Day 37, 7/20, Albany, MN to Dalbo, MN: 79.1 miles, 1,795 ft elevation gain, 15.6 mph average speed.

Trip totals: 2,117.3 miles (68.3 daily average), 92,354 ft elevation gain, 12.3 mph overall average speed.

Three days behind schedule.

Today was a lovely day. One of those days when you when you feel lucky to be spending your summer riding your bike across the country. A day of sunshine and tailwinds and lots of good food.

The foundation for the day was laid last night by the kindness and hospitality of the Haynes family. It refreshed and refueled us after that miserable night at Delagoon Park. We fell asleep immediately upon entering the tent, and slept the sleep of the dead.

We woke up this morning to another round of generosity and cheer…and breakfast. Tea, coffee, and a build-your-own oatmeal bar with granola, nuts, peanut butter, Nutella, raisins, and more.

After breakfast, we loaded up the bikes, said goodbye to the Hayneses, and headed on our way.

            

We spent the first 17 miles today on the Lake Woebegon Spur trail, which was more idyllic, traffic-free riding through forests and around lakes. Some sections of the trail (today and toward the end of yesterday) were newly repaved, and I can’t express in words how wonderful it is to ride on a newly-paved surface without any worry of car traffic. It’s bike touring heaven.

   
  

But all good things must come to an end, and after 17 miles we finished our time on the trails. And we were really excited about it. Why? Because our time on the trail ended right at Jordies Trailside Cafe, a highly-recommended, eccentric little diner. We stopped in for second breakfast. Dani’s biscuits and gravy was unfortunately just so-so, but my breakfast (and Steph’s and Tom’s) was delicious.

    

After second breakfast, we turned east. The roads so far in Minnesota have all been well-maintained with wide shoulders; ideal roads for riding. After a few short miles, we cruised down a hill and over the Mississippi!

I understand that we’ll be crossing the Mississippi a few more times in the coming days, but it still felt like a huge milestone. In my mind, the Mississippi divides the country into east and west halves, and now that we’re on the other side, I feel like I can officially say that we are in the second half of our trip.

We continued east, riding on generally pleasant roads with a generally helpful wind. It was great to be riding with Steph and Tom; they kept us riding at a slightly faster pace than we typically average and it’s nice to ride as part of a larger group. We haven’t ridden with anyone since crossing Logan Pass with Dan, Gina, and Clive, and riding with other people seems to lend a bit of legitimacy to this crazy vacation idea of ours.

    

We ran into Dina and Brian, another couple on a tandem that rode from their home in Fort Collins, CO to Austin, TX, then over to Louisiana, up to Ohio, and are looping back down to Fort Collins. They’ve been out since March. I can’t imagine doing a bike tour in Colorado in March – it can be 70 degrees and sunny or it can snow 10 inches. You never know! 

We stopped in several small towns for cold drinks and bathroom breaks, but we kept our breaks short. We were headed to a cyclists’-only bunkhouse near the tiny town of Dalbo, MN, and we were eager to get there. We stopped in Milaca, MN to pick up some groceries and some booze for the evening. Also, Dani finally got a Blizzard at Dairy Queen. We’ve been passing DQs at inconvenient times for the past few weeks, so her Blizzard craving has gone unfulfilled. This time, however, she stood up for herself and declared that she was getting a Blizzard even if we left without her and she had to catch up. Luckily, we took a long time picking out beer and wine, and such extreme measures weren’t necessary.

The last 18 miles from Milaca to Dalbo were grueling. Not because they were particularly hard, but because we had told ourselves we were “almost there” when we stopped in Milaca, and 18 miles is a little too long to be almost. I was checking the distance ridden on my phone like a third grader checking the clock during the last period of school: “I’m sure we’ve gone five miles since the last time I looked. OK, maybe three. I’ll guess two just to be safe… Seven tenths of a mile!!?! Crap!”

Eventually, we saw the “Adventure Bicyclists Bunkhouse” sign on the side of the road that let us know we had finally made it. And what a destination.

             

Don grew up on this farm, which was a dairy farm at the time. He retired from the military after 30 (I think? Maybe more) years and came back to the farm. Then back in 2006 he was outside when two touring cyclists came up to him and asked if they could camp in his yard to escape from a storm.

After he realized how many cyclists passed by his house looking for a place to stay, he took it upon himself to completely renovate his barn to be a cyclist bunkhouse. It has three private rooms and another room with several cots. He also put a couple of cots in an old grain silo.

Then he added WiFi, couches, a flatscreen TV, a kitchenette, and cupboards and a few refrigerators full of supplies at “Walmart prices.”

  

What a haven. What a wonderful thing for a person to do for no other reason than the desire to show kindness to complete strangers.

Tomorrow we’re off to Minnetonka for a day off and fun with Dani’s family!

Day 36, 7/19, Fergus Falls, MN to Albany, MN: 89.5 miles, 2,809 ft elevation gain, 13.9 mph average speed.

Trip totals: 2,038.2 miles (67.9 daily average), 90,559 ft elevation gain, 12.2 overall average speed.

Three days behind schedule.

Ted sort of foreshadowed this last night, but our drunken camping neighbors made for by far the worst camping experience of the trip. There were two groups of four to six drunk people (one group of 40- and 50-year-olds and one group of teenagers) and they were up until 4a blasting country music, singing, fighting (within and between groups), and howling at the moon. One guy howled at the moon for 10-20 seconds every 3-5 minutes.  And their conversations were vile. I’m not easily offended, but these conversations were disgusting and sad.

As we were getting into our tent, one of the men slurred to us, “where are you sleeping tonight?” We told him we were sleeping in the tent we were entering (duh) and he said, “okay, you should be safe in there.” There were so many signs that we should have moved, that sentence included, but we were too lazy to pack up. We regretted it later. We were safe, but we did not get much sleep.

