Day 44: Taking a break.

We were met by Joseph and Wai Lee (Dustins girlfriends parents) today. They drove us around Minneapolis and we saw some of the lakes and Munsinger Gardens. We may miss a day or two of blogging on our break.

Day 43: Sauk Centre to Litchfield, MN. 59 miles.

We started on the bike trail before 6 am. Unfortunately we only could stay on the trail 5 miles. We then turned south on Highway 4. That is a well maintained 2 lane road with very little traffic.  The last 8 miles were on Highway 12.  This was the worse road we have ridden. The shoulders are like cobblestones. The road itself had bumps about every 30 feet and there was alot of traffic.  We will look at tomorrows route to avoid a repeat. We did have good winds and reached our hotel by noon.  We were tempted to keep riding but the heat suggested not.

Some have asked about what we shipped. We still have our tent, it is now In our pannier. We kept our sleeping pads but shipped our down sleeping bags, etc.

We started with a continental breakfast at our hotel. there are a lot of differences in these. today's was quite good. it has fruit, yogurt and some healthy cereal choices. Compare that to yesterday frosted flakes and fruity loops along with donuts were the only choices.  I had to go get our own peanut butter and healthy bread from our stash. Either way we are always ready for a second breakfast in about 2 to 3 hours.  Today we were lucky and found a nice place.  Yesterday and today there was a large table of man playing a dice game.  It seems like they play to determine who pays for breakfast.

We often get encouragement from strangers.  Today a woman driving in the opposite direction rolled her window down, waved, and yelled "way to go!"  Ron was afraid she was going to say "get off the road!"

There have been fewer Lutheran and more Catholic churches.

Day 42: Fergus Falls to Sauk Centre. 76 miles.

Bike trail all day!  That was a treat!  No traffic worries today.  It was flat. We did have a headwind for a while but not at all as bad as yesterday.  It was hot, in the high 80s. We made it to our hotel by 2 pm.  There are some lovely lakes we rode by.

We met a couple about our age riding from Michigan to Seattle.  This is the second time they have ridden this route.  He is considering riding back also.  We would consider that crazier than us!

We lightened our loads today by sending our cold weather stuff home.

We were on the road by 6 am today because of the heat. We will try for earlier tomorrow since hotter weather is predicted for Litchfield.

Day 41: Pelican Rapids to Fergus Falls, Minnesota. 26 miles

The weather here is in 80s with a 20 mph wind with higher gusts (headwind, of course).

  After talking with some people at breakfast we decided to go off our planned route to connect with a 100 mile bike trail.  Battling the wind for 20 miles was enough, so we decided to stay put here until tomorrow.  It is suppose to be hot but the wind is predicted to calm.

The only picture we took today was of this Lutheran Church.  I know some of you reading this post attend the Lutheran church.I bet you have some family connection to this part of the country.  It seems like every church is Lutheran and many towns have a Lutheran cemetery.  One small town had no stores or cafe but had two separate Lutheran churches.

We needed to have eyeglasses adjusted for Sharon. The rearview mirror is hard on them.Ron got a haircut and beard trim.

We also spent some time planning our route for this week.  We will plan to go to Sauk Centre tomorrow (on the bike path) and Litchfield on Thurs.  Friday we will be met near Minneapolis by Joe and Wai Lee. They are the parents of Jessica who is the girlfriend of our son Dustin. We had originally planned for Dustin and Jessica to meet us here.  But we soon realized we were not staying on schedule to coordinate.  We are excited to meet Jessicas parents.

Day 40: Fargo, ND to Pelican Rapids, Minnesota. 68 miles.

We made it to Minnesota!  Right off the bat the number of lakes is impressive.  The county we are in now has over 1000 lakes (of the over 10,000 in the state.)

It was not an easy day (that is an understatement).  We had a headwind all day.  There was no food available until after 40 miles (except for what we carry).  The worst was when we thought we had only 10 more miles to go we hit a detour for a closed road r/t construction.  The 10 miles became over 25 miles.  Did I also tell how warm it was?  Definitely in the high 80s.

We plan to approach future days with options so we can evaluate riding conditions and stop earlier when needed.  Today we were riding from 6:30 am to 3:30 pm. Too long under any conditions. But all is well. We are in an air conditioned hotel. The only one in this town.

A few days ago Ron rescued a turtle that was trying to cross the street. He needed help getting over the curb. I tell you that because today the road kill was multiple turtles. One had an 18 inch diameter shell.  The picture is of the rescued turtle, not the roadkill.

We like to carry a roadmap of the state we are in in addition to our bike map that just shows our route.  The regular map especially help in detours, etc.  We checked at two stores and they had none. A woman overheard and went to her car and got one for us. Another example of how helpful people have been!

Day 39: Rest Day: Fargo.

We had some bike maintenance done today: new back tire for Ron and new chains for both bikes.  While waiting we got a suggestion for a lunch cafe fom a bike shop employee, Josh.  He actually drove us there (several miles away) and we got a ride back from our waitress! The food was very good Iin addition to the kindness shown with the rides.

In tbe bike shop we met an Oregon couple about our age who are traveling from East to West. Their nephew is driving a support RV.

We start our Minnesota riding tomorrow.

Day 38: Enderlin to Fargo, North Dakota. 58 miles.

I did not charge my device last night so we did not take many pictures.  We thought our ride today was a little over 40 miles but we miscalculated and had a longer ride than expected. We arrived at about 2 pm and stopped at the Great Northern Bicycle shop. It is a huge bicycle shop in an old train depot.  For bicyclists going west it is the last bike shop for many 100s of miles, none in North Dakota and few in Montana.  We will be needing new tires soon so we are now carrying two spare tires (in addition to many tubes). The bike shop says we are at least halfway.  (Our mileage is over 1900).

