We headed southeast past Rapid City for the last time then east as the I90 curved back onto its primary direction. We kept on and could see the outline of the Badlands National Park away to our right but unfortunately wouldn't have time to spend there. There had been some debate as to the best route to take but Ron had decided on trying US 14 most of the way. At Wall we fuelled up then cut onto US 14 which turned out to be a much better, quieter road. Initially the road was sweeping bends and gentle dips and curves. Quiet a pleasant landscape with dips and gullies and scars in the ground. A long stretch of straight road on US 14 and then it seems the road planner's elbow got nudged and we took a sudden turn to the north for around 20 miles before he'd got back on his easterly track. A further 30 miles of straight road seeing all around for as far as the horizon and then we reached Pierre the state Capitol, a large city on the banks of the Missouri river which we passed over and it was very wide here.

We continued on US 14 and by now we were into the Great Plains proper. Vast areas of a frozen sea of gold, the waves fixed with only a shimmer on top as the wind blew the grass. Not completely flat but open with nothing to break the wind which was now blowing hard from the south. It seemed to me that for most of the eastern part of South Dakota we rode at an angle of 45 degrees despite being on straight road, the sidewind demanding concentration. Again I wondered at how frightening the prospect of crossing such distances by horse must have been.

It was around here that for the first time that the teamwork went badly wrong. We weren't scheduled for a stop but as we passed a gas station a couple of bikes behind me pulled off the road into it. Those behind them seemed undecided whether to stop or follow and split up.

I knew we still had some time to go before anyone needed to fuel up so assumed it was to let fluids out. The lead group kept on going and I followed but did our agreed thing of slowing to wait for the others to catch up. As I slowed the lead group pulled away but I tried to keep them in site assuming the tail group would throttle up to catch up.

We then came to a junction and I saw the lead group turn left onto the 281. Now not having studied the route intently this did not seem the obvious turn to me so fearing the tail group would get lost I turned left and then parked up to act as a marker for the rest of the bikes. The lead group disappeared out of sight and by this time I was starting to get annoyed with them for ploughing on while half the party were not there. After a few minutes Tom and Steve appeared at the junction and said that Grace had fainted and they were waiting for her to recover before getting her in the chase truck and following on.

I left Tom to mark the turn and said I'd catch the lead group up to let them know. After about 5 miles it was clear the lead group had carried on. By now I was completely pissed off knowing we had a problem behind us and wondering why they hadn't stopped to see what was wrong. I was also rather annoyed with myself at not stopping for the tail party. A brisk pursuit of around 90 -100mph for the next 20 minutes and I still could see no sign of the lead group until we reached Redfield where they were at a gas station.

I explained the problem to them and why there had been a delay. I like to think that I'm an easy going guy but at this point I was damned annoyed that the tail party had been left to their own devices when they had a real problem rather than us all working as a team. Luckily it was a minor problem but I kept thinking how we would have felt if it had been something like a bike going down with injuries and our lack of teamwork had led to something a lot more serious. As it was there was no benefit to the lead group in getting there early, as they had to wait until the others caught up. A lesson to be learnt there I believe. So there ends my moan and all in all we did well over the two weeks to have only one such incident I suppose.

Turning east again at Redfield we had the sidewind giving us a cuddle once again as we road along the 212. The prairies were melting from gold to green and small patches of water got more common and cultivated fields started to appear. Another fuel stop at Watertown but we kept these short as it was a long day and we were getting tired with the heat.

As we got more into farming country the wind died down and there were vast fields of corn and sunflowers. I'd noticed earlier that if the angle was right the sunflower fields flicked from yellow to green as you pass like a huge natural "Mexican wave" or natures neon sign flashing. We also started to hit more bugs which seemed to be getting bigger too. In a short space of time something very large hit my left index finger and almost broke it but much worse was the huge bug which bounced of my wrist and hit me bullseye on the left nipple, boy that smarts.