My favorite part of the evening was when, in the older group, one of the men started reciting the Gettysburg address while one man sang “Long-Haired Country Boy,” one man continued to howl at the moon, and one woman decided that she regretted bringing two cases of Natural Light to the party and yelled over and over that “it would be nice if I could take at least a 12-pack home,” while slapping the guy sitting on the cooler (the guy howling at the moon who was unphased by her slapping) so she could access the beer. All at once. A symphony of idiots. It was a disaster.

Anyway, we woke up after getting just a couple hours of sleep and hit the trail. Literally the trail; we spent the entire day on a protected bike trail! Minnesota converted parts of the defunct Great Northern Railroad into a beautifully paved, shaded bike path. It was lovely riding that required much less focus than road riding, which was great given our lack of sleep. We still felt like zombies this morning, though, so we stopped after only 8 miles to get coffee and chocolate muffins.

The coffee didn’t work; we remained zombies. Shortly thereafter we stopped at a convenience store for cold drinks and stumbled upon something as Midwestern as hotdish: dessert bars! We got a peanut butter chocolate dessert bar and hung out for a longer-than-usual break because we were feeling lethargic and unmotivated.

We pedaled to Alexandria and ate at another converted train station. We got the unlimited soup and salad bar. The beef stew had so much potential, but they threw way too much salt in. It was great to eat fresh veggies, though. We also got Bloody Marys at a DIY Bloody Mary bar and both decided that putting beef sticks and cheese curds in a drink was a great idea.

As we were eating, we saw our friends Steph and Tom (who we met in Eureka on day 13) ride by on the path! As a reminder, Steph and Tom are riding to Maine from Oregon on a tandem bike, are from the Bay Area, and retired two years ago, mostly to take this trip. This trip is also Steph’s 60th birthday present to herself. I hope to be able to give myself a similar gift when I turn 60!

We caught them on the trail later when they stopped to eat lunch. We learned that they had a warm showers host tonight in a town 13 miles past where we were planning to camp. Steph is a mama bear and immediately contacted her warm showers host to see if we could pitch a tent in their yard, and they said yes! We rode with Steph and Tom for the second half of the day and got caught up on each other’s last couple of weeks. They’re doing great and riding strong; we struggled to keep up with them for much of the afternoon. Riding with them did much better than the coffee at pulling us out of the slump we were in this morning.

        
We got to Melrose, the place we intended to camp, and noticed that the town put exercise encouragement on the mileposts on the trail. All of these towns along the trail have also set up nice picnic tables under pavilions. This trail is nicely done.

    

We arrived to Albany pretty quickly thanks to a crosswind that was mostly at our backs and found a bicycle statue at the exit for the town, which we took as a good omen. Our warm showers host lives just a few blocks off the trail in a beautiful 110-year-old dairy house. They’ve done an incredible job of updating the home while still maintaining the original character. More impressive than the home, though, was the family living there! Frank, Angela, and their daughter, Anna, were warm and engaging hosts. We enjoyed chatting with them all night over good food and Arnold Palmers. We also did our best to persuade Anna to join the Peace Corps after college. It was a lovely evening and was just the experience we needed after last night’s fiasco.

  

We will ride with Steph and Tom to a bunkhouse in a barn specifically designed for traveling cyclists tomorrow.

Day 35, 7/18, Fargo, ND to Fergus Falls, MN: 64 miles, 1,297 ft elevation gain, 15.3 mph average speed.

Trip totals: 1,949 miles (67.2 daily average), 87,750 ft elevation gain, 12.1 mph overall average.

Three days behind schedule.

Two things occurred to us as we were planning our day today. First, we thought it might be good to give ourselves at least a bit of a break after our big day yesterday, and second, Fargo is the biggest city we’ve been in since Seattle it might be fun to explore. We’ve been striving to make up time ever since leaving Glacier, but the actual biking is only half of the experience of this trip, and we want to be sure that we take enough time to see the country we’re biking through.

So we decided to take the morning off and explore Fargo. It helped that Lindsey was eager to show us around her city. She’s actually only lived here for two months, but she was as good of an ambassador as Fargo could hope for.

Lindsey started off her day at the gym, which meant that we started off our day sleeping in and then relaxing in her amazing sunroom. Sidenote: it’s been a struggle for us to remember why we think it’s worth it to pay what we do for our apartment in New York City. Every apartment we visit is bigger, nicer, and much cheaper than ours. We’ll see if New York wins back our love when we get home.

Anyway, Lindsey has a lovely sunroom to go with her big kitchen and two bedroom apartment, and it was a great place to start our day.

After Lindsey came home, we got dressed and walked 10 minutes to downtown Fargo, where we visited Twenty Below, the first hip/bougie coffee shop we’ve seen since Washington. Dani and I split a large Chemex (that’s how bougie this place was) of amazing coffee and a gluten-free but still-delicious cornmeal and berry waffle. I also loved my mug here, which the shop commissioned from a local ceramics artist, Brooke Stewart. The cheerful, friendly employees cheerfully resisted my entreaties to buy it, steal it, or pretend to break it and accidentally leave money on the table. Honest people there at Twenty Below.

It just so happened that this weekend was the Fargo Street Fair, and we walked past several blocks of artist booths and fair food before we came to the Great Northern Bicycle Co., an awesome bicycle shop that occupies an old train station.

We restocked on bike tubes and spent a few minutes chatting with a shop employee who gave us a few ideas for how to alleviate the hand pain we’ve been dealing with.

He then encouraged us to check out the five-person tandom bike he was building/working on. Holy moly! I can’t even imagine trying to navigate that thing.

We then headed back toward Lindsey’s apartment, passing through more of downtown, stopping at a small farmer’s market to buy some veggies for tomorrow’s dinner, and walking through the car show that was happening in Fargo’s version of Central Park, Island Park, near her apartment.

It was great to relax in town, but we did have some biking to do today, so once we got back to Lindsey’s we suited up and hit the road.

We left Fargo on a lovely bike path that traced the Red River. We crossed the river after a few miles, leaving North Dakota behind and entering Minnesota!

