06/23/2001: Chamberlain, SD
Lat: 43°48.490'N
Long: 99°19.716'W
Elev: 1482.9ft
97.90 mi.   14.5 mph   6.44.31 hr.

One Hundred Miles
A long, long day of spinning... Nearly one hundred miles, courtesy of a stiff tailwind from the south.

Worn, but attentive -- and glad to be further up river.

Along the way, we've stopped periodically at public libraries to check and send email. Since crossing into sodak, however, the only opportunity for access has been during out stay in vermillion at the university of south dakota's library.

It seems that small towns in south dakota value their libraries very little, if at all: in cases where a town had one, they were open but one day a week or closed on the day that we were there. Of course, that doesn't even address the question of whether computers with internet access would be available.

I wonder if that's because the state or counties here in sodak are confident in the ability of the school systems and the citizenry to stay informed/read or have access to books and the net...

Many of the towns in missouri, kansas, nebraska and iowa with populations of less than a thousand people (and, in some cases, less than five hundred) seemed to have relatively well-provisioned libraries with reasonably new computers, all of which had internet access.

Is this some nascent attempt on the part of these largely rural states to affect some outreach for these tiny, often economically struggling communities?

(Point of note: in chamberlain, the bel aire hotel's coffee is stronger than the rainbow cafe's...)

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