June 30, 2021
Day 30 Wolf Point to Culbertson
Wicked Wind and more Wind
“There’s a road BIA route 1 out of Brockton that avoids the hills,” the man said to Patrick from his truck window, “yes, it’s paved,” he adds. As we are riding out of Poplar, we see the truck pull into a Historic Point pull out, and the man waved us to stop. “Missing hills and paved road sounds good to me” Rachel says.
Today is one of those days that changes the routine and what has become normal. We are on the road by 6am and we ride out with Robert to past the golf course. Then we say goodbye, Robert is heading to Circle and we are heading back to Highway 2 to continue to Culbertson. We had a great time cycling together, seemed so easy and compatible, sharing food, cooking and costs of accommodations. Mostly though the expert way Robert uses a cell phone! We took a connecting gravel road to get back to the highway, this was not easy cycling for Rachel and Patrick reached the intersection first….the mosquitoes were back swarming him as he waited for Rachel to catch up.
A gentle headwind slows our progress to Poplar. We find a Quik Stop open and drink Chocolate Milk and a bakery bar Patrick bought in Wolf Point. Poplar looks about as rough as Wolf Point. The shoulder widens on the way to Brockton. Another struggle of 15miles, relatively flat, but oh, the wind is increasing. Rachel is thinking back to when she said she didn’t care which way the wind blows if it blew the mosquitoes away; words she now takes back, it does matter which way the wind blows. At Brockton we find a small gas station open, as we are eating ice cream and drinking lemonade, a man in a big white pickup stops and says as he gets out of the truck, “you folks taking the Fort Kipp road?” We answer yes, and he continues, “you’ll only have one hill instead of seven.”
Past the town of Brockton, we find the turn onto the BIA route 1 road. This road follows the railroad. The wind is picking up, yet when we stop it seems not so bad, but riding the wind resistance slows Rachel down. It’s a struggle and the road mostly flat, has a doozy of a short steep hill before Fort Kipp. We stop in the driveway of a fancy house at the only tree shade we’ve seen. There has been only a half dozen cars pass us, as we are eating a cliff bar, a red pickup truck stops and the driver says “Are you Rachel and Patrick, warmshowers?” He is the WS host in Sidney that we had contacted last week, but had not heard from him. We had considered taking a route to Sidney and then across to New Town avoiding Williston.
We get some respite from the wind when the road turns North to rejoin Highway 2 and the last hill. We are now 6 miles from Culbertson and the hill is 2 miles long, finally reaching Culbertson, Rachel checks the King Inn Motel and Patrick rides to the City Park. We meet up and Rachel rides to the park, there is a big shelter, water and toilets, and Patrick rides to the store for cold drinks.
The wind is whipping through the shelter, as we rest and drink pepsi and lemonade, we decide to go to the Motel to get out of the wind. The AC is nice too. Patrick watches some more Tour de France. At 4, we walk to the diner just down the street, only it’s only open for Breakfast and Lunch. We continue walking to the grocery store downtown and pick up frozen dinners of Pad Thai since our room has a microwave and refrigerator.
Patrick contacted the WS host in Stanley to confirm when we would arrive, and that we would like to not be on the road July 4th, taking a rest day instead. This is acceptable to the host. Our plan is to get on the road at first light, which is about 5am around here and try to avoid some of the increasing heat and headwinds and get to Williston early where we reserved a room at a very cheap motel.
We’ll see.
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Today's ride: 57 miles (92 km)
Total: 1,241 miles (1,997 km)
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