Lindsey told us that the ACA maps took us out of the way for no apparent reason, and suggested we ignore the maps for today to take a more direct route to Fergus Falls along old highway 52. It was excellent advice, and we’re glad we took it.

About 13 miles down the road we stopped at an old general store/soda fountain with lots of nostalgic sodas. We ate tuna, triscuits, and cheese for lunch at an outdoor table and then washed it down with a root beer float.

We jumped back on the bikes with luck on our side. We were headed southeast, and the wind was coming from the west at 25-30mph. It varied between being directly behind us and being more of a crosswind, but it was always helping us. We flew down the road, averaging between 17-23 mph.

Ten or so miles after lunch we were dismayed to see “road closed” signs blocking our route. We stopped to figure out what to do, and while we were weighing our options, two cars drove around the signs and sped down the road. That was all the permission we needed, and we enjoyed 10 miles of beautiful new road surface without any traffic at all.

  

Shortly after that stretch, the shoulder completely disappeared, but the traffic was so minimal we hardly noticed. And the few cars that did pass us, without exception, moved fully into the other lane to do so.

Forty miles in, we stopped at a truck stop for a cold drink, and we found some great chocolate milk. Cass-Clay may not be on the same level as Darigold Old Fashioned, but it’s much better than anything we’ve tried since we left Darigold country.

After the pit stop it was 18 quick miles to Fergus Falls, where we stopped at Union Pizza and Brewing, another recommendation from Lindsey. They had a great selection of local beers, which we paired with a yummy Greek salad and a ham and garlicky kale pizza.

  

After dinner, we swung by the grocery store to pick up some essentials (you know, peanut butter Oreos, s’mores pop tarts, etc.) and rode the last four miles to Delagoon Park campground, where we unfortunately chose a campground next to a group of loud, very drunk, middle-aged folks who–while friendly–just weren’t the tent neighbors we were hoping for.

Tomorrow we start riding on the Central Lakes Trail, 100+ miles of paved bike trail along an abandoned railroad bed.

Day 34, 7/17, Gackle, ND to Fargo, ND: 129.2 miles, 1,891 ft elevation gain, 14.3 mph average speed
Trip totals: 1,885 miles, 86,453 ft elevation gain, 12.1 mph overall average speed

Three days behind schedule.

    

We rode really far today. Just shy of 130 miles, all the way to Fargo! 

We got a pretty early start this morning, leaving the Honey Hub around 6:20a. This wasn’t as early as Ted wanted given our ambitious plans for the day, but such is life. 

We rode through mostly downhill rollers the whole morning. There were some steepish rollers in the very beginning, but then the grades became very gentle and we began to feel like we were actually in the Midwest. The scenery was more farmland. If we’re learning one thing on this trip, it’s that America is a giant farm. I’ve driven across the country before, but I never fully understood just how much of the thing is farmland before I spent the better part of 2000 miles riding through farms. 

We were excited for the day because our 125 miles were broken up into nice 25-mile-til-a-cold-drink segments after the first 50 miles. We rode for 25 miles, then stretched and ate breakfast, then rode another 25 miles to a convenience store that served a nice breakfast, according to a flyer we saw at the Honey Hub. Come to find out the place was closed, seemingly permanently because there was a for sale sign, and apparently recently because an EMT showed up from the next town over for his regular morning coffee and was surprised to see it closed. This was a bummer, mostly because of our expectation of cold drinks and hot breakfast. We can live without these things, but when you’re dreaming of something for 25 miles, it’s disappointing when it’s not there. 

We ate a Snickers bar (is 10a too early for candy?) to tide ourselves over, then pushed on to Enderlin for lunch. 

Enderlin is another railroad town. We ate at the Traxside Cafe, which served enormous portions of comfort food for low prices – the perfect fit for us. I got pork cutlets with mashed potatoes and gravy and dressing and Ted got a chicken noodle hotdish. Apparently hotdish is a Midwestern casserole of sorts, but we didn’t know that. When I asked the waitress what it was, she looked at me quizzically and said, “um, it’s a hotdish with chicken and noodles,” like I should obviously know what a hotdish is. I asked her to be more specific and she said she didn’t know what was in it exactly, but it’s just a regular type of hotdish. I asked her to define the term “hotdish” and she said, very slowly in case English comprehension was my problem, “you know, a dish with noodles and chicken and vegetables.” Then I asked if hotdish was like casserole and, growing increasingly frustrated with my dumb questions, she said, “yeah, it’s like a hotdish.” 

    

After eating that delicious, enormous meal, we ordered delicious, enormous dessert: chocolate cake for me and peach cobbler for Ted, both a la mode.  

  

A man named John came up to our table while we were eating and told us to be careful on highway 46 because a cyclist was killed there last Friday, hit from behind by a semi. He told us that the mentality out here is that bikes do not belong on the road and that many people in the community are placing the blame for the crash on the cyclist because he had the audacity to ride on the road. This belief is obviously not supported by the law; cyclists have the right to ride on the road if the shoulder is not safe or does not exist. But it doesn’t matter if the law supports you if you’re dead, so we’ve been very careful and very grateful for our rearview mirrors. Most drivers have been courteous, but we’ve had to bail off the shoulder a couple times. 

The shoulders have varied from not existing at all to being beautiful shoulders that seem to be made with cyclists in mind, as seen in the first picture below. Sometimes there are shoulders that are just rumble strips, which is the worst thing to ride over, and sometimes, as in the third picture below, there’s a gravel path beside the road that some folks decide to ride on. It’s slow going on gravel, though, so we tend to stay on the road as much as possible. The middle picture below is of this annoying type of shoulder that could have been great, but the right portion is a steep slope toward the ditch, which is hard to ride on for a long spell. And the surface is pretty poor so it’s just not fun all around. You become very familiar with all of the different types of shoulders on highways on your bike. 

      

The section of road from Enderlin to Kindred was dangerous no-shoulder land, and with a headwind for about 30 miles, it was not fun riding. Hot, too, and lots of traffic. We reached Kindred and were greeted by a beautiful bike path and this friendly sign. 

