Friday, June 24, Medora to Richardton

 

• We left Medora a little bit before eight with some clouds and a mild wind from the side. While we were still in town, on the main drag, right by what is probably the biggest motel in town, a buck with velvet on his antlers came trotting up the side road to the corner.  Our route led us along the edge of Theodore Roosevelt national park, which has a badlands-type landscape. We also stopped at the Painted Canyon visitor center as it was also the rest stop,  and looked out over the landscape of the canyon. At one point along the road, we saw evidence that a pipeline had been installed. Since we had started to see oil wells and tanks, we figured it was an oil pipeline. When we came upon where they were installing it, we chatted with the supervisor, and found out it was a water pipeline. We made it to Dickinson which is the end of section three of our route maps. We got food for lunch from Family Fare which we smiled to see as that is the local grocery store that we shop at in our town.
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  Then the wind was starting to pick up; a pretty strong wind a few degrees west of north. It was mostly at our side so we struggled to ride a straight line. As we came into the small town of Taylor, one town before our destination, Kay noticed a number of cars on both sides of the road, so figured there was likely a place to eat there. So we stopped, at the Sit-N-Bull bar, to take  a needed break. They had hot cocoa, so we were in luck. Chatted with a local couple who had passed us  on the road a while back who noticed that we were struggling with the wind. They said that the bar served great food. However, they didn’t start till 5 and it was only 4.  Normally we wouldn’t have waited that long but we were getting close to our destination and we already knew there wasn’t a restaurant in our destination town which the locals confirmed. We also checked the weather and the wind might be a little more favorable, and at least not worse later. We also got to use their internet while we waited, and we thought our motel might not have internet. So we got a sandwich and their nachos, which was such a humongous plate that we ended up saving the sandwich for later!  As we started on our way again, there was even a little bit of sunshine. As we drew near Richardton, our destination, we could see some sort of tower. As we got closer, it turned out to be twin steeples on a massive church building. Puzzled, we went to it and found out it was part of a Benedictine abbey (it has an amazing history,  you can look up Assumption Abbey in Richardton if want to learn more).  Earlier we had called the only motel in Richardton for a reservation and the woman asked, "Are you on a bicycle?" She said, "You cannot bring your bicycle in the room" with great authority. This made us just a little bit nervous, and when we got there she had all these things she didn't want us to do like walk in the room with our bike shoes on, but then after we were checked in, she was also nice enough to offer to take us to a convenience store about 3 miles away in her car if we needed anything.