Lake Andes, South Dakota

 

I had my first pancakes, or rather pancake, of the trip thanks to the Carnegie in Spencer, my last In Nebraska ten miles before South Dakota, being closed.  The library in this town of 455 was only open three days a week and for just four hours at a time.  Remarkably, the town had a cafe where I could get out of the cold, rest my legs, charge my iPad, get some food into me and make use of it’s WiFi, although the waitress wasn’t sure if it was working.

The menu had a plate-sized pancake for two dollars.  I ordered one, and would have had another if it hadn’t filled me, but it did indeed.  There were couples at three other tables and two other sets of patrons came in while I was there.  A somewhat crabby, white-haired lady got up from one of the tables and came over to tell me she had passed me a few miles out of town and nearly didn’t see me in the heavy overcast.  “You need to wear a reflective vest,” she said in a not very friendly manner.  I told her I thought the reflective patches on my panniers would have caught her eye, but appreciated her concern and that I had a flashing red light I could use.  “That would help, but you need one of those reflective vests,” she snapped.

Her testy personality was quite a contrast to the otherwise most amiable disposition of everyone else I’ve encountered.  I haven’t been taken for an indigent, as is often the case on the other side of the Mississippi, but someone with an adventuristic spirit that these westerners can relate to. No one regards me warily, but are happy to have an interaction with me.  The ubiquity of camping in town parks is a testament to their sense of welcome to those carrying on the frontier spirit imbued in these folk.  When I asked a librarian if there was camping in her town’s park, she responded with “Oh, sure,” a polite version of “that’s a dumb question.” 

Spencer’s population had dwindled from seven hundred when its Carnegie was built over a century ago at the of its peak population, never topping one thousand.  It is among a surprising number of towns with less than a thousand residents that received a Carnegie.  There are many in competition for the smallest town to receive a grant from Carnegie.  I at first feared it was vacant with its windows covered, though the red-brick building was otherwise in fine shape.

It was another cold day, my fifth in a row where the temperature didn’t get out of the forties.  If I abided by the axiom that some cyclists follow of not going out on one’s bike unless the temperature was warmer than their age, I wouldn’t have been doing much riding in these past two weeks.  Only twice has the temperature topped seventy, though the forecast promises some such days right around the corner.  It has been cold enough several mornings, just above freezing, that my iPad wouldn’t turn on, preventing me from recording my miles for my Strava account.  I lost eighteen miles yesterday, recording just sixty-two for the day.  I’m over five thousand for the year, so the lost miles aren’t putting much of a dent in my totals, but they’re adding up, easily over a hundred for the year.

The Carnegie in O’Neil, the Irish capital of Nebraska, thirty miles south of Spencer, had a room in its basement that the first librarian, “a spinster,” the present librarian called her, lived in, and in subsequent years lodged citizens who had come on hard times.  That was in the distant past.  I asked her if the library had the book on Nebraska‘s Carnegies (“A State of Readers, Nebraska’s Carnegie Libraries”), as I wished to see if the same architect designed the several libraries with the off-center entrance as I’d encountered another in the Carnegie before O’Neil.   She wasn’t aware of the book and went to her computer to see if she could locate a copy.  All she could find were used, but thought it would make a fine addition to the library’s collection and thanked me for bringing it to her attention. 

Bloomfield was the fourth with the off-center entrance.  It was now the local Historical Society.  The new library across the street hadn’t opened yet, so I couldn’t inquire there about the architect.  I’ve gotten used to libraries not having morning hours or closing for lunch. 

Ten miles after entering South Dakota I crossed the Missouri River once again, this time via a two mile long dam completed in 1956.  It created a 107-mile reservoir, Lake Francis Case, with a shoreline of 567 miles, that most significant of numbers.  I had just heard Tony Kornheiser mention on his podcast that he likes to get five, six, seven good minutes out of guests he has on his PTI show on ESPN. And a couple days before he’d been commenting on rounds five, six, seven of the NFL draft.

My first Carnegie in South Dakota came nine miles after the dam in the small town of Lake Andes.  With a population of 700, slightly less than when it gained its Carnegie, I feared another library that I wouldn’t gain entrance to, even though it was late in the afternoon.  When I saw three bikes out front, two laying on their sides, I knew it had to be open.  The tiny library was nearly taken over by computers.  Pre-teen boys sat in front of three of them transfixed by animated figures in combat of some sort.  When I left, the librarian asked if I’d like a snack and gave me two small bowls of fruit loops cereal, the same I had seen her slip to other visitors through the slot in her plexiglass window.  It was the first offering I had received in these travels.

Small as the town was it had a decent-sized grocery store, the first I had come upon in days.  It has only been Dollar Stores.  The population density is so small Walmart hasn’t moved in.  I do hear people say they’ll drive fifty miles to the nearest.