  

After we drank two liters of Gatorade at the gas station, we took on the last 20 or so miles to Fargo. We were both feeling surprisingly great after 105 miles and were like, “20 miles? That’s nothing!”

Turns out 20 miles is not nothing, especially because the headwind picked up significantly during our short break. We made it to the strip mall district past West Fargo and made a quick stop at Verizon and an outdoor store, then made the final push to our warm showers stay near downtown Fargo. All told, it was a 129.2 mile day, further than I ever would have thought possible!

  
Our warm showers host is amazing. Lindsey is  24 years old, already has a master’s degree, and works as a wetlands biologist for the USDA. Very far along in her career for being so young! Super smart, friendly, and a great cook! She made us sausage sandwiches, coleslaw, and country-fried potatoes. Perfect meal after a long ride. She also read us a very informative Wikipedia page about hotdish and told us that it’s one of the main things we should know about as we travel through the region. That explained the waitress’s confusion. I may as well have been asking her to explain bread to me. 

  

Early to bed tonight to hang out in Fargo tomorrow morning. 

Day 33, 7/16, Hazelton, ND to Gackle, ND: 65.7 miles, 2,207 ft elevation gain, 14.2 mph average speed.

Trip totals: 1,755.5 miles (65 mile daily average), 84,562 ft elevation gain, 11.9 mph overall average.

Four days behind schedule.

Our day started at 3:00a today because of this:

  
I normally sleep through everything, but this storm even woke me up. We set up our tent under a pavilion because someone at the convenience store last night told us about a severe storm warning that forecasted hail, pouring rain, and “damaging winds.” We didn’t fully grasp the extent of her warning, but when the wind came, we got it. 

The rain didn’t care about the pavilion; it was raining sideways and there was a river of water flowing under our tent. The wind didn’t care, either. Our tent was picking up at the side with us in it, bending at an impossible angle, and flapping around like a windsock. We are really putting this new tent to the test and it’s succeeding! The pavilion did help us feel protected from the lightning, though. The wind got so bad that the power went out in the town with a huge, scary electrical buzz and snap. A lot of things have scared me on this trip (mainly vehicles passing too close), but this storm ranks highly among the scary experiences. I tried to take a video to capture the wind pummeling our tent, but you can’t see anything. Maybe you can hear it. 

 

I couldn’t fall back asleep until 4:30a, but we made it through! Come to find out that the lady at the convenience store left out that tornadoes were in the forecast, too. 

The alarm went off at 5:30a, but it was still pouring, so we ignored it. The rain cleared up around 8:15a, so we packed up and got on the road at 8:45a. We started out on some gentle rollers, but the terrain, overall, was significantly flatter today. This was great news because we were racing a storm and needed to book it!

   
 
As much as I didn’t want to get rained on, the rain clouds surrounding us today were spectacular and they really made the green fields pop. Scenery-wise, this was my favorite day since Glacier. We even got to run with horses for a bit, which was magical. Please ignore my nerdy narration in the video below and try to focus on the horses.

   

We got to a small town called Napoleon about 26 miles in and decided to eat an early lunch at White Maid Drive-In. Ted got the Three Little Pigs, a sandwich with BBQ pulled pork, ham, bacon, and a pile of coleslaw on top. I got a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, and we shared chili cheese tots. Healthy choices all around. Everything was delicious, of course, and the bill was unbelievably low. 

   
  
As we were getting ready to jump back on our bikes, two men (one in his 50s and one in his 60s) who live in the area came up to us to ask about our tour.  Ted gave the usual spiel, during which he mentioned that he loves coming through these small towns to get a nice hot meal because it’s a welcome reprieve from our usual food in our panniers. While Ted was answering one man’s questions, the man in his 60s took out a wad of cash, counted off $100, then came up to me and said, “Here’s a hundred bucks. Go get yourselves some warm meals. You guys are really doing something here.” I was shocked, of course, and told him multiple times that we couldn’t accept his kind and generous gift, but he wouldn’t budge! We thanked him profusely, and he ran into the restaurant quickly, perhaps so we wouldn’t try to give the money back? I’m not sure, but that was such a shocking display of kindness that I just sort of stood there speechless. He didn’t even tell us his name. We chatted with him for under 5 minutes. This guy was a complete stranger and he just gave us $100 out of his pocket. 

We had read enough blogs to know that the people you meet along the way are the highlight of the trip, but this man, the friends we made in Glasgow, all of our warm showers and couch surfing hosts, etc. have really restored my (fairly broken) faith in humanity. That sounds cheesy, but it’s true.

   
          We started riding pretty quickly after lunch because there were storms rolling in from multiple directions. We’re not afraid of getting wet, but I’ve always been pretty terrified of getting struck by lightning, and being on a bike in the middle of a prairie is just asking for  it. It was beautiful, at least, and we still managed to get a lot of pictures. There were many lakes and a “Dinosaurs of the Prairie” threshing machine collection.  

         After a quick and beautiful 39 miles, we arrived in Gackle, ND a tiny town that happens to have a bike retreat called the Honey Hub. The Honey Hub was started by a beekeeping family who spends summers in Gackle and winters in Northern California. They noticed a bunch of bikers coming through Gackle one summer, invited one to stay in their basement, and then decided to open up their basement with its bathroom, two beds, a couch, laundry, and wifi to traveling cyclists 365 days a year. For free! The owners, Ginny and Jason, are yet another example of the kindness we’ve encountered on this tour. Also, Jason’s father was a beekeeper and he partnered with some guys to start Honey Stinger, a line of honey-based energy products for endurance athletes. He’s selling these products out of the hostel for much less than market price, so we’ll stock up!

  
  

We ate fried chicken at the Tastee Freez tonight, and got to listen to a group of five men over the age of 60 talk about the good old days. 

