AAN day 21 - Lusk, WY --> Hot Springs, SD

Across America North - day 21 - Lusk, WY --> Hot Springs, SD

We finished the trip across Wyoming and crossed the line into South Dakota. It was a great ride. The weather was cool, which made it easy to work, and humid, which made it easy to breath. Furthermore, the net elevation change was very negative and the long, gentle downhill parts were made even better by a nice tailwind. Today was a coincidence of happy accidents.

The landscape is getting a little greener. One local person was heard to say that this is unusual. They usually don't get as much rain as they've had so far this year. Still, we're slowly moving toward greener land as we head east. The density of resources of all kinds should increase, too, as we move east but not yet. It's still a long way between towns here.

I arrived at the Best Western Inn in Hot Springs, SD at 1:15 hoping to check in and take a shower. The word was no. The rooms were ready but 2:00 is check-in time. Ok, wait. At 2:00, check-in is still not happening. At 2:30, I check-in but don't get a room number and don't get a key. They won't accept my Best Western loyalty card, either. After two more people check in, I get a key and go to my room. The room is still being prepared. Another half hour later, I get into the room. Uh, oh, no towels. My roommate calls for towels and we wait another half hour. Someone eventually arrives with towels and very grumpy manners. We take showers and go about our business, which involves locking the door. We find out separately that our keys no longer work and separately go to the front desk. There I find a woman who I can describe only as hateful. She yells at me because acivating one key disables another key and vice-versa. She rants about other rooms having this problem and conflates the problems of various rooms. I misunderstand her to mean that enabling my key disables the key of another room. What she really meant was that enabling my key disables my roommate's key. Then she refuses to let me into my room until I find my roommate and we present our keys together for re-encoding. She says that isn't her problem although she caused it. I sat in the lobby for an hour asking everyone where my roommate was and eventually find him. Then I get his key and go back to the wicked witch of the west to make both keys work. She shouldn't be working the desk. I normally take a kind view of problems but that's very difficult to do this time. She regards me and my disabled key with unmistakable hatred. She shouldn't be there. I've heard of quite a few reviews from our group being posted on tripadvisor.com with similar stories. If Best Western management reads tripadvisor.com, maybe Sandy will get some heat.

Tomorrow we go to Mount Rushmore on a day with 5100 feet of climbing over 74 miles. It'll be a hard day. I was there in a car several years ago and was impressed with the hills even when I didn't have to do any work to climb them. I'll remember them more clearly after this week. Wake-up time will be at 5:00 and we'll be riding away at 5:45.