July 13, 2008
Day 62: Battle Lake, MN to Fargo, ND
112.48 Miles, 10:0:0 Ride Time, 11.22 Average Speed, 26.40 Maximum Speed
Note: The above mileage includes about eight miles of riding around Fargo, in an ultimately successful attempt at finding a reasonably-priced motel with working wireless internet.
I slept soundly in the fish-cleaning shed - I suppose I really was tired from riding into the wind all day yesterday - but didn't want to linger there, and was up at 5:00. My departure was delayed when I dropped a contact lens on the floor of the shed - Ugh - but I finally found it, rinsed it off, and put it in. How my standards have fallen the last few months. Hopefully I won't develop a deadly eye infection.
It was sunny but a little chilly this morning, and I wore my wind jacket as I rode away at 6:00. I backtracked a half mile to downtown Battle Lake, and was relieved to find a gas station (and its restroom) open so early.
It was nice riding so early on a clear, sunny Sunday morning - there was almost no traffic, and the wind, although still out of the West, was tolerable. After about twelve miles I passed a campground and, seeing several loaded touring bikes, rode down to find a group of older Eastbounders, just getting started this morning. While I was talking to them, the campground owner pulled up on a golf cart and handed them a wad of cash - "The guy here last night didn't know that I don't charge cyclist to camp here - here's your money back." Well. Perhaps I should have tried to make it here last night after all.
It continued to be a nice ride all the way to Pelican Rapids (pop. 2,374), where I arrived at 10:30, after about forty miles for the day. I waited around for a while at a Dairy Queen, whose sign informed me would open at 10:30, but finally gave up and went to my distant second choice, McDonald's. It was one of the new, "upscale" McDonald's I've seen a few times the last two months. Fancier tables and decor, same old crappy food.
By now it was hillier, and it was while riding up one of these minor hills, just outside of Pelican Rapids, that the only unpleasant incident in Minnesota occurred.
As I slowly passed one of the relatively rare (for this area) junky places (weedy yard, faded, several-year-old Tyvek wrap still covering the house from an unfished re-siding project, etc.), a black dog came out to the edge of the road, barking. As I called out a slightly more profane version of "Shut up!", and continued on, a guy came into the yard, and said "Sic him boy! Git Him!"
You've got to be kidding me.
Look, buddy, I'm from Kentucky, where the rednecks and dogs are much, much scarier than you or your (frankly, kind of effeminate-looking) dog could ever hope to be. I might be riding a shiny red bicycle, but with my cultural background, even I am probably more of a shitkicking redneck then you are.
I stopped in the road, and after a 20 second staring contest, Cletus slunk back into his hovel, and I rode off, satisfied with the outcome of the laughable "confrontation."
Later, after I stopped in Cormorant for my usual chocolate milk, I met three friendly young Eastbounders: Matt and Laureen Sparacio, and Matt's brother Jonathan. We had a brief but enjoyable conversation. (Jonathan was the first shirtless rider I've seen on this trip; no tan line, but isn't he providing a much larger target for the mosquitoes? I should have asked him what kind of insect repellant he was using.)
It was 3:30 when the county road on which I was riding suddenly ended in Hawley (pop. 1,882), on US 10, a busy, divided four-lane highway. I didn't like the looks of Hawley; it just seemed too hot, dry and shadeless to consider camping there, and the one motel (only open in the summer, according to the sign), looked too dreadful to meet even my low standards - The doors of some of the rooms were hanging off the hinges.
I decided to ride on to Fargo. Energized by the idea of getting to a new state, after what seemed like weeks in Minnesota, I quickly rode the ten or twelve miles on the shoulder of super-busy US 10, until I got back on a quieter county road for the last twenty flat-as-pancake miles to Moorhead, MN.
I rode through some quiet neighborhoods, unsure if I had already entered Fargo, when I came to a toll bridge, and then arrived in North Dakota, without paying the $.75 - the bored, yawning girl in the tollbooth just waved me through.
It had taken me more than 100 miles to get to North Dakota today, and I rode another several miles in Fargo looking for a place to stay. I almost settled on a Day's Inn near the airport, but left when I couldn't come to terms with the kid at the front desk. Several miles South, I found a much better deal at the Best Western, where they apparently understood the economics of selling a room on a non-holiday Sunday evening.
After a much-needed shower, I walked to a nearby Wendy's, then to a supermarket, then, at dusk, back to the hotel, satisfied with my 100+ mile day, and my arrival in North Dakota.
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Today's ride: 112 miles (180 km)
Total: 4,514 miles (7,265 km)
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