  
Back to long rides tomorrow. We’re shooting for Kindred, ND, which is 100 miles away, but we’ve got a 70-mile bail-out point and we could reach Fargo if we muster up superhuman strength for a 125-mile day. 

Hey guys! We made the paper!

Anyway, back to the regularly scheduled program.

Day 32, 7/15, Bismarck, ND to Hazelton, ND: 46.6 miles, 1,861 ft elevation gain, 10.6 mph average speed.

Trip totals: 1,689.8 miles (65 mile daily average), 82,335 ft elevation gain, 11.8 mph overall average.

Four days behind schedule.

Last night over pizza, we decided that getting five to six hours of sleep a night and then riding 100+ miles just wasn’t sustainable. Since we were already paying for a motel room, it made sense to make today an easier day. We slept in, ate a bunch of food at the continental breakfast, and took our time packing up the room. We actually contemplated taking a rest day and then riding 100 miles on Thursday, but the wind forecast was full of intimidating headwinds, so we decided to ride 46 miles to Hazelton, ND.

The day was short, but it was anything but easy. The wind was blowing in from the southeast all day, and Hazelton is, you guessed it, southeast of Bismarck.

  
The first eight or so miles of the ride was on a separated bike path that went south of the city. The ride was lovely, aside from the wind. However, we did discover six miles in that I apparently had a slow leak in my patched tube, so we had to make yet another change. I’ve had the rear wheel off of one of our bikes four times in the last three days. Yeesh.

  
There was a giant hill right outside of town, and we rode through upward rolling hills for much of the day. This, after everyone we spoke with described the terrain east of Bismarck to be as flat as a board. I think people in cars just have a different understanding of the word “flat” than people on bikes.

Today we moved away from the I-94 corridor into real rural North Dakota. The only town we passed between Bismarck and Hazelton was Moffit, a tiny town with no services except for a post office.

  
Our route rolled along through farms and ranchland. Once we made it about 15 miles south of Bismarck, there was barely any traffic until we turned south onto highway 83. We struggled through the wind for 13 miles between Moffit and Hazelton, gazing enviously at the cows who were huddled in the leeward side of hills.

   
 Wind notwithstanding, it’s pretty enjoyable to ride on empty country roads. We can ride next to each other and have an actual conversation. You can see passing traffic with plenty of time to move over, and the few cars that did pass us when we had a small or no shoulder gave us plenty of space.

After four and a half hours of hard riding, we made it to Hazelton, or more precisely, to the convenience store at the junction right before Hazelton.

  
I ended up really liking Hazelton. It leapt up my list of favorite small towns through a series of happy surprises.

1) The water tab on the Coke machine at the convenience store gave us seltzer water, which we love and which has been nearly impossible to find for the past few weeks.

2) The convenience store had an impressive array of food options, but we were immediately drawn to the soup of the day: chili. It was delicious, and a steal at $2.50 a bowl. Two bowls each was enough to sate even our bike tour hunger, and $10 for dinner for two ain’t too shabby.

3) Hazelton has a great city park for camping. It’s not free, but it’s cheap ($12), and the park has pavilions, horseshoe courts, and showers. The shower was amazing. It had great pressure out of a huge waterfall showerhead. Setting aside the fact that it was in a dark corner of a dull grey cinderblock building, it might have been one of the nicer showers I’ve ever experienced.

We showered, played a game of horseshoes, and set up our tent underneath one of the pavilions.

  

That turned out to be a great decision, but I’ll let Dani tell you all about that in the next post.

Day 31, 7/14, Dickinson, ND to Bismarck, ND: 112.7 miles, 3,672 ft. elevation gain, 14 mph average speed.
Trip totals: 1,643.2 miles (65.7 daily average), 80,494 ft. elevation gain, 11.9 mph overall average

We rode 100+ miles twice in two days! We’re exhausted, but we know we’ve done 3-4 days’ worth of hard, hilly riding in 2 days, which is helpful because we’re still trying to make up time. And today’s century was unassisted – there was little to no wind, good or bad. 

We got an early start again. Yet again, Ted pulled the bulk of the breaking-down-camp weight while I reluctantly rolled out of the tent. I got off to a grumpy start. I knew we needed to get to Bismark today because we needed to visit the Verizon store, so I had that weight on my shoulders. And at the beginning of the day, the miles tick by so slowly that it feels like we’re never going to make it. Also, for the first time since Whitefish, I had to use my four-year-old bike shorts, well-worn and insufficiently cushioned, because my new squishy ones were not dry from last night’s washing. Immediate pain. So frustrating. 

  
We rode on Old Highway 10 for the first 51 miles of the day, and it brought us through beautiful rolling farmland and a couple two-horse towns. We stopped for breakfast at picnic benches in Richardton, a town dominated by a Benedictine monastery and a grain elevator, of course. We saw a grain elevator pouring grain into a train car the other day and finally realized why all of the grain elevators are on railroad tracks. Add this to the list of things we city kids are learning about rural America. 

We crossed into central time, then stopped a bit later in Glen Ullin and bought two liters of orange juice and a cinnamon roll to supplement our PB & J / tuna and cheese on triscuits for lunch. I forgot to mention that the second we entered North Dakota, the majority of locals’ accents shifted to the stereotypical North Dakota accent. I wouldn’t think a state border would make such a difference in regional accents. The lady checking us out at the supermarket made lots of exaggerated vowel sounds. It was adorable. 

  
We continued onto I-94 after lunch. Every bike tourist we meet seems to hate interstate riding, but I enjoy how efficient it is on these longer days and the shoulder is enormous, so I feel pretty safe, or at least safer than I did on those busier highways with 70 mph speed limits and no shoulder in Montana. I think it’s the combination of gentler grades and subconsciously feeling I have to ride faster when speed limits are higher and traffic is faster, but we always increase our speed significantly on the highway. We also rarely stop because few things are less pleasant than being passed within six feet of vehicles driving 85 mph. 

