South Dakota

I slept great. It should have been a recipe for condensation with the wet grass I camped on, but when I packed up my shelter was completely dry. 

It was a pleasant walk out of Sioux City with a nice bike trail along the river. 

Sioux City bike trail, Missouri River

Differences in state laws are often reflected in businesses you see on both sides of the border. On the South Dakota side there were a half a dozen small casinos. But soon it looked much like the farmlands of Nebraska and Iowa. 

In a little town I stopped at a bar/restaurant for lunch. Right now it was just a bar with a half dozen patrons. Conversation stopped and every person watched me walk in with my pack. A person! Walking! With a pack!  From out of town!  

“What are you GPS-ing?” one fellow asked.  He had thought the hiking pole I was carrying on my pack was a GPS antenna.

Soon it was the usual exchange with most of the usual questions as I ate my pizza. They were a friendly bunch. 

I walked a half a block and noticed an old timey looking barbershop across the street, the barber reading a newspaper. Haircut time!

It was an old looking building with a very battered door, a rundown appearance inside and a strong musty odor. The barber, who had some kind of eyepatch, hardly said a word, as a matter fact I wasn’t sure if he even spoke English.  I said that I basically wanted a buzz cut and he went to work. 

“It sure has been rainy, hasn’t it?” I said. his response was unintelligible. It was a sad, rundown little barbershop. I glanced at the narrow door that undoubtedly lead to where the barber lived upstairs. The two barber chairs were the only elegant items in the shop. I would bet they were at least 100 years old, and I would bet that they had sat in their current positions in this very shop that whole time. 

He was done in no time. With my hair there’s no reason to snip and fuss around and waste time like some barbers seem to do. 

“How much?” I asked when he was done. I was surprised when he said “Five dollars.” I was also surprised that his eyepatch had disappeared. 

If anyone needed a tip it was this guy and this business, so I handed him an extra $5 which is still a bargain. 

“Nope, only $5,” he said, handing one bill back. 

The whole thing seemed like it should be part of a movie where I later find out that the door to the barbershop was a portal back to 1960. 

It was cloudy and chilly all day, and all day I wore my jacket and most of the day I wore my balaklava as well, walking across flat farmland, covered with cornfields most of which had standing water on them to some degree. 

A big rain and winds to 40 mph are predicted for tomorrow. I’m holed up in a nice inexpensive little hotel in Elk Point, so I may take another day off tomorrow. Colter

21st August Tuesday 1804

We Set out verry early this morning and proceeded on under a gentle Breeze from the S. E. passed willow creek Small on the S. S. below a Bluff of about 170 feet high and one ½ mes. above Floyds river at 1 ½ miles higher & above the Bluff passed the Soues River S. S. this River is about the Size of Grand river and as Mr. Durrien our Soues intptr. says “navagable to the falls 70 or 80 Leagues and above these falls Still further, those falls are 200 feet or there abouts & has two princapal pitches, and heads with the St. peters passing the head of the Demoien, on the right below the falls a Creek Coms in which passed thro Clifts of red rock which the Indians make pipes of, and when the different nations Meet at [X: a Sort of asylum for all nations, no fightg there]… Clark

Trip overview and route map with position updates: 

https://bucktrack.com/Lewis_and_Clark_Trail.html