We are staying at the the Howard Johnson Hotel in downtown Fargo.  We will stay two nights, taking a rest day tomorrow.  We are literally across town now from Minnesota.

Day 37. Jud to Dickey to Enderlin, ND. 74 miles

Today was an important day in our journey. We rode 21 miles to the place where Sharons mom lived her childhood, Dickey.  We had received directions for getting to the original homeplace.  We took the wrong road and gave up after 3 miles of gravel roads.  We then went to the graveyard to find the graves of my grandparents. When we got there someone stopped to chat.  She turned out to be a distant relative and drove me to the homeplace.  I met her husband, Kelly meikeljohn, and there is definite family resemblance. We had an early lunch in the Farmers Cafe (owned by the farmers in the community for over 25 years).  I talked with a woman, Rita, who knew my grandmother.

We left Dickey about 11:30 and we knew we had about 50 miles to go.  We enjoyed seeing the massive fields of crops growing. There was not much traffic and only a few hills. At 58 miles we had a steep 1 mile hill that was not enjoyed.  We go into "granny gear" and slowly make our way.

Tomorrow our destination is Fargo.  We will take a rest day there. We will enter Minnesota after that. We think we have covered about half the distance of our trip.

Day 36: Napoleon to Jud, North Dakota. 59 miles.

We slept about 10 hours last night.  We needed that!  We had breakfast in town before getting on the road at 8:40 am. We were hoping for tailwinds and received them for most of the route.  We had side winds when we went north about 6 miles and then later south for 7 miles.  We are off route tonight because tomorrow we will visit Dickey, Sharon"s maternal grandparents are buried there.

The farms are huge. The major crops are corn (used for oil and ethanol) wheat and soybeans. There are many ponds and small lakes.  I was surprised by the amount of water. Our "landlord" says that it is a fairly recent change since about 1996.

We had lunch in Gackle at a Tasty Freeze.  The waitress said she is going to college next year in Bismark.  She is nervous about being in "the big city".  It will be a change from pop. 310.  But Bismark is alot smaller than Salem.

We had very peaceful roads today with hardly any traffic. There are lots of cattle and ducks around the little ponds.  We routinely talk to the cattle.

We were blessed again to find lodging that is not our tent. We found a trailer that is usually rented to hunters.  It is a good location on the way to Dickey.  Jud is a very
peaceful town of about 60 people. It is about 35 miles south of Jamestown.

There is a bar in town that we were told made the best pizza.  When we visited we discovered it was a relative of Sharon"s that owns the bar. Steve and Nancy Larson.  His grandmother and mine were cousins. He drew me a map so we can find the old home where my mother grew up.

Day 35: Mandan to Napoleon, North Dakota. 83 miles

A very long day of riding. . .about 8 hrs in the saddle.  We crossed the Missouri River.

We had packed food and had several food breaks. But our first cafe was at 57 miles. We ate to overfill before beginning our last 26 mile ride for the day.  The wind was behind us and it helped us on this part of the day.

Several miles from town a car pulled over and the people wanted to ask questions about our biking. They ended up inviting us to dinner. What a treat to have a home cooked meal!  They are a lovely Christian couple (SDA), married almost 60 years.

Another treat is we are staying in a hunting lodge.  A man at the hotel suggested we talk with Rick since the hotels were all booked. It is a full house even with a washer/dryer so we have clean clothes too! 

Thank you to our prayer supporters!

Our total miles are 1754. Tomorrow our destination is probably Gackle.

Day 34: Richardton to Mandan, North Dakota. 74 miles.

Today was a long but pleasant ride.  We had alot of rolling hills. We had favorable winds until in the afternoon they shifted to more headwind.

We had cool weather with threatening rain. It waited until we were checked into our motel and now it is dumping! 

We had lunch in New Salem. . .home of"Salem Sue".  She  is a holstein cow statute 38 feet tall and 50 feet long and visible for miles. At lunch some farmers near us we're talking. They said "The crops look good.  We are past the threat of frost, and now only have to worry about hail". Farming is the main event here. The fields go on forever.

We are in a new time zone now.  We are two hours ahead of west coast.

Our goal tomorrow is Napoleon, ND.

Day 33: Medora to Richardton, North Dakota. 61 miles

Out sleeping bags were wet last evening but mostly superficial so just wiping them with paper towels helped.  By morning they were wet again from the sweating overnight. . It was very warm in the tent and the threat of rain made taking off the rain cover too risky.

The good part of camping is you are not tempted to sleep away the morning.  We were on the road by 5:40 am and had reached our destination before noon.

The early morning is a great time to travel. Cool and less traffic.  Both yesterday and today our route included some interstate highway riding.  There was alot of truck traffic.

We saw our first oil well today.

The hotel we are in is the only one here but is actually very nice for inexpensive. The only cafe in town closes at 4 pm. We had a good lunch and "took out" a sandwich and piece of pie to go with canned soup for dinner.  We call that a fancy 3 course meal. There is no grocery store in town (population 530), but there are two taverns.

Ron added our total trip mileage so far: 1601.

Day 32: Glendive, Montana to Medora, North Dakota. 63 miles.

We are in North Dakota! The ride was improved with some tailwind.  As you can see from the pictures the badlands are a beautiful change of scenery. This town is the #1 North Dakota tourist attraction.  It has an outdoor musical each night (too late for us). We did join in the steak pitchfork fondue.  They cook the steaks in sunflower oil.  The picture is Ron with Jim, another bicyclist we met, enjoying a steak dinner for Fathers Day. We are camping, but it has rained while we were at dinner and our rain cover was off.  We are not doing well with camping!  Tomorrow we are going to Richardson, ND.  For those of you who do not know, Sharons mom was born and raised in ND.