Day 16, Tuesday, July 15.
Wolf Point, MT to 13 miles outside of Williston, ND
Daily Mileage: 124.6 miles
Total Mileage: 1,444.1 miles
Daily Time on Bike: 7:35 hours
Average Speed: 16.4 mph
Maximum Speed: 40.6 mph
We woke up to our tent being swarmed by mosquitoes—it was disgusting. Nothing like waking up to see the mesh rain fly completely covered black with insects. We could hear the other cyclist, whom we later found out was named Ian, packing up his tent. When we finally got up the courage to go out, because we really needed to use the restroom, we ran.
This morning breakfast consisted of Buttrey's finest yogurt, Grapenuts, and a whole lot of crangrape juice. We ate our breakfast on a small step in the vestibule to Buttrey’s. Finally, we packed up and went over to the McDonald’s to fill up our water bottles. To our disgust, we saw the older man from the sagged team ride past. They had already done 50 miles by 9:30AM!
A couple of miles down the road we saw an elderly man in his 70s walking a fully loaded bike on the shoulder of the road. We stopped to see what was wrong, and he said he was just taking a break. We found out later that day that he was making his way from Alaska to Boston—for the second time! He is much like the legendary 71-year-old woman riding her bike around the country. Supposedly, she started in Florida and is riding counter-clockwise around the United States so she hits the most ideal weather in each area. After our twenty-mile stop we met up with Ian. He just had his second flat of the day and was working on it as we rolled up. We talked with him while he was changing it and then asked if he wanted to ride with us. We ended up spending the better part of the day riding with him. He's in his 40's and has just quit his job as a medical mechanical engineer. He still is a British citizen though has had his Geencard for many years and has no intension of returning to the UK. He rides considerably smaller days than us, but is carrying at least twice the weight (probably about 70 pounds worth). He carries a laptop that enables him to email about 30 friends his journal entries. He said each time he logs on he get messages from more people that have been forwarded his journal and want to receive it as well (remember, this is 1997, just at the beginning of the “Internet Revolution” and well-before blogs that could easily be updated by cell phone).
The flats of Montana slowly moved out of sight and were replaced by the rolling terrain of North Dakota. As our day progressed the great big Montana sky that I love so much continued to get smaller. More trains honked for us today, which is always a great thrill. We saw a little pseudo badlands terrain on a backroad highway. Ian was beginning to slow and it was hard for David and I to not blast away with such a great tailwind, but we figured we'd make our mileage, so we might as well enjoy someone else’s company seeing as how for the past two and a half weeks it has just been the two of us 24/7. We also think Ian enjoyed the company as well. Our final stop together was at a brand new place eight miles from the border called "Welcome Stop”—I guess you have to be going the other way because for us it was the “Exit Stop.” Ian needed to cool off after the climbs we'd been doing, and it was a nice place to stop for a while.
As we headed out of the door the anticipation grew greater—eight miles to North Dakota! By this time it was really pretty hot. We had just come off a nice stretch of blacktop. By this time the roads were becoming like all roads within twenty mile of state borders—bad. This must be some kind of “how many of our citizens travel way out here,” thing. As we climbed each hill, we knew that one would bear the “Welcome to North Dakota” sign, when finally there it appeared. It sat high on the hill and looked beautiful. Ian was working to get up it so we went back down to cheer him on. When we were all at the top we took a bunch of pictures, and then we finally parted way. (This was one of the few state signs where both David and I could be in the same picture with the sign. Biking with two people lends one to be in the picture and one to take it.) It's a bit weird knowing that we will most likely never see this guy again. No address or telephone number changed hands, just a farewell handshake, a good luck, enjoy and take care. And then David and I were off.
We rode into Williston, ND and stopped at a Cenex (gas station) for directions when an “avid” cyclist approached David. This guy knew everything about bikes, gearing ratios and all—a bit over-the-top for us. We rode around town trying to find some place to eat when we settled on the local grocery store. We started with blueberry cheesecake and Gatorade, and then moved on to canned spaghetti and bread. With an occasional glance out of the window to make sure the bikes were still there, we sat reading Bicycling Magazine and watching Billy Madison from across the store. It was all right that we couldn’t hear the movie; we knew all the punch lines already.
We then left the Ecomart, or something to that effect, for our final leg of twenty-three miles. We changed time zones again when crossing the state line, so we just lost an hour. It took us much longer than expected because for some reason North Dakota has hills! Who would have known that North Dakota had hills? I always imagined it to be completely flat as well. We started with too little water in our bottles and finished by the moonlight. Very nice scenery, but we arrived at the camp after hours, so we picked a nice spot and pitched our mosquito camp. Today we had bug repellent spray so it wasn’t as bad as the past couple of nights.
