Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone, August 31

Twelve days on the road and 3 000 miles (that’s 4 800km) behind me. Crossed into the Bridger-Teton National Forest , and the continental divide yesterday, Wednesday 30.

I’m taking a day to "chill" (warm up in fact). This morning I thought I’d take a pre-sunrise run to quiet spot and try to find that elusive bear, but, eish, there was ice on the bike. Uh, bad idea, took a walk instead, a herd of elk grazing on the camp’s lawns. No big antlered ones, just mommies and teenagers. Seen bison and deer.

Been a long haul, and I’m feeling pretty knackered.

Just leaving Chicago was a rough run. Thought I’d be smart (just as I thought I’d be smart going in), avoid the trucks on the highways and take a quieter route. Think of 120km of endless, semi-industrial wasteland, kilometres and kilometres of stop, start, low-rise development. A nightmare. Feeling so desperate in the end was ready to pick up a highway and go anywhere to escape the endless drudge of greater Chicago. Fly in, fly out, I say.

Eventually got into the country, very pretty farmlands, on and on and on. Headed northwest and crossed the Mississippi at Dubuque (what a thrill) followed it north for a while across north eastern tip or Iowa, picked up the interstate 90 west and followed that across southern Minnesota and South Dakota, then came across central Wyoming to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks.

I’ve covered nine states so far. America is huge and, travelling as I am, it wouldn’t be possible without its terrific road network. The roads are a marvel in themselves.

Seen some rail lines, but the trains have just been carrying coal, long, long trains. Haven’t been able to count the number of trucks, cause I have to keep an eye on the road. Pretty much everything else seems to be transported by road. Great trucks, painted every conceivable colour, and powerful. Nothing, no hills, slow them down.

And as far as the Missouri River in South Dakota, it has been rich, verdant country, miles and miles of cornfields and soya, getting larger and larger as you head west. But from the Missouri, the difference is marked. Open veld, occasional lands, and once you get to Wyoming, you could be in the Karoo. They say that right here to Yellowstone they’ve been having a 10 year drought, less rain, less snow, less water everywhere.

I don’t think I’ll be able to joke about "trailer park trash" again. Have seen real poverty in Wyoming. I wanted to take pics in a town called Shoshoni, run-down, peeling-paint sort of quaint. Then couldn’t do it. I felt, I think, I would be glamorising, or romanticising peoples’ misery. And at every farmhouse, dwelling or plot, there are five or six broken down cars in the yard. For two thousand miles, Americans seem to be, if not well off, then certainly okay. So South Dakota and especially Wyoming are a real wake-up call.

One other place wanted to take a pic and didn’t. Old Amish guy trotting along in his horse cart. Know they don’t approve of pics, so just stopped and waved as he went by.

Mount Rushmore, just south of Rapid City (I gave it a miss. They stage gunfights for the tourists.) is amazing, but more amazing is the mountain sculpture being done also in the Black Hills of Crazy Horse. You can’t drive across America without thinking of its First People (I don’t how they’re now officially designated) and what this country must have been like before it was raped -and it was – by the colonisers. There are reminders wherever you go, just reminders, nothing too big to make anyone feel uncomfortable. But Crazy Horse brings you up short. The four presidents’ heads of Mount Rushmore could fit into his head and flowing hair. His outstretched arm pointing more of less east underscores his message: my lands are where my dead lie buried.

And this work has been driven by one sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski (who died in 1982) and his family. How long will it take? Who knows. It’s being paid for by the public, two $10 million grants by the government have been turned down. The face, which is complete, is nine stories high, and he is seated on a horse. When complete the base will be to about the belly of the horse. Working on a finger measure count, about 45 stories high when finished. The feather on his head is going to be about 4m high. Gargantuan.

An astonishing natural wonder has been the Devil’s Tower, not far from the Black Hills, an eroded tower of hardened magma, left behind as the softer rock and soil, above, then around it has been eroded over 50 million years. Okay, I can’t get my head around it either. But it’s rather nice to know that there will be another Ice Age, another age of glaciers, that will wipe clean the Earth of all our detritus, which will be deposited deep in the history of the planet.

Sad about poor Pluto. Mean, I think. And it just comes down to a vote. What will be next?

Microsoft has also done a dirty on me, which it threatened for days to do if I didn’t subscribe. It has frozen everything until I do, so my bike log and notes are stuck. Also been without internet access for days. Fortunately I had downloaded AbiWord, which is sort of working, but does strange things – leaves gaps and words and things that are ghosts, and you only discover it when you try to "correct" it, and then it gobbles up bits that it shouldn’t be. Very tiresome. Damn Microsoft and Bill Gates! And my cellphone company. It only works in the cities. Real con.

Where now? Heading north into Montana to the Glacier Park, and the sooner the better, judging by the frost this morning. My Evo (short for Evolution) supersuit seemed like overkill in New Jersey, but has been essential for the rain, which has been about 75 percent of the days, and I don’t think I’d be tackling the Glacier park without its polar lining.Very smart, Toto (the bike) – its handle bars heat up. Like warming your hands on your horse’s ears. Didn’t think I’d ever make use of that.

Toto is just great. Never misses a beat. But doesn’t like being woken in the cold. Grumbles a bit, give it a nose bag and it gets over it. Took it on a gravel road this morning. Not happy. There, there, Toto.