Wednesday, 11 April 2018: I took a ride east of town again today. Still nothing much springy to look at. Although, the trees in town are starting to show a bit of life. The forecast for Friday and the weekend is looking pretty ugly—lots rain  and/or snow with strong winds. Rides 6 and 7 will have to wait.

 

 

 

Instead of riding SD38 back into town, I decided to ride the 4 miles of tar road that comes into Salem at the NE end of town. But. to get to that road, I had to ride a bit of gravel.

 

 

 

After I got back to town, I switched bikes and rode to the baseball field. The McCook Burros HS baseball team had their first game late Tuesday afternoon. It’s High School baseball, but it’s more of a club sport in South Dakota, i.e. not run by the official HS activities association. The McCook team usually has some players from a couple other, even smaller, schools in the area. It’s probably why they are called McCook and not McCook Central (i.e. the school district name), and why they are called the Burros and not the Fighting Cougars (the school’s official mascot). Whatever, the team they played was the Ducks, that’s the Hanson County Mount Vernon Plankinton Bridgewater Emery Ducks. That’s a mouthful and a combination of 3 separate school districts west of here.

So, my support of the local economy for this ride is the $5 bill I handed to the guy taking admission money as I rode by him on my bike. I don’t think of it as admission price to the baseball game, but a cover charge for the hot dogs at the concession stand (I had two).

 

 

FWIW: the Burros lost to the Ducks 8 to 7.