Seven short weeks after Delaware, it was time to gear up for Nebraska. Challenges with travel and running are the name of the game, but in the days prior to our departure, we set a new high. COVID, nagging injuries, and a broken, abscessed tooth all showed up to complicate things. Right up to the very last minute, we were not sure who was going to be able to make the trip. But somehow, when Friday morning rolled around and it was time to head to the airport, all 5 sisters were there. Janille and Sharon were driving for this one and would meet us in Nebraska. They had arrived the previous day and were visiting friends.

Travel wise, this trip was much easier than some we have done. The best (and only) option was to fly Allegiant into Rapid City and drive 110 miles to Chadron. Melodie had to fly into Phoenix the previous day, so she definitely logged more travel hours than the rest of us. When we arrived at Gateway Mesa early Friday morning, we were shocked at how busy this small airport was. Lines were long, but thanks to TSA Pre-Check, we all made it to the boarding gate in time, some of us a little later than others.

This trip was a bit unique in that race day was the day after travel day. Typically, we use the day after travel for sight-seeing and race day follows that. However, that wasn’t an option as flights into Rapid City are only available on certain days, so we adjusted our schedule. There is a lot to do and see in NW Nebraska if you are willing to drive the big open spaces, so we decided to take advantage of the trek south and spend Friday doing some sight-seeing. Top of our list was Needles Highway, famous for its tunnels and incredible views, Sylvan Lake, and Custer State Park. We picked up our rental car, put the directions in our phones, and headed out.

The drive from the airport to Custer State Park via Needles Highway was windy and slow and made me grab for my nausea bands, but the views made up for it. Breathtaking scenery awaited us around every curve. We stopped at a pull-out and took copious pictures. The weather was picture perfect.

The plan was to meet Janille and Sharon on the way, but challenges with communication made that a bit difficult. We did finally manage to connect at the Sylvan Lake Lodge for a delicious lunch.

After lunch, we all headed over to Sylvan Lake to explore more of this amazingly beautiful country.

The hills beckoned, so we decided to do a little hiking while we were there. It was a bit rocky, so some chose to stick with the trail around the lake.

The next item on the agenda was to drive through the famous Needle’s Eye Tunnel, one of three on South Dakota Highway 87. The narrow, windy road attracts many tourists so part of the experience is threading your way through RV’s, motorcycles, and vehicles with large trailers who stop to take pictures. The name Needle’s Eye comes from one of the most memorable granite needles along the drive, with its signature “eye” formed by countless years of rain, ice and wind. Janille and Sharon had already driven the “needle” once, and interestingly enough, were not all that eager to do it again :).

The day was getting on and we still had 80 miles to go, so it was time to hit the road again.

NW Nebraska is as advertised: miles and miles of grasslands where the antelope and the buffalo play. There are serious mountains in the distance, as we would discover the next day, but from Highway 385, it was all rolling plains.

We pulled into our driveway around 5:30 pm that evening. It had been a long travel day and we were ready to find dinner and prepare for race day. Janille and Sharon had arrived ahead of us, despite a few glitches in Google’s directions. Our home away from home was a spacious log cabin set up against a hillside in the middle of acres and acres of grassland, truly picturesque.

After unloading our bags and getting settled into our rooms, we headed out to eat. Our host had given us some recommendations for local restaurants, so we just picked the first one on the list: “The Ridge”. Arriving, we found the restaurant almost empty with not a waitress in sight. We almost baled, but our stomachs were protesting, so we decided to stick it out. Eventually, a sweet, cheerful waitress came over and waited on us. She took our orders only to come back 10 minutes later to tell us they were out of tenderloin. Sighing, we came up with substitutes and waited another 30 minutes for the food to show up. Everything was pretty mediocre, but at that point, our expectations matched the reality.

After dinner, Linda, Melodie, Kathy and I decided to drive to Chadron State Park and check out the race site. The rest of our crew were more interested in heading back to the cabin and relaxing. Although the directions were sketchy, we did manage to find the staging area for the race. It is always comforting to figure out where you need to be prior to race day, so we were glad we did it.

Driving back to our log cabin, we were treated to a spectacular sunset. We pulled off the road and took pictures, feeling blessed to be treated to so much beauty.

We were all up by 6:00 am the next morning. We had plenty of time for coffee and breakfast before heading out to Chadron State Park for an 8:00 am start time. The weather was on our side; no wind, clear skies, and temps in the high 60’s.

All told, there were 28 participants for the Run for the Hills Trail Races (5K, 10K, and Half Marathon), by far the smallest field we’ve ever run with. When we picked up our bibs, the race director told us that COVID had decimated her volunteer crew and she was running the race on a shoestring. There had previously been a mountain bike race scheduled to be part of the day’s festivities, but it was cancelled because of low registration. As we stood listening to the directions for the race and heard that all distances would be run on the Steamboat Trail, our hearts sank. For the half marathoners, that meant 4 loops of the steepest trail in the park. 5Kers would do the loop once, and 10Kers would do it twice. We later learned that this trail had been marked and prepared for the mountain bikers and because they lacked sufficient volunteers to mark any additional trails, they moved all the running races to the bike trail. Although the race crew was supportive and encouraging, we highly suspected that none of them were runners or they would never have decided this was an acceptable alternative.

