July 7, 2021
Together alone
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Our friend Rachel, of the famed couple Rachel and Patrick, when asked how do they ride, said “we ride together alone. “. This is so true for how groups ride. Most time we are less than 6 feet apart and yet 99% of the time we don’t talk to each other. We talk more to the cows and horses, in both their language and English, than we talk to each other. There are several reasons we don’t talk. The main one is that it is noisy. We have noise from passing cars and trucks and wind noise. Sometimes we are just very focused on keeping up with each other. Lots of time we are just lost in our own thoughts. Once in a while we get a large shoulder so we can ride side by side and then we will talk a little more, but, most time we just quietly pedal along.
The rest day yesterday was very beneficial. We did not ride the bike at all. We walked to Walmart and bought some needed supplies. We watched some movies, ate, and watched some golf. The weather has changed. It is much cooler and cloudy. We decide to get a slightly later start today, getting on the road at 6:30. The day starts cool, cloudy and drizzling. The route today takes us to the town of Glen Ullin. We have one town with services on the route, the town of Richardton, which is about halfway to Glen Ullin. We start by getting on the interstate for about 2 miles. Then we get on hwy 10 which is a scenic byway. The traffic is fairly low and we make good progress. After 20 miles we really needed a bathroom break. We came upon the town of Taylor. Taylor has a population of 148 with a church, post office, bank and a bar, none of them open. Fortunately for us, the community of Taylor has a very nice picnic pavilion with public restrooms. We really appreciate the generosity of the Taylor community to provide a public bathroom. Finding a bathroom has been a major challenge so public bathrooms in a picnic area is really nice.
After the bathroom break we made it to Richardton which has a convenience store. After some chocolate milk we hopped onto the interstate for an 18 mile stretch. We were really cooking on this stretch of the route. We rode in a pace line with Ross in the lead, then Janet and with me sucking up the back. Ross really pushed the pace, hitting 18 mph for a long segment. We covered 10 miles in 45 minutes. It was fun to push it a bit on the interstate. While on the interstate we left the mountain time zone and entered central time zone. We lost an hour. We left the interstate and had another 6 miles to get into town. We pedaled easy into town and found our campground. We setup camp and went to the grocery store to get dinner.
Tomorrow the target is Bismarck. It is supposed to rain tonight so we are a bit undecided how early of a start we will get.
Today's ride: 50 miles (80 km)
Total: 1,577 miles (2,538 km)
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Are you guys following the Smith's, Two Far journal? You are a day behind them I think. They are in Bismark.
We are to Devils Lake tomorrow and then only a couple more days in ND.
Thanks for the mention
Racpat
3 years ago
We were talking to the Smith’s about a week ago and figured out we were going to be behind them. Now it looks like we may catch them. I sent them a note to see if we can meet up.
We have been following your blog and it looks like you been making good progress. We are making good progress also and are happy with how the tour is going. We have been in hotels more than we thought and we are going to stay close to I-94 until Fargo. We are trying to determine our route across Minnesota and Wisconsin
Take care and stay safe!
Maybe we will meet up again down the road.
Metal Hip Club
3 years ago