Where's Vickie 2010, Volume 8

HEre are several videos of the ferocious wind (tailwind and sometimes crosswind) that we rode in for several days. be sure and click the "expand to full screen" button for the full effect. And turn up the volume!

The center of North America

Dinner in a teepee, Minot ND

Dinner in a teepe, Minot ND

Me and the troll at the Scandinavian Heritage center, Minot

Beautiful replica of medieval Norwegian church, Minot

Typical North Dakota scene

Escape from Montana!e

Long road, North Dakota

Flax and Canola in bloom

Day 25 - July 15th - Williston, NORTH DAKOTA!
59 miles, 1800 ft cumulative elevation gain
75 and sunny with a tailwind- perfect biking weather!

And WHAT a tailwind, a howling 20-30 mph all day! A bout half of us actually did an optional extra 18 miles across the wind, to see the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers. The scenery made it well worth it - rocky hills, curvy back roads -- and I actually thought riding in the crosswind was fun. Kinda like playing in the surf, waiting to go up against the next “wind wave”.

We have now entered an area where there’s a big oil boom going on, and the truck traffic that goes with it. We are awaiting to hear how we’ll be re-routed tomorrow because of way too much traffic (the paper reports something like 6000 vehicles per day) on the scenic, narrow, no-shoulder road that we were supposed to be on. I suspect we’ll be back on good ol’ US 2 again.

We’ve finally made it out of Montana ! The state line margarita celebration is being postponed thought, due to it being so windy that our cook can’t keep the fire lit in the chuck wagon tonight, so we’re going to the local restaurant for dinner

I am not impressed with our digs tonight. Williston is the biggest town we’ve been in since I can’t remember when, so I was looking forward to the benefits of a city (at least an espresso), but we are on the outskirts where there’s nothing in sight but the hotel, a gas station, and “Gramma Sharon’s family restaurant”. And there are big trucks keeping their engines running, just outside my window. OH well, 2 more days to our rest day in the big metropolis of Minot.


Day 26 - July 156h - New Town, ND
69 miles, 1800 ft cumulative elevation gain
75 and sunny with a tailwind- perfect biking weather!

That tailwind had us flying again today … 70 miles in 4 hours! It was a blast! We rode the whole day on US 2, now a 4 lane highway, most of the way with a good 10 foot smooth shoulder. That got us to the town (which consisted of 2 bars, a café, and a tastee freeze) of Stanley, where the van shuttled us on another 35 miles to New Town, on the shoulderless road with all the oil-construction traffic.(the local paper says 6000+ vehicles per day!) It is truly amazing how many oil wells are being drilled here…hundreds either already pumping or just being drilled; We passed lots of temporary housing, and all the motels closer to our route are booked with oil workers.

So, tonight we are at the 4 Bears lodge and casino, run by the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara tribes. It’s luxurious digs compared to where we’ve been lately. Right on huge and, to my mind, not very scenic Lake Sakakawea. The view is clouded by the tragic story of how the flooding of the fertile valley here basically ended the way of life of the tribes. We have ridden through so many huge Indian reservations out here, the tragedy of the decimation of their culture, and loss of lives, has really struck me. I want to do a lot of reading on native American history when I get home.

Well, I assuaged my white person’s guilt a tiny bit by giving back $25 at the casino tonight. I learned how to play blackjack, which turns out to be a lot more fun than just feeding quarters into the slots. It took me more than an hour to lose $20 (I was actually ahead $20 at one point!), and then about 5 minutes to feed $5 to the slot machines without a single hit. Disappointing because the slots here still use actual coins, and the only reason I would ever play slots is for the love of that clink of coins into the tray when you cash out.

Tomorrow morning we will get shuttled back the 35 miles to Stanley to resume our ride into Minot.

Day 27 - July 166h - Minot, ND
52 miles, 820 ft cumulative elevation gain
90 and sunny - perfect biking weather!

I would swear that today was hillier than yesterday, but I guess it was just the lack of tailwind.

There can surely be no better way to comprehend the immensity, and the emptiness, of the great plains than by bicycle. Minot, with a population of about 36000, is the largest city we’ve been in since, well, it’s the largest city on the trip so far. (Holy cow, I see that Fargo is almost 100,000... I can hardly imagine….)

We passed many large fields of flax (blue) and canola (yellow) in full bloom. It was a beautiful ride.

Sadly, the horrific accident at the end of today overshadows everything else. One of our riders was hit by a truck and died at the scene. She was riding by herself at the time, so we will never know exactly what happened. Needless to say, we are all pretty shaken up.

Day 28 - July 176h - Minot, ND
rest day
80 and sunny - perfect biking weather!

We are all still shaken up from yesterday’s accident, and I imagine we will be for a long time. Four of our group have elected to end their ride here. The rest of us will ride on tomorrow, dedicating our last five days to our fallen friend. I can only think that she would have wanted us to go on enjoying our trip, so that’s what I aim to do.

Several of us took a taxi into downtown Minot today. There’s a very nice Scandinavian Heritage museum, but not much else to recommend the place. Although we did find an espresso place.

Day 29 - July 186h - Rugby, ND
71 miles, 770 ft cumulative elevation gain
75 and sunny - perfect biking weather!

An easy, flat ride with a tailwind. Once again I averaged 15 mph for the day, and even had energy left to ride an extra mile or two into downtown Rugby (where there was really nothing to see anyway) at the end of the day.

We are starting to get into cornfields now. And in between, acres an acres of wetlands. Here’s a piece of trivia for you: North Dakota has more surface water than any other state. Not hard to believe: as you ride through here, there’s nearly always a pond in sight. And it seems like there are more cattails than wheat.

We all wore our WomanTours jerseys and left Minot in one big group today (which is very unusual for us), and then rode mostly in sight of each other all day. We’re all still feeling a bit insecure about traffic, and glad that tomorrow we will leave US 2 behind and be on back roads most of the day.

Rugby bills itself as the “geographic center of North America”. So I guess as of tomorrow we will officially be in the east?