HavengaBikeRide

One note about yesterday: we passed 2000 miles total for our trip yesterday after about 2/3 of our ride! We stayed in a motel last night as it was quite windy and there was a strong chance of thunderstorms during the night. We both think we might have heard some thunder during the night and there were puddles outside this morning. We wound our way north and east and rejoined the route. Soon we crossed the Red River into Moorhead and headed north  paralleling the river for a while. Passed a huge sugar plant. After turning east we continued through the flat landscape of the valley through large agricultural fields with rich-looking soil for miles. Jim said, “For the first time on this trip, I’m getting bored.”     It seemed flat and monotonous and sterile—with little sign of life except for an occasional red-winged blackbird in the ditch and the vehicles on the road. After 12-14 miles or so, we had a short, easy climb out of the valley and the landscape became interesting a...

  Last night a couple pulled into the park with just a plain pickup truck with a cap. We started chatting with them and found out they were from Central Texas and had spent time working on computers and other things in China for 6 years and  also spent some time in Thailand. They are also avid bird watchers.  They had been in Wisconsin for something and were now wandering around seeing the countryside and bird watching. For sleeping, they just had a mattress in the back of their pickup truck, a pretty simple setup.    We were worried about headwinds today so got an early start and left about  6:45 .  We crossed the Sheyenne River and climbed up out of the valley shortly after leaving the park. We noticed that there were almost no lakes and ponds along this section of the road. We went about 17 miles or so then ate a big breakfast at the TraXside Cafe in  Enderlin North Dakota. (Generous portions of pancakes, ham and eggs)  The town had a...

The bike hostel we stayed in is called the "Honey Hub."  When we turned on the side streets of the little town of Gackle (we asked and found out that there had been a Mr Gackle) we started seeing signs saying cyclist housing with an arrow and followed them alongside a house and across a back yard and we felt uncertain but people up on the deck assured us we were at the right place. On the back of the house on the other side of the deck was a door into a room with several beds, a bathroom and washer/dryer. Why the name? The owner is a 5th generation beekeeper that grew up in the town and they stay there during the summer.  They place bees all over the area during the summer months to pollinate the crops then truck them to California for the other nine months of the year to overwinter in a milder climate and pollinate there. It takes 30 semi loads to mhouse ove them.  We were the only ones staying there, but at times in past years they have had multudes of tents behind the ...

The Hazleton Community Park was a  quiet restful place to sleep—it also probably didn't hurt the weather was very nice.  Large round natural concretion at the park in Hazelton  Today we had mild winds at our backs, sunny skies with a few white clouds, pleasant temperatures and low humidity on low traffic roads—what more could we ask for! After riding about 15 mi or so we saw a small grove of trees fairly close to the road so we decided to take a break there as we could sit in the shade. We ended up spending about 40 minutes there because in amongst this little grove of trees were a number of birds. Kay first saw an orchard oriole, then id’ed about 10 species by sound recording of their songs and 4 or 5    by seeing them. Also, as Jim went back to the bikes, a buck ran across the road just ahead of him and into the trees. Just west of Napoleon there is a large lake, maybe a mile diameter, and saw some people fishing there. They were catching Walleyes and Nor...

Began the day with a little bit of comedy: we went to get breakfast at the motel but the door was locked.  We had specifically checked the time the night before so thought we would give them a few minutes and return to our room--and we were trapped outside as we left our key in the room.  So we rang the doorbell and finally got someone to get our door unlocked and let us get our simple motel breakfast.  We had about a 5-mile ride to First Lutheran Church of Bismarck which originally was Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church. The Sermon was on the woman who washed Jesus feet with her tears and hair.   Point is not to become too self-righteous and realize  we're all sinners. After church there was a celebration of the 50th wedding anniversary of their pastor and his wife, and so got some cake and cookies and juice. We had a fun visit with a couple named John and Bonnie, they're approximately 75 and been married about 54 years.  They were farmers ...

https://ridewithgps.com/trips/94589440 Slept in a little bit this morning and had the leftover sandwich from the Sit-N-Bull bar for breakfast. Today was also predicted to be quite windy, 20 to 28 mph, but was now a tailwind. It was only about 53 when we left and stay cool so we wore our tights for the first time in a while. We were thinking of stopping in Hebron to get something to eat and as we rounded a curve, we saw some bleachers with a whole bunch of pickups nearby (and also some porta-potties) so we stopped. There was going to be a mud run that afternoon for different classes of trucks from stock to souped-up to open class.  They would be timed running through about a 150 yd long mud pit. We learned that this mud run had been going on for about 10 years and it can take as little as 3 seconds to win the money for a souped-up model in the open class. They also had a food truck there so we were all set. The only thing hot to drink that they had was coffee so we had tha...

  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 s...