The miles ticked by really quickly, but highway riding is scary, despite the huge shoulder. Trucks barrel past and there are debris everywhere from previous tire failures, crashes, etc. that get your mind going about all of the bad things that could potentially happen. Luckily, they had the left lane blocked off for road work for a bit, so we rode over there for 10 miles or so. 

  
Another thing about interstate riding: you end up with above average amounts of tiny bugs and road grime all over you. The thing that happens to your windshield happens to your body when you’re on a bike. We’ve been extra grateful for showers on days like these. 

We stayed on the interstate past when we were supposed to because the actual route added several miles that we assumed were hillier with steeper grades, which is generally a safe assumption. We got off at route 25, drank cold drinks and shared a footling sub at a gas station, then proceeded to town. 

   
  

Bismark is the largest town we’ve seen since Seattle (population: 60,000) and still no T-Mobile coverage! We decided a week ago that we’d switch to Verizon when we heard they were running a promotion to give $300 to each person who switches back to Verizon after having switched away at some point. I think they’re calling it the “switchers remorse” promotion, so we’re perfect candidates. I’ve been fed up with T-Mobile since, during a phone interview a week after switching from Verizon to T-Mobile, my phone dropped the call 5 times and when I was connected, the interviewer could barely hear me. Where was I, you ask? Some peewilly town in the middle of nowhere? No. I was in Greenwich Village. If T-Mobile works anywhere on the planet, it should work in Manhattan.  

We rolled up to the Verizon store sweaty and smelly (and with bugs and filth all over us) so I’m sure they weren’t too excited to see us. They were very friendly, though, and even let us refill our water bottles in the employee lounge! We quickly got our phones and headed to treat ourselves to a motel stay as a reward for a very difficult week. 731 miles in 8 days, an average of 91.4 miles a day!

Bismark seemed like a nice town. We rode past what appeared to be a small town Main Street with lots of cute shops and restaurants, and a brewery we wanted to try, but were too hot, exhausted, and grimy to stop. There were beautiful parks and bungalows in the area around the governor’s mansion. There’s also a massive dedicated bike path going all the way from the suburb of Mandan through town, with a couple spurs. I think it was called the Millenium trail. 

We showered the bugs off, ate pizza for dinner at one of the world’s few remaining sit-down Pizza Huts, and then returned to the hotel with a half gallon of chocolate milk to set up our new phones and bask in the luxury of air conditioning, TV, and a comfy bed. 

Side note: We’re getting some pretty great tans on this trip. Here’s a picture of Ted’s bike shorts tan. I’m pretty sure he’ll have it for a couple years. Below that is a picture of our more conspicuous, more embarrassing glove tans. If you look closely you can see the Pearl Izumi logo emblazoned on the center of my hand. 

  

   

  

Day 30, 7/13, Glendive, MT to Dickinson, ND: 104.5 miles, 5,837 ft elevation gain, 14.7 mph average speed
Trip totals: 1,530.5 miles (63.8 daily average), 76,867 ft elevation gain, 11.8 mph overall average speed

Four days behind schedule.

Dani wrote a post calling yesterday “the day of the tailwind,” but you can’t fault her for that. We didn’t know what the wind was going to be like today.

The alarm went off at 5:30a, and we were up and out rather quickly, thanks to Dani packing all the bags that could be packed last night.

Glendive is at the bottom of the Yellowstone River Valley, and we started the day by climbing out. That in and of itself wasn’t a big deal; we’ve often started days with climbs. What made today special is that we were climbing on Interstate 94. There aren’t too many roads heading west out of Eastern Montana, so the ACA maps took us onto I-94 for the first 13 or so miles of the day.

  
We actually ended up riding on I-94 for a significant portion of the day. Riding our bikes on an interstate was not something we were looking forward to, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as we thought it would be. Pros of riding on the interstate: the hills are more gently graded, the shoulder is consistently huge, it’s usually the shortest distance between points a and b, and we always seem to ride faster when we’re on busier roads. Cons: traffic moves faster, taking breaks is not pleasant, it’s loud and stressful, and there is often sharp debris on the shoulder.

After 13 or so miles, we exited to ride a frontage road for another dozen miles. We took advantage of being off there interstate to stretch and eat, but shortly into our ride on the frontage road we decided they pros of the interstate outweighed the cons. The wind was already starting to pick up at our backs, and we wanted to take full advantage.

So we hopped back on I-94 at the earliest opportunity and we flew down the road to Medora. The wind was amazing. I don’t know much about gauging wind speeds, but I’m guessing it was guessing around 25 mph. We were riding 18-20mph uphill. When the wind gusted, we felt like it was carrying us over the hills. What a fun way to ride a bike.

About 40 miles into the day, we finally left Montana and entered North Dakota. This goes into the obvious observation files, but Montana is a huge state. We spent the better part of 18 days in Montana (including our time stranded in Glacier), and we rode approximately 870 miles in the state. That’s over a fifth of our total trip in one state. A state with maybe a third of the population of Brooklyn.

  
Anyways, I might not have had the greatest expectations for scenery in North Dakota, but the country in the western part of the state blew us away. We spent most of our day riding through the badlands, and they were unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

   
    

We were cruising along, making excellent time to Medora, when I heard Dani’s tire pop from a good 20 yards behind her. She had ridden over something nasty that sliced right through the sidewall of her tire. For those of you who don’t know, a gash to the sidewall is a death sentence for the structural integrity of a tire. Luckily we a) had a tire boot to use as an emergency fix (my bike tool kit is really getting some use!), and b) were close to Medora, which has a great bike shop. While we were changing the tube, a man named Chuck stopped to offer us help! He owns a bookshop in Seattle and is also riding across the country with his wife driving a support car. He was in the support car because his tire blew out in Vida and he had to go all the way to Medora to get a tire. He’s not going to cheat, though. His wife will drive him back to Vida to cover that section again. 

A few miles after Dani’s flat (and about 60 miles into the day) we exited I-94 and headed toward Medora, the launching-off point for Theodore Roosevelt National Park. There was a bike path that took us into town alongside a small stream. Oh man, so beautiful. It hurts my heart that we weren’t able to spend any real time in the park. We really wanted to take some time to explore, but our Glacier fiasco set us back and we just didn’t have time.

