Pushing Forward in North Dakota (August 19, 2012)

David's odometer: 2500 miles in North Dakota

Yesterday we rolled 2500 miles into the trip.  It’s been a challenging few days in North Dakota.  We did two seventy plus mile days with headwinds working against us both days.  We went from Fargo to Enderlin and then from Enderlin to Gackle.

Leaving "The Eagle's Nest" motel out the back door. It's really the nest the eagle moved out of.

Here we go again: detour from Enderlin to Gackle that we thankfully ignored & successfully maneuvered.  

The detoured road dry and rideable...it was either this or go 40 miles out of our way.

Painted tires that create a Gackle "sign" upon entering Gackle.

A more conventional sign.

A friendly woman in Gackle who helped us with directions.

Sign on the "Honey Hub of Gackle"

World's largest jersey? It might be a tad too big!

Probably even too large for Shaq!

In Gackle, we stayed at the Honey Hub Bicycle Respite.  The fellow, Jason Miller, who owns the house, was away and the house had been rented to hunters.  Even so, Jason kindly arranged for us to camp in his yard and use the shower and the internet.  However, the young men who were renting the house invited us to stay on the basement sofa sleeper which we gladly accepted. 

It would have been nice to meet Jason as he has a number of cycling related products that he was selling.  There was also this enormous cycling jersey which I had to model. 

Aggressive "rumble strips" are cut into the shoulders of the road which makes it challenging to get over when traffic comes up behind.

A kind of "sea wall" built along the lake.

Sign in Napoleon.

From Enderlin we went to Napoleon, ND.  It was a shorter ride of about 40 miles. We stayed at a dumpy hotel called the “Downtowner.”  It was tired and noisy as there was a huge wedding in town and the revelers came running (literally) in their drunken state a few times during the dead of night.  Needless to say, we didn’t get a great night’s sleep. The "Notel" had other shortcomings: the cold water faucet in the shower spun  and spun in either direction. You got one temperature of mildly warm when the hot faucet was turned on.   

Today we are in Hazelton (once called "Little Chicago" for the violence that happened on its streets) after going only about 26 miles.  (David could have gone longer as we had a rare tailwind out of the East).   However, I was just too exhausted and we would have to go about 50 more miles to reach Bismarck which was the next place where there were services.)  We stopped at a city campground.  It is off to Bismarck tomorrow and a Warm Showers stay with Ron and Joyce.