Beautiful library in Mayville ND, on national register of historic places.Beautiful inside, too, but the librarian was a little odd.
ND Sky
A reason to love Fargo
Possibly the coolest bik store ever, in the old railway depot, with it's own cafe and espresso stan. Although the latte was awful, tasted like Farmer Bros. coffee. Bad.
A boquet of wheat (or rye, barley, oats, who can tell??)
The 2nd-tallest manmade structer in the world, from about 8 miles. Field colors look weird because I had to manipulate some to get that tall, skinny tower to show up
No, this is not a joke. Water to the north goes to Hudson Bay, to the south to the Gulf of Mexico.
Day 30 - July 19th - Devils Lake, ND
80 miles, 1600 ft cumulative elevation gain
80 and sunny - perfect biking weather!
Too tired to write today.
Day 31 - July 20th - Carrington, ND
49 miles, 740 ft cumulative elevation gain
75 and sunny - perfect biking weather!
I really shouldn’t have ridden yesterday, or at the very least I should’ve sagged the last 30 miles. All that kept me going for those last miles was the thought of a cold beer, and then when I got in, my room wasn’t ready, and we’re staying in an “alcohol free” hotel on a “dry” Indian reservation. And no espresso, either. If you’re gonna have a casino, a casino for god’s sake, without alcohol, shouldn’t you at least have good coffee????? Still, several of us sat out in the grass and surreptitiously sipped our various illegal beverages (that’s grape juice, right? Or apple juice?) until rooms were ready. I went to bed last night thinking, I don’t care if I ever see another bike, or another bike rider, for that matter. Maybe I’ll just fly home from Fargo.
Not to worry, by this morning, I was refreshed and ready to keep on riding. Although I do think I will cancel out on riding CANDISC. This is another big (hundreds of people) week-long group ride that I signed up for, which would circle back near some of the places I’ve already ridden near Minot. I don’t think the scenery would be much different from what I’ve already seen, it’s back near the oil fields with all that truck traffic, it’s near where Barbara got hit, and I’m just tired of being around big groups. So my current plan is to spend a few days in Fargo, until I’m bored, then head on east into Minnesota in hopes of finding a quiet lake to camp by until I meet up with friends on August 9th for the reunion of the 2005 Southern Tier group.
We have a 92-mile day scheduled for tomorrow, but I’ve already decided I’m riding 60 of it at the most. The day after that will be our last, 60-mile, day into Fargo. There I will spend 2 or 3 nights luxuriating at the Radisson, and (hopefully) another night or two at a friend’s house, before taking off on my own.
Yesterday’s ride was nice enough, it was just too long. Fields of corn, beans, grain, and hundreds of small ponds surrounded by cattail. For about 10 miles at the end of the day, we rode along Devil’s Lake, the largest natural body of water in North Dakota. I was sure this must be a man-made lake, but it turns out that some 3800 square miles drain into it, with NO outlet! So, it has a rather high salinity and high nutrient content (I imagine made even higher by fertilizer and cattle from the surrounding farmlands), which explains the rather unpleasant odor and also the opaque, green-paint look of the water. I would NOT want to swim here, or even boat for that matter, although it seems to be a big recreational draw and is popular with fishermen. (Don’t think I would eat the fish either, thank you.)
There have been problems with the lake flooding surrounding farmlands in recent years, and right now the lake seems only an inch or two below road level. This has lead to proposals to drain it into surrounding rivers, but many environmental questions remain about draining a salt lake into fresh rivers (and I have some trouble understanding this anyway, because don’t the rivers drain into the lake????), invasive species, etc. All in all it sounds like a very poor idea to me.
Along the lake there was an actual forest, the first we’ve seen since leaving Glacier. It was nice to see trees again, mostly oak.
Accommodations last night were at another Indian casino, this time the Sioux. No blackjack for me this time.
But today dawned bright and clear, a very pleasant and easy ride. At one point we passed a sign that read “Continental Divide: Elev. 1619”. Huh??? I thought we passed that way back in western Montana? Turns out this is the Laurentian divide, north-south instead of east-west. On the north side, water drains into the Red River and eventually into Hudson Bay. To the south, into the Missouri and on to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico.
Lynn waved me down at a little town along the way, saying “Have you ever had coffee at a taxidermy shop before?” Inside the Wild Things Taxidermy & Spicy Roadkill Café, sure enough there were many stuffed wild things (bear, cougar, deer, antelope, elk, lynx, otter, ducks, fish, all for sale) AND coffee and vittles. The café is a volunteer effort, open only 11am-1pm, to raise money to convert a local old schoolhouse into a hunters lodge, to bring more business to the town. 20 or so women contribute to this, calling themselves The Sisterhood of the Traveling Crockpot. They told us they cook with the finest wine, and sometimes they even add it to the food!
Day 32 - July 21st - Mayville, ND
0 miles, 0 ft cumulative elevation gain
75 and sunny - perfect biking weather!
This morning I did a “bump-up”, riding about 50 miles in the van, to our lunch stop, intending to ride after lunch. But during lunch my enthusiasm dwindled, and the women who were riding said it was long, and boring, so I just stayed in the van for the rest of the day.
Day 33 - July 22nd - Fargo, ND
59 miles, 242 ft cumulative elevation gain
75, cloudy and misty - perfect biking weather!
We rode out of Mayville through a still, misty morning on a flat, and quiet, silky-smooth road. Killdeer and red winged blackbirds, vast ripening fields of wheat and corn, groves of wind-break trees. A soft gray sky like a down comforter, a spritz of skin-softening mist. It was all just lovely.
A few miles into the ride I notice this impossibly tall, straight, skinny structure away off in the distance. What in the world it can it be?… It looks totally impossible to me, like it extends right up into the clouds. Is it some sort of mirage? It can’t be a radio tower, it can’t be a tower at all because I see no lights flashing on it. For awhile, since the morning is so still, I convince myself that it’s a column of smoke. I can hardly take my eyes off of it. Then I think, man, could it be a funnel cloud??? As it gets closer, though, it continues to be ramrod straight and 10 miles later I can see guy wires and it’s clear that it is, in fact, some sort of radio tower. I comment to one of the other riders “that thing’s gotta be a half mile tall!” and she pooh-poohs that. Googling later, I find that this is the KVLY-TV tower and is, in fact, the 2nd-tallest manmade structure in the WORLD! Topped only by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai! At 2063 feet, OK, it’s not a half mile tall, but it is nearly four-tenths of a mile. Wow. I am just delighted by this roadside discovery!
Unhappily, after that, the wind picked up, and soon we were heading straight into what must be a 20 mph headwind. The last 25 miles into Fargo were drudgery, but WE MADE IT!!!!!
I am now happily ensconced on the 8th floor of the Radisson. It’s wonderful to be in a city again! The whole population of North Dakota is around 600,000, and 1/6 of that is here. And there are trees here! Lot’s of ‘em, more than I’ve seen in one place since leaving the mountains. I’m sitting with my feet up, watching wind turbines in the distance, watching trains go by below. The room here is divine, downtown Fargo is delightful, and I will luxuriate here for 3 nights
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