At some point, you just accept the situation and go forward.

The director blew a whistle at 8:00 am sharp and off we went. The first mile was steeply downhill on a narrow bike track with tripping hazards aplenty. I was grousing and complaining as I went, little realizing that this was the easiest part of the trail. This was followed by a half mile of fairly runnable trail.

After the first mile and a half, we hit the hills. There were 3 of them, and each was steeper than the last. There were encouraging signs posted along the way, which depending on your state of mind, were either aggravating or amusing. As we slogged through the next two miles, our overwhelming thought was, “can we possibly do this 4 times!” And when I wasn’t worrying about that, I was concerned about the 5Ker’s running this same challenging trail. One sister was recovering from COVID and ankle surgery; none of them had in any way been prepared for this.

Melodie ended up being the cheerleader on this one. I was seriously debating the wisdom of continuing, but she kept going and my only acceptable option was to keep going with her. Every loop got a little harder and a little slower, but we kept slogging and at some point we knew we were going to finish the WHOLE THING. As we passed the staging area for the last loop, we were informed that the crew was going to fold up and go home. That was a bit disconcerting, but we had water and knew the course and were determined to finish. The rest of our crew had finished long ago and headed back to the showers, but Sharon and Janille hung around, took photos, and greeted us at the finish line with our medals and some water left by the race crew. Sharon captured finish line photos of most of the crew.

There was definitely some euphoria in knowing we had finished the hardest half marathon of our lives, but it was tempered by the knowledge that we were going to be very sore!! Our muscles were not prepared for 2,400 feet of elevation gain on narrow, rough trails with constant camber. Showers felt great, as did the massage gun I had brought along. After everyone was cleaned up and rested, we headed out to a different restaurant for lunch. The menu and the service at Helen’s Pancake and Steakhouse were a step up from The Ridge, for which we were grateful.

The rest of the day was pretty low key. We did a lot of visiting and relaxing and headed to bed early that night. The cabin had proved very comfortable, but the AC struggled to keep it cool enough for some, so we opened the windows that night and let the howling wind cool us off. The only fly in the ointment was that some of us shared our rooms with bugs, mostly dead ones, but bugs nonetheless.

Sunday was another sight-seeing day. We tossed around a few ideas and decided on the Toadstool Geological Park which was about 45 miles away, and the Museum of the Fur Trade, which was located in town on the site of an old trading post. We had breakfast at Helen’s around 10:00 am, and then hit the road again for the park.

The last ten miles to the park were on a rough dirt road so the going was slow. Approaching Toadstool Geological Park felt a little like driving into the middle of nowhere. The park is located in the Oglala National Grasslands and is named for its unique rock formations of clay topped by slabs of sandstone, preserving fossils and footprints of extinct species like tortoises, rhinos, saber-toothed cats and more. Toadstools are created by the forces of wind and water, eroding soft clay faster than the hard sandstone rocks that caps it. We were totally fascinated by the rock formations and spent some time wandering through the park taking pictures and climbing over the rocks.

Our next stop was back in town at the Museum of the Fur Trade. The museum stands on the site of James Bordeaux’s trading post which was established for the American Fur Company in 1837 and is now included in the National Register of Historic places. The museum is dedicated to preserving the rich history of the North American fur trade, the first business in North America, by illustrating its diverse stories through over 6,000 authentic artifacts on display. We watched a short video highlighting the history of the fur trade and found it fascinating that the location of many of our cities and streets today were established by the routes of the fur traders.

By this time, this crew was ready to be fed. We weren’t terribly excited about either of our earlier choices, so decided to try The Country Kitchen, a restaurant not on the recommended list. And we scored. It was the best meal we ate during our entire stay in Chadron, NE.

No one was hungry enough for another full-fledged meal that day, but some of us talked the rest into indulging in an ice cream treat. No guilt was experienced. We figured we’d earned it.

The wind howled again all evening and into the night. We realized how fortunate we had been to have good weather for the race on Saturday. Nebraska weather appears to be very fickle, changing from sunny, cloudless skies, to stormy, windy ones in a heartbeat.

We were all up at 5:30 the next morning to complete the check-out list and get on the road by 6:30 a.m. for a morning flight. We still managed to find time to take a few last-minute photos of the group.

And so one more running trip ends, one more story for the books. This one had it all; beautiful scenery, jaw-dropping wonders of nature, the most challenging course we’ve ever run, and nonstop conversation and laughter with some of our favorite people. And as always, we are so grateful for the ability to run and travel together. We take nothing for granted. Every experience puts one more treasure in the memory box.

Next up, State #46, Pennsylvania. Another hilly course, but child’s play compared to Nebraska!

Until then, run happy!