mile plus winds has been sapping my energy more than I realized.  Sunday afternoon I needed to lay fully prone when I paused for a break on the outskirts of Akron just after crossing into Iowa from South Dakota over the Big Sioux River. I stopped at the first resting spot I came to, a building that appeared to be a municipal warehouse, and collapsed in the shade by some bushes and quickly dozed off.

I was awoken by a voice politely saying, “Excuse me sir, you can’t lay here.  This is a home.  There’s a park right over there.”

Indeed there was.  I was so desperate to stop and lay down at the first opportunity, I hadn’t even looked ahead to the intersection where the road ended at a T and a park lay beyond.  There was camping and shower facilities.  Before anything I showered and thought I might continue on, especially as I’d be turning north and no longer battling a wind, but I wasn’t recovering at all and only felt more exhausted.  

So I wisely cut short my day after fifty hard-fought miles though it was only four.  I was too fatigued to eat and simply curled up and slept for three hours, then forced myself to eat a little and went back to sleep. Though the park was along the highway, what little traffic there was didn’t interrupt my sleep, nor did the wind flapping the rain fly of my tent,  nor did anyone in the camping area of the park, as I was the lone camper. I was truly dead to the world.

My day had otherwise been highlighted by a pair of superlative Carnegies in Vermillion just half a mile apart, one on the campus of Vermillion University, that was a genuine stunner, and the other the former public library that was now a law office.  It too was exceptional, the first of the thirty-seven I have gotten to so far with a dome and was proudly maintained in contrast to the bedraggled Carnegie in Yankton also taken over by a law firm.

The Carnegie at the university was now the National Music Museum, established in 1973.  It boasts a collection of over fifteen thousand instruments from dombaks to didgeridoos along with priceless Italian violins and celebrity guitars.  Its purpose is to “explore, enjoy and preserve the world of musical instruments.”  The school offers the only graduate degree in musical instruments in North America.  Those in the know will swing by Vermillion on their way to the Badlands and Mount Rushmore and other national parks even though it is distant from the east-west Interstates 80 and 90, though 29 passes nearby.

I knew I was in a university town when a young man with a pony tale wearing a mask in the local supermarket asked me about my travels.    He had aspirations of doing some touring but couldn’t imagine battling these winds, even for his shopping excursion.  I had to admit that the winds did take the fun out of it, so much so I had to try not to look at my cyclometer as it was disheartening to see I had only gone two-tenths of a mile since the last time I had looked seemingly minutes ago.  It is a tough day when the wind slightly lets up and I’m able to increase my speed to eight miles per hour from six and it seems like I’m flying. But such has been my fate for all too many days of this tour.  After our exchange in the candy aisle I asked him if he knew where the nuts were.  He did, in the aisle with soda pop and snacks.

From my campground it was thirteen miles north to the next Carnegie in Hawarden buffeted by a wind from the west.  The library didn’t open until ten so I had to wait over an hour to find out what had become of the Carnegie, which had been swallowed up on three sides by two additions in 1973 and 1991.    There was just one wall of the original visible on the backside of the library of large handsome red stones.  It was flanked by additions of matching, but smaller red stones.  Inside the library, only one of the original walls remained visible.  The remnant walls gave just a hint of the former majesty of the library.  It is a shame, if not a travesty, that the additions couldn’t have preserved what it had once been.  The present young librarian couldn’t even tell me where the former entrance had been.  

The Carnegie in Canton twenty-five miles north on the other side of the Big Sioux River back in South Dakota was vacant after having been a day care center for a while, but the new library three blocks away maintained its connection to its Carnegie with his portrait by its entrance.  It was a little larger and a bit more stately than some of those I had encountered in smaller towns in South Dakota.  It ought to be an enticing acquisition by someone.  

From Canton it will be back to Iowa for three more Carnegies, then up to Minnesota for a handful and also a couple more in South Dakota hugging the border.  With luck the forests of Minnesota will blunt the wind.  I am always happy to pass a farmstead in the wide open spaces of South Dakota and Iowa, as their few trees and buildings momentarily deflect the wind and for a few moments the strain on my legs is diminished.  

This prolonged spate of fierce winds isn’t restricted to Iowa and South Dakota.  The news reports historic winds in New Mexico and Iran.  Dwight in Bloomington says he’s repeatedly had furniture blown off his porch, which has never happened before.  And Joel in Alamosa says it’s been the windiest spring in the four decades he’s lived there.  What has Covid wrought?

Hard as it had been for long stretches it is still satisfying to be off on the bike.  Ian Boswell,  last year’s winner of the Unbound 200-mile gravel race with one Tour de France to his credit, commented on his podcast that he sometimes has to push himself to train in inclement conditions, but was always glad that he did, saying, “I’ve never returned from a bike ride thinking it was a bad idea.”