July 1, 2021
Day 31: Culbertson to Williston
One month on the road
“This might have been a mistake,” Patrick says as we wait for our second breakfast at the “Welcome Café” in Bainville. We’ve been waiting at least 30 minutes for a basic breakfast. We were on the road by 5am to try to stay ahead of the wind and heat, so the delay partly undoes what we’ve gained. This is the meeting place for locals, at the next table a group has met for coffee and stay much to their own conversation. They are concerned about the drought and the bad hay crops. One says: “it can be mowed and bagged with a lawn mower”.
Today marks a month back on the road. It’s an interesting process where the new reality becomes the road not being at home in Boise. A routine develops as the days break down to: packing up the same way, getting on the road early and to the destination hopefully early, planning the route about 3 days ahead in detail, when laundry needs to be done, and shopping for supplies.
The routine today consisted of climbing a long incline to a ridge, and seeing the next long climb to the next ridge and having to pedal to go downhill. We see the oil fields as we near Williston. Only about half of the oil derricks are operating and many of the maintenance yards are quiet and for sale. At one site a dozen oil drilling rigs are set-up, probably waiting for the next oil boom somewhere else.
It seems to take forever to ride through Williston to the Vegas motel…the cheapest room in town at $45, and it looks like it from the outside, but the room is decent. As we’ve stayed in some pretty dire accommodations, a room that is clean, and taking a shower without wearing flip flops and with AC and TV is worth being out of the wind and heat to recover for the next day. Our plan was to ride to Lund’s landing on the Missouri River tomorrow, but when Patrick calls them they say they are fully booked for the 4th of July weekend, plus they warn about some major road construction on the road to it. So we change our plans and plan to ride north instead to Tioga and into Stanley the next day.
We relax in our room, enjoy the AC and have a Big Mac for lunch. The McDonalds is next door. Afterwards Patrick walks to a nearby thrift store to pick-up two new paperback books and some snacks for the afternoon. Dinner will probably be a chicken dinner from the Albertsons behind the motel. 94 degrees today with a stiff Southeast wind.
| Heart | 2 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Today's ride: 43 miles (69 km)
Total: 1,284 miles (2,066 km)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 6 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 5 |
3 years ago
3 years ago
What will be your route from Jordan? We are doing basically the old NorthernTier route on highway 2. We are going to Grand Forks, then aim for the Paul Bunyan Trail....If you are doing the newer route, there are the O'Brien's (metal hip) the Smith's (two far) and one other cyclist we cycled with Robert ferrari (northern tier with a purpose, on crazyguyonabike) that you would probably cross paths.
Happy travels, let us know if there are questions we may answer on the route.
Racpat
3 years ago
3 years ago