Jackie’s avg speed: 6 mph
Scott’s avg speed: 7 mph
Weather: 39-43 degrees, northeast wind 20-25 mph

From the comfort of a cozy motel room, we watched the window turn various shades of red as the sun came up. That rosy glow heralded a day of ferocious wind that we had been tracking on the weather apps. We knew this would be a tough day, so we were on the road at 07:24. We made a pact to stop every hour to rest. After the first mile and a half, I thought about turning back to Rugby. But Scott was ahead of me and would not know for an hour if I had chickened out. He would wait for me and be worried. Obviously, turning back was not an option.

Mornings are usually the hardest part of touring days, while the mind and body figure out what the mind wants to do and the body thinks it can’t. After the first few minutes, your body says, “I can’t do this.” But fifteen minutes go by and a couple miles. Then you reach the half hour mark and think, “just one more half hour before the break.” At the break, you’ve covered six miles, only 20 more to go. And so pedal stroke after pedal stroke adds up to feet, distance, and miles.

To keep my head in the ride, I thought about a British guy who traveled around the world on a bike by himself from 2010 to 2018, with a few interruptions for life events. http://differentpartsofeverywhere.com/about/chris-and-dea/

He circumnavigated the world on his bike and a boat when necessary to cross bodies of water - no cars, no trains, no planes. While he was in Turkey, he was pedaling up a mountain pass in a snow storm. The Turkish police wanted to bring him safely over the pass to the other side, but he refused. He ate peanut butter out of a jar with his finger, because he had lost his utensils along the way. I was only pedaling in strong wind in North Dakota. No snow. No ice. No elevation. No police trying to get me off the road. Two big lanes of smooth asphalt in one direction, no chip seal, plenty of room for cars and cyclists. And with my best buddy to hang out with at end of each day’s ride. I could do this. 

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We stopped at a Cenex refueling station in York, six miles from our campground in Leeds, for a half hour break to warm up. Our hands and feet were numb from pedaling in 43 degree weather with a wind chill in the low 30s. I say “refueling” intentionally, because this was a place for local farmers, stocked like a hardware store with spare parts for machinery. It was not a highway oasis for tourists. We burst in the door, probably looking a little wild and desperate. The owner and his wife gave us free coffee and cocoa which we enjoyed at a work table set up in the back, along with peanut butter and Kaiser rolls Scott bought the day before. The owners were sympathetic if a little dumbfounded by our quest. The woman said kindly, “Monday the weather will be a lot nicer.”

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We got to Jan’s Lodge and RV Park at 13:00, which is what we had planned. We pitched the tent and unrolled our sleeping bags. I put in the silk liner and climbed inside, bike tights and all. I slept and Scott rested for a couple hours. Then we washed up and went to Earl’s Bar for dinner. Leeds has two bar-cafes. A farmer who had been at the Cenex told us both had the same type of pub grub, but he recommended Earl’s because it wasn’t as pricey.

I typed up two blogs while eating my fish sandwich and Scott had his burger and beer. One skinny old farmer came in while the bartender was cooking our dinner. He walked behind the bar and grabbed a beer. “Sometimes you have to help yourself,” he said to a guy at the bar.

Our fellow patrons tried offering us some alternatives to the hard row we had chosen to hoe. They said the wind was unusually wicked cold this year, even for North Dakota. The bartender suggested maybe the Lutheran Church could offer us shelter. We said Jan’s suited us just fine, we had a good tent and warm sleeping bags. 

We checked out the Leeds Cenex on the way back and sat at a table reading news and fretting over the little arrows on windy.com. It appeared that Sunday would be windy and cold, but not as bad as Saturday. We spied a freezer with five-gallon tubs of hand-dip ice cream. We asked the clerk if she could serve us, and she said was not allowed because she had not taken some briefing about hygiene and dipping ice cream. We had a good laugh about silly bureaucracies and thanked her for letting us hang out there. She was surprised we would even mention it, but we felt a little abashed about staying there and not buying anything. So we resolved to come back for breakfast.