  

Medora is another faux-western tourist town, but I have a confession to make: we love tourist towns. We love all of the cute little shops and cafes, the ice cream, the assurance that there will be good food, and how clean and maintained everything looks. We know it isn’t “real,” but we love it anyway.

   
    

Our first stop in town was Dakota Cyclery, and I can’t recommend the shop enough. They were well stocked with high quality touring tires, and they were exceptionally friendly and helpful, completely lacking the snobbishness that is often a part of the bike shop experience.

We decided to eat lunch before we bought the tire and hopped over to Boots Bar and Grill, where Dani had a fried fish basket and I had a steak sandwich that was delicious, but small.

Then we headed back to the bike store, bought a new tire, and changed the tire while we ate ice cream.

Then we headed out of town, trying to rack up some more miles with this lovely tailwind. Immediately after exiting town proper, we began to climb. It wasn’t too long of a hill, but it was steep. Holy moly. Maybe the steepest grade of the trip so far. But the wind was helping us, and we made it up the hill and back onto I-94.

   
 

The ACA maps have you taking old highway 10 for this section of the day, but we heard that there was a lot of oil truck traffic on that part of 10, and we wanted to get as many miles in as possible, so we elected to stay on the interstate. A few miles after Medora, we pulled off at the Painted Canyon overlook. Yep. It was stunning.

  

Back on the road, we were trying to make it to Richardton, where there is an Abbey that extends its hospitality to touring cyclists. But I-94 had other plans for us, and shortly after we were congratulating ourselves for having the good fortune to lose a tire right before an excellent bike shop, my tire blew. I don’t know what I hit, but the tire went from full to flat in barely a second. Luckily, the tire itself remained intact, and all I had to do was switch out the tube. 

   

 

Pedaling again, we were starting to tire out despite the tailwind. Riding 100+ miles wears you out, even with a favorable wind! We rolled into Dickinson after 102 miles close to 5:00p.

We’ve found a few blogs of people who are doing the same trip as us, but are a few days ahead. These are great sources for tips on riding conditions, etc., but today we found perhaps the best tip ever: there’s a Qdoba in Dickinson.

Yay for giant burrito bowls and unlimited seltzer water! It was the perfect dinner to end the day.

Except the day wasn’t supposed to end yet. We were supposed to ride another 25 miles to free camping at the Abbey. But we were exhausted, so we decided to call it a day.

We ended up staying at an RV park in town. It was $25, but it had a nice shower, WiFi, shady trees, and it was quiet. It’s the most we’ve paid for camping so far, but the showers made it a better deal than the Montana Bike Hostel, in case you were wondering. 

   
 

We’re going to try to make it into Bismarck tomorrow, which would be another century ride!

Day 29, 7/12/15, Vida, MT to Glendive, MT: 80.2 miles, 3,949 ft. elevation gain, 13.5 mph average speed
Trip Totals: 1,426 miles (62 mile daily average), 71,030 ft. elevtion gain, 11.6 mph overall average speed

Four and a half days behind schedule.

(Note: at some point during each of the last three days, Ted’s phone lost GPS, so the stats for the day might not be completely accurate. The distance is at least close, but the daily average speeds are estimates.)

Tailwind! For 50 miles! 50 miles in less than 3 hours! After it took us 3.5 hours to complete the first 30 miles when that same wind was a headwind. What a difference wind makes!

We woke up bright and early today (4:30a) to avoid those 20+ mph crosswinds we had at the end of the day yesterday. I was not happy about it. Our pace and sleep schedule feel unsustainable to me right now, but I’ll just keep chugging along until I feel confident we’ll make it to Niagara Falls in time to visit Ted’s family.

We started off at 5:30a and I could actually feel my heart sink when I noticed the grass blowing toward us about 6 miles in. We’ve not had to deal with headwinds this early in the day, and we still had 24 miles before we finished these rollers and reached a turn that we hoped would put the wind at our backs. With the wind and rolling hills, those first 30 miles were hard.

We got some low-quality processed sugar products for breakfast at the convenience store in Circle, MT, then made a 150 degree left turn, turning that crosswindy headwind into a tailwind!

This tailwind made me think I’ve never experienced a tailwind before. The first 15 miles after the turn were uphill and we cruised up at around 15 mph, and once we crested the hill we cruised into Glendive at around 25 mph. We got to town at 12:30p and felt we should take advantage of the wind and push on, but we had a warm showers place to stay, so we called it an early day.

We were hoping for a cute coffee shop to sit at and blog all afternoon, but there were no coffee shops in town. We ate burgers and fries at a converted Dairy Queen (renamed Re-treat) because it was the only non-dive bar open on Sunday in town. Pretty divey town, that Glendive. The burger was huge and the bun was a normal size. It reminded me of Chris Farley singing “fat guy in a little coat.”

There were two other groups of cyclists in this place, a couple cycling the northern tier from east to west on a supported charity ride to raise money for MS research and a family of three (a dad and 14-year-old girl on a tandem and a mom on a single) riding the northern tier to their home in Maine. We traded tips for our upcoming travels (we should expect rainstorms, more biting insects, humidity, and Midwestern hospitality) and we all ate lots of grease and ice cream.

We then headed to our warm showers hosts’, Joy and Glen, house. They built a beautiful log cabin on the Yellowstone River and they let us stay in one of their guest rooms. This is their first year hosting on warm showers and they’ve gotten a deluge of guests so far. We very much appreciate their hospitality! There was another cyclist there, Jace, a 20-year-old who is cycling from Connecticut to Oregon for his sister’s wedding. He created his own panniers out of kitty litter buckets to cut costs and they are waterproof and fairly lightweight. Great idea, and he thinks it’s gotten him a lot of pity-related kindness.

