We did another early start to beat the heat especially since today had some relative hills to climb. Since no restaurants were open at 5am when we started in Chadron, we rode 23 miles to Crawford to get breakfast at 7am at Perk Up coffee shop. We chatted with a friendly local woman named Amber while we ate our breakfast pizza and she told us about our destination town of Harrison because her aunt lives there. She also told us the cautionary tale of her stubborn 65 year old father that got heat stroke a few weeks ago. I drank a liter of water right then and there. I also had a nice chat with a group of women planning to go see a play at nearby Fort Robertson. I’m sure the soldiers from 150 years ago wouldn’t believe there are plays now at their fort.
We took the short rail trail called White River rail trail which led into Fort Robinson and we were surprised by how many buildings there were.
The hills weren’t quite as bad as we were told but there were indeed a few miles at 5-6% grade. Our lunch and dinner choice was obvious as there is only one saloon/restaurant in this village of 238 people.
In the saloon, we talked with Ted and his wife Glenda for about an hour. He used to ride enduro motorcycles in the 80s. We both rode the same Honda XR-200 back in the day.
Since we had several hours to kill here we went next door to the museum. Jill, the local docent and former teacher of grades 2-7 was very thorough and transported us back in time with all the displays and buildings like a post office, house, one room schoolroom, etc.
Unfortunately there wasn’t a soft-serve in town but the market did have a box of 6 so we gave one to Ted and Glenda and another local customer.
With permission, we setup camp in the local park and paid $4 per person to use their nice pool and showers.
We planned tomorrow’s ride into Wyoming. The adventure continues.
P.S. I broke my record by getting 14 return waves from cars/trucks on the desolate highway 20.
Summary: we rode 51 miles from Westerner Motel in Chadron to the Harrison park on highway 20 and the White River rail trail (~3 miles).