(Photo: Tim and David with the Welcome to North Dakota sign.)
Daily Mileage: 124.6 miles
Total Mileage: 1,444.1 miles
Daily Time on Bike: 7:35 hours
Average Speed: 16.4 mph
Maximum Speed: 40.6 mph
We woke up to our tent being swarmed by mosquitoes—it was disgusting. Nothing like waking up to see the mesh rain fly completely covered black with insects. We could hear the other cyclist, whom we later found out was named Ian, packing up his tent. When we finally got up the courage to go out, because we really needed to use the restroom, we ran.
This morning breakfast consisted of Buttrey's finest yogurt, Grapenuts, and a whole lot of crangrape juice. We ate our breakfast on a small step in the vestibule to Buttrey’s. Finally, we packed up and went over to the McDonald’s to fill up our water bottles. To our disgust, we saw the older man from the sagged team ride past. They had already done 50 miles by 9:30AM!
A couple of miles down the road we saw an elderly man in his 70s walking a fully loaded bike on the shoulder of the road. We stopped to see what was wrong, and he said he was just taking a break. We found out later that day that he was making his way from Alaska to Boston—for the second time! He is much like the legendary 71-year-old woman riding her bike around the country. Supposedly, she started in Florida and is riding counter-clockwise around the United States so she hits the most ideal weather in each area. After our twenty-mile stop we met up with Ian. He just had his second flat of the day and was working on it as we rolled up. We talked with him while he was changing it and then asked if he wanted to ride with us. We ended up spending the better part of the day riding with him. He's in his 40's and has just quit his job as a medical mechanical engineer. He still is a British citizen though has had his Geencard for many years and has no intension of returning to the UK. He rides considerably smaller days than us, but is carrying at least twice the weight (probably about 70 pounds worth). He carries a laptop that enables him to email about 30 friends his journal entries. He said each time he logs on he get messages from more people that have been forwarded his journal and want to receive it as well (remember, this is 1997, just at the beginning of the “Internet Revolution” and well-before blogs that could easily be updated by cell phone).
The flats of Montana slowly moved out of sight and were replaced by the rolling terrain of North Dakota. As our day progressed the great big Montana sky that I love so much continued to get smaller. More trains honked for us today, which is always a great thrill. We saw a little pseudo badlands terrain on a backroad highway. Ian was beginning to slow and it was hard for David and I to not blast away with such a great tailwind, but we figured we'd make our mileage, so we might as well enjoy someone else’s company seeing as how for the past two and a half weeks it has just been the two of us 24/7. We also think Ian enjoyed the company as well. Our final stop together was at a brand new place eight miles from the border called "Welcome Stop”—I guess you have to be going the other way because for us it was the “Exit Stop.” Ian needed to cool off after the climbs we'd been doing, and it was a nice place to stop for a while.
As we headed out of the door the anticipation grew greater—eight miles to North Dakota! By this time it was really pretty hot. We had just come off a nice stretch of blacktop. By this time the roads were becoming like all roads within twenty mile of state borders—bad. This must be some kind of “how many of our citizens travel way out here,” thing. As we climbed each hill, we knew that one would bear the “Welcome to North Dakota” sign, when finally there it appeared. It sat high on the hill and looked beautiful. Ian was working to get up it so we went back down to cheer him on. When we were all at the top we took a bunch of pictures, and then we finally parted way. (This was one of the few state signs where both David and I could be in the same picture with the sign. Biking with two people lends one to be in the picture and one to take it.) It's a bit weird knowing that we will most likely never see this guy again. No address or telephone number changed hands, just a farewell handshake, a good luck, enjoy and take care. And then David and I were off.
We rode into Williston, ND and stopped at a Cenex (gas station) for directions when an “avid” cyclist approached David. This guy knew everything about bikes, gearing ratios and all—a bit over-the-top for us. We rode around town trying to find some place to eat when we settled on the local grocery store. We started with blueberry cheesecake and Gatorade, and then moved on to canned spaghetti and bread. With an occasional glance out of the window to make sure the bikes were still there, we sat reading Bicycling Magazine and watching Billy Madison from across the store. It was all right that we couldn’t hear the movie; we knew all the punch lines already.
We then left the Ecomart, or something to that effect, for our final leg of twenty-three miles. We changed time zones again when crossing the state line, so we just lost an hour. It took us much longer than expected because for some reason North Dakota has hills! Who would have known that North Dakota had hills? I always imagined it to be completely flat as well. We started with too little water in our bottles and finished by the moonlight. Very nice scenery, but we arrived at the camp after hours, so we picked a nice spot and pitched our mosquito camp. Today we had bug repellent spray so it wasn’t as bad as the past couple of nights.
(Photo: Tim and David with the Welcome to North Dakota sign.)
