During this first half of the day as we passed through the small town of Wessington, we spent some time chatting with the good old boys at the convenience store, who were there for their morning coffee and game of cards. They left and another local gentleman approached us, and after looking at the numbers on our bikes, asked us if we were in "that there Tour dee France thing". We told him "no, that takes place in France", but I'm still not sure that he got the connection. At least knowledge of the Tour is hitting middle America...

From Huron we hooked up with John and Gerry (the 2 oldest riders at 67), Jeanette, Jennifer, and Matt, and rode in a social (19-20 mph) paceline for another 20 miles or so. We stopped for more ice cream near the last water stop of the day, then Bruce and I set off by ourselves to finish the ride into DeSmet. The town of DeSmet is known as the home of Laura Ingalls Wilder of "Little House on the Prairie" fame, and much of the town is focused on her and her life here. Once we got our tents setup we headed into town for lunch, stopping at a combination Dairy Queen and Subway (I was good and had a salad, then bad with a small chocolate-dipped cone). After lunch we were standing outside ready to leave when a loud hissing sound came from one of the bikes - yes, mine had of it's own accord gotten a flat. Turns out it was at the valve, so a new tube was in order. At least I was able to change it inside an air-conditioned building and not outside in 100°+ weather with no shade. A quick trip to the store for some DEET bug spray (the mosquitoes here are murder!), then to the library to check email. They had a couple of open network ports and would allow us to connect laptops directly, so Bruce and I rode back to camp and then returned to the library with our computers and updated our sites through yesterday.

When I left the library the sky looked threatening, so I hurried back to camp attempting to beat the rain since our tents did not have rain flies on them yet. The weather was still nice when I arrived so I took a shower first, but then put up both mine and Bruce's (he was still at the library) just in the nick of time, as the rain started. We moved under the picnic shelter along with the ladies from the DeSmet Chamber of Commerce, who were cooking a delicious bratwurst dinner. Soon after that, once we had started to eat, the heavens let loose with thunder, lightning, wind, rain and hail. The wind and rain came in almost horizontally and blew right through the shelter, getting us all wet and knocking down several tents in the process. Some of the tent poles were broken and a couple tents were completely flooded, but mine and Bruce's stood firm. The storm was over in about 15 minutes, and after eating we helped those less fortunate with the drying and repairing process. Click here for a video of one of the tents (we call it the Taj Mahal) being bailed out. We also had a celebration for Gerry, who is leaving this ride to go on RAGBRAI (a ride across Iowa with several thousand riders) and Jessica, who celebrated her birthday today. During one of the pictures with Gerry, Matt was hit in the face with a piece of ice cream cake by Ash. We all got a big kick out of this, most of all Matt.

It's now time for bed; I'm finishing this up in my tent as the mosquitoes are out looking for a buffet, and I'm not inclined to be on the table for that.