Happy birthday!

Today is my daughter’s 22nd birthday. As they are a big fan of Taylor Swift, I should link to a Taylor Swift song, but I can’t bring myself to do that 😉 not knowing what song to choose.

Instead I’ll go to our mutual love of Jackson Brown, and one ofthe songs that sustained me while working in a war zone in Nicaragua.

I know, this is not particularly celebratory, and doesn’t seem like a birthday song, but I think Emery understands.

We are leaving Emery’s alma mater on their birthday; this seems somehow fitting. At 22, working for a living, you’re definitely a grown-up. Congratulations!

I rode into St Olaf wearing my Wisconsin Bike Fed jersey and will ride out the same way. St Olaf’s crest contains a lion rampant, just like the flag of Flanders. The Bike Fed jersey has a cow rampant. I hope I don’t offend any more Belgians or Flemings. Thanks to Dave Schlabowske of the Bike Fed for defending our honor last time. Based on the Ole fight song (below) I don’t think they’ll take it too seriously.

Flanders coat of arms from Wikipedia, t-shirt from Wisconsin Bike Fed.

St Olaf Fight Song (altered, but the version I know) (It’s a waltz):

We come from St Olaf
We wear cashmere sweaters
We live on a hill to
Be closer to God.

We don’t smoke, we don’t drink
At least that’s what they think
And under the covers
We Um-Ya-Ya-Ya.

On (to) Wisconsin!

A great rest day in Northfield, and the first one that I didn’t really need. I still felt pretty good. The bike needed it.

Dinner (as planned) last night at Chapati. Breakfast (as planned) this morning at Brick Oven Bakery. Back to the dorm to clean and lube the bike, put on a new chain, and add a second layer of bar tape after the beating I took this week. (Also washed out water bottles.)

The bike sounds happier, which makes me happy. Then down to town for a late lunch at El Triunfo (a great little Mexican restaurant) and a visit with the rug seller who sets up outside there. I’ve passed him many times but never stopped to chat.

Old Main, our dorm, Big Ole (the source of St Olaf power)

                                         street sculptures
fairy garden (note the Little Free Library in the back), old train depot, Cannon River

I then went on a little tour of the other (Carleton) side of town before checking out the new brewpub, Tanzenwald. They had live honky tonk music with a singer/guitarist accompanied by a pedal steel guitarist.

We will cross the Mississippi River tomorrow, another milestone. Fourteen new riders, thirteen new bikes (another tandem). A short day so they are delaying breakfast by 45 minutes.  If breakfast is like dinner, that will delay our start by about an hour and a half.

St Olaf is hopping. We shared the cafeteria with a cello institute, a chess club, and a diving camp. They had us all arrive at the same time (which is not how it works during the school year) so it was a madhouse.

Great Plains

Internet service is completely down here in the Pierre Indian Education Center. I’m writing this post in “Notes” in hopes that service will come back on.

A last look at the Badlands. The color of the soil suddenly changed here.

After 96 degrees yesterday (Saturday), it is 66 and drizzly today.

We have a day off to recuperate in Pierre. We spent the morning in a coffee shop downtown, eating breakfast and watching the World Cup final, won by France over Croatia, 4-2.

Anders, one of our mechanics, was approached by a couple he knows from Northfield, MN. One of them thought they had found the coffee shop frequented by locals and was impressed by the cosmopolitan nature of the local crowd – watching soccer and speaking with British accents. We disabused her of that notion.

The Pierre Indian Education Center (formerly Pierre Indian School) is not unlike the “Custer Memorial Indian School” satirized by the Firesign Theatre (in “Temporarily Humboldt County”) and linked in my July 4 post.

According to a local historian quoted in the local paper, the school was founded in the 1880s as part of Pierre’s bid to become the state capital. They wanted to show that their Indians were “civilized” (just like Soaring Eagle AKA Eddie in the Firesign piece).

We will spend the next few days continuing across South Dakota, entering Minnesota on Thursday. We will end the week in Northfield, home of “Defeat of Jesse James Days”. Northfield was once home to a major bank. Jesse James and his gang decided to rob it. The locals responded quickly and shot it out with the gang. 

The story was memorialized in films including “The Long Riders” and “The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid”. While Jesse James has been canonized as a latter-day Robin Hood, he was actually a Confederate sympathizer who robbed and killed northerners to avenge the south’s loss in the war.

And so we begin a week headed more or less easterly. Less north and south wandering. The road flattens considerably.