I tried my best to better patch my sleeping pad and it was better, but still didn't hold. I had to pump it up 3 or 4 times in the middle of the night. It rained lightly as I drifted off, then cleared soon after and cooled off enough to make sleeping directly on the ground cold enough to wake me up. But I still slept great. It's easy when you're exhausted. I rolled away and finished the rest of the climb. It was very gradual for awhile but I soon turned and took a shortcut to the top on an unimproved road that was extremely rocky and it reminded me of a Nevada climb. I rode it all except the last push to the top, which was so loose and steep it was almost impossible to even walk. I was rewarded though, as the road turned to pavement for the descent. But I went by a road up to the lookout tower and couldn't pass it up. I was able to walk up to just below the catwalk on top (it was blocked off), and the views were incredible. The leaves are changing here. It was already in the low sixties and I enjoyed the fast paved descent down to Sundance, WY. The town was very nice and had what I needed, a park and a grocery store, but it was sort of eerily deserted. I could have safely walked down the middle of the 4 lane drag through town. I grabbed a quick snack and continued on the I-90 frontage road. The wind was howling from the north so I had a severe crosswind. I stopped at the Vore Buffalo Jump, a natural sinkhole that native Americans used to kill lots of buffalo at once in autumn for hides and bones and meat for the winter. It was pretty cool but sad that I-90 went right by. No more buffalo, but lots of cattle and hay trucks. Seemed like they were at least half of the traffic. I rolled on and through the rest of Wyoming and back into South Dakota again. I was right beside the interstate so I didn't get a nice welcome sign. Soon I reached, without warning, a road closed ahead barrier. Stupid. Why they couldn't put one of the three signs they had almost right up on the barrier further back at the last entrance to the interstate is beyond me. I went around it to make sure they were actually working, and sure enough they were and the road was missing. Installing a culvert or something. I didn't want to waste a couple miles backtracking so hopped the little fence to the interstate, and crossed the grassy median to get to the correct side. Traffic wasn't bad enough for this to be unsafe. I then crossed back to get to the frontage road again because it was enough traffic to be annoying. So I finished riding to Spearfish on the deserted frontage road. I decided to find an outdoor store to replace my sleeping pad. This was pretty easy and I obtained a new one quickly. I then wanted to grab some more patches since I was low, so I found a bike shop. I had to ride side streets rather than the main road because it was blocked from a homecoming parade. So all the other cars and traffic were doing the same so I had to really pay attention because there were people driving all over in places unfamiliar to them. I went the back way to Safeway, and grabbed a Subway and in the meantime the parade finally ended. The Subway was probably the best one I've been to the whole trip, fast, clean and had a nice inside area. I grabbed groceries then rode across town again and checked into the Crow Peak Lodge for a much needed rest and shower and recharge.