We got to cook red beans and rice in a real kitchen and shared it with Jace while discussing jazz music. Then to bed because we have an early start tomorrow for a 100-mile day!

Day 28, Glasgow, MT to Vida, MT: 73 miles, 2,023 ft. elevation gain, 13 mph average speed.
Trip Totals: 1,345.8 miles (61.2 daily average), 67,081 ft. elevation gain, 11.5 mph overall average.

Four days behind schedule.

Hey! Guess what! We have a waterproof tent!

Tanja had warned us that there was a pretty fierce storm rolling in, and it landed sometime in the middle of the night. Rain, lightning, and lots and lots of wind. The wind repeatedly blew our tent over to a 45 degree angle before the tent snapped back into place.

It was a bit frightening, but not enough to keep me awake after fighting through that headwind all day. But then–and here’s the exciting part–we woke up in the morning and we were dry! All of us! And all of our stuff! Happy day!

We were terrified of having to fight that headwind again, so the alarm went off at 4:30a and we were on the road by 5:20a. We spent most of the intervening time being eaten by mosquitoes. If these early morning mosquitoes stay this bad, we might have to toss this all natural, cruelty-free repellent and get some DEET. I’m tired of being breakfast before I eat breakfast.

Anyway, we got on the road and pedaled with the all of the strength of our fear of another headwind. Also biking fast keeps the mosquitoes away, so that was an extra motivator. We made it 30 miles by 7:30a before we stopped to eat first breakfast. We were on track to make it to Wolf Point (50 miles) before 9:00a, but then a shattered beer bottle introduced itself to my rear tire, and the interaction didn’t go too well.

I changed the tire in 20 or so minutes and we were back on our bikes and into Wolf Point at 9:31a (so close!), and we headed straight for McDonald’s.

I hope we’re not forming long lasting bad habits, but 1) McGriddles are delicious, and 2) since we were stupid enough to make this trip with T-Mobile, we are reliant on WiFi to plan, etc.

Here’s where our days typically fall apart. We have a great start to the morning and decide to congratulate ourselves with hot breakfast food, and then we sit. And sit. And talk about how we need to get going, but without making any effort to stop sitting. It ruins us.

After close to an hour and a half, we finally got ourselves out of McDonald’s and swung by the grocery store on our way out of town, where we found our favorite chocolate milk (Darigold Old Fashioned) probably for the last time.

Aside: Apparently we are now in TruMoo country, and I wouldn’t even wish that sorry excuse for chocolate milk on someone who decides to ship their house on a shoulderless two-lane highway.

We headed out of Wolf Point, leaving Rt. 2 behind after over 300 miles and we joined Rt. 13 south to take us to Circle.

Let’s talk a little about expectations here. I’ve seen a lot of people complain on the Internet about the hills coming out of Wolf Point after crossing the Missouri River (oh yeah, we did that), and I think it’s because they take people by surprise. The Adventure Cycling Association maps included an elevation profile for the first two sections, but not for the third section. I think people see this and assume that the whole ride is mostly flat. Then they ride for the first 300 miles of the section and it IS mostly flat. Then they cross the Missouri, and WHAM!

There are hills there. Lots and lots of hills. Hills that are rolling, but rolling consistently upward. I can see how these hills could be a bit demoralizing if you were expecting a flat ride, but we had the elevation profile on the route we uploaded to Ride With GPS, and I had been dreading these hills for days.

From that perspective, they really weren’t that bad. They weren’t the best thing ever, especially when a mostly headwind picked up around 12:00p, but they weren’t all that bad. And the country was just lovely. A little terrain variation can go a long way, aesthetically. And when we paused to recover from climbing into the wind, we noticed how cool that same wind looked moving through the fields. That “amber waves of grain” thing again, I guess.

Round about 1:45, we made it to the tiny town of Vida, 22 miles of rolling hills out of Wolf Point.

So. Vida. Not much there. A post office with limited hours (8:00-8:45 on Saturday), a community church, and a bar. The ACA map doesn’t even record it having a population. What it does have though is a wonderful shade tree standing over a wonderful bench that is wonderfully protected from the wind. It was wonderful.

We sat on the bench (and laid on the ground next to it), and ate peanut butter Oreos, Philly cheesesteak-flavored cured meat sticks, jalapeño potato chips, and pop tarts. A well-balanced lunch, in other words.

And then we fell victim to our sitting weakness. We had gone 72 miles and we were tired. And the wind was getting stronger. And the tree was so nice.

But there wasn’t any place to camp in Vida, so we had to move on. We packed our bags and were about to take off when nature started calling me. Loudly. The type of call that can’t be answered on the side of the road.

This was decidedly inconvenient, because there are three buildings in Vida and the bar and post office were definitely closed. So, with fingers crossed, I waddled up the hill to the church.

It was open! And there was a bathroom right next to the front door! Sweet relief!

Then, as I was leaving the church, I heard a shout from a group of people hanging out around two RVs behind the church. It was Cycling 4 Change!

Turns out they received permission from the pastor to spend the night at the church. They again piled us with gifts–sports drinks, chocolate milk, and leftover breakfast–and we got to chatting (and sitting, which I mentioned we love). We hadn’t met everyone the first time, but they were all here then: Sanoosh, Raj, Arool, Zuli, Hannah, Nitha, Lydia, Sarah, Josh, Daniel, Noah, Zachary, Julian, and Daniel (another one). I hope I spelled everyone’s name right!

We hung out for a while, listening to the kids play music and sing songs. Josh plays violin, guitar, and piano, which he taught himself, and is great at all of them. It was beautiful to hear them all sing together. What a talented, adorable family!

By that time it was even later AND even windier, and we really didn’t want to leave. So we asked if we could set up our tent behind the church and they said yes. We passed the rest of the evening talking and playing with the kids. They invited us to join them for dinner (pork chops, hamburgers, hot dogs, pasta, spicy rice and beans, and Israeli couscous salad), and everything was delicious.

After dinner we washed the dishes, and then we headed to bed.

I’m glad I had to poop!