Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 10:57:40 -0600
From: Penny Powers <ppowers@silver.sdsmt.edu>

Part I - Breakfast in Kadoka

"Where is my sweatshirt?"
"You packed it."
"Is it raining?"
"How should I know? It's six o'clock in the morning and I haven't
 had coffee yet. My eyes are still shut."

Coffee. Fall down the stairs to the parking lot where the bikes
are loaded and ready. The meadowlarks are having their version
of a pissing contest. It's not raining.

Go back upstairs. Hand the teenager money for food for the next
week (why am I doing this?) and put on more clothes. It's cold
but the sun is shining and Rapid City is waking up.

"Should we coast to the bottom of the hill before we warm up
 the bikes?"
"Fuck 'em. If I can't sleep - nobody's gonna sleep."

Bikes are loaded to the gills. Oil topped up. Chains sprayed 
last nite. No way to suppress a smile as the bikes roar to life.
Interstate 90 heading east into the sunrise. 

Breakfast in Kadoka. A trucker's breakfast and back on the road.
460 miles later we're making camp in a hurry south of Sioux City,
Iowa. There's a thunderstorm rumbling to life and heading our way.

We turned south at Sioux Falls, SFD on I-29 and hit that damn
Iowa humidity. Like riding into invisible fog. Why are there so
many turkey vultures in Iowa? There they are, circling ominously
above you. In South Dakota, the dead creatures by the roadside were
grouse, pheasant, and deer. In Iowa, they're muskrats, cats, and
raccoons. Too many trees in this state. No imagination. We rode
through Sioux Falls, Sioux City, Big Sioux, Little Sioux, A Boy
Named Sioux, over the river named - you guessed it....

Goodnight. It's raining and some fucking dog is sniffing through the
nylon. Skiv whacked the dog's nose and he left. 

Tomorrow morning - Part II - the Gregory Residence Inn in Kansas City.
The feculent scum begin to gather.....

Penny & Skiv