Fwd: [bike] partings

Silly me, I forgot to send this out. This is from 3 days ago.

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The day after the Sweat Lodge, we rode through the Black Hills and into Rapid City. Seager was waiting on the street corner for us when Shawn drove past. Shawn is a super bike enthusiast. He is a bit obsessed about fixing bikes. When he saw our loaded bikes, he immediately invited us over to his house, especially because he saw that my front brake wasn't perfect, and he insisted that he fix it. Shawn offered us full bicycle facilities: shower, laundry, bike fixing, dinner. His garage was a full-fleged bike shop, with over 200 bike frames. The next day, he brought us to a diner for breakfast, and then a hike in the Black Hills. We nicknamed him the "bike whisperer" because he knew EVERYTHING about bikes.

 

After several days of crazy adventures, we finally got some "normal" days. We passed the Badlands and the Pine Ridge Reservation. We ended up at a small town called Wood the day before, where we spent a pretty depressing night. Seager had to leave us, possibly for good. His landlord back in Eugene decided to evict him and his wife from their residence (for no reason). There are some unkind people in this world. The next morning Shawn came from Rapid City to pick him up, and Seager flew back to Oregon. But Shawn also was so kind to bring us care packages, and did some bike maintanance for us while he saw us again.

 

Yesterday we rode from Wood to Winner, SD--a short day because of the Seager situation. We took showers at the local pool and cooked dinner at the park. As we were sitting at the park, baseball practice ended for several kids, and their parents came up to us and asked about our trip. After a long conversation, they invited us to see Harry Potter at the drive-in theater that night. Of course! we agreed. They treated us to concessions and we stayed up very late watching the new Harry Potter movie. We camped out at the drive in theater, and in the morning, the same parents brought us to breakfast before we headed off.

 

What have we done to make people treat us so nicely???

 

Love,

MinWah