EAT SOMETHING

July 19, 2016

Day Forty-Nine: Ellendale, North Dakota to Ten Miles Southeast of Milnor, North Dakota

It was going to be another hot day, so we left the humble Oxenrider Motel early, and didn’t take the time for breakfast in town. I did spend a few minutes downtown by myself, taking some photos, while Joy rode ahead. The only activity so early this morning in Ellendale was a guy cleaning up the site of a recently demolished old building, literally one brick at a time.

We were back on the same state highway, ND-11, that I’d found unpleasantly busy yesterday afternoon, and there continued to be no shoulder. Still, for the first part of the morning ride, most traffic seemed to be going in the other direction, so it wasn’t horrible.

Yesterday we’d started seeing the most water on our route since the Breckenridge, Colorado area, and today there were even more marshes and ponds and small lakes along the road, which was nice after so many weeks riding through dry parts of the country. I encountered some minor road construction after a few miles, and briefly spoke with some of the workers, who verified that my wife had passed by ten minutes earlier.

I caught up with Joy around the time that the traffic grew heavier. The driver of an SUV annoyed me, and that relatively minor incident, probably exacerbated by my not eating enough recently (a chronic problem for me on this tour — I just haven’t had much of an appetite) led to my embarrassing meltdown/tantrum, and the resulting decision to abandon the highway and follow gravel roads for the rest of the day.

I was tired and/or sulky for the next few hours, and was much slower than Joy, who rode ahead, consulting Google Maps on her phone to keep us on gravel roads. After several increasingly urgent reminders/orders from my wife to EAT SOMETHING, I finally stopped, opened up my snack bag, unwrapped the small pecan pie which was undoubtedly the most tasty food item I was carrying, and immediately dropped it on the dusty road. I didn’t feel like I was in “bike touring mode” today, so I didn’t try to salvage any of it, but instead left it on the road and left, without eating anything.

After more halfhearted riding on gravel, through scenery I barely noticed, we arrived in Rutland (population 163), which contained an enormous grain elevator, a few, mostly closed, businesses, and an impressively large bar that was actually open at 2:00. This was a dark, cool haven from the heat and sun that both of us, but especially me, needed today. There were only a few customers in the quiet place, and we spent an hour or more sitting at the bar, consuming cold soft drinks, snacks and ice cream while we talked to the 30-something guys who had recently bought the place.

We weren’t especially enthusiastic about getting back on the road, but it was several more miles, all on gravel, to reach our destination today, a bed and breakfast out in the country, so we emerged from the bar, squinting at the sun, and got on our bikes. I found that the time in the quiet, cool bar had cured my bad mood.

The B&B’s website only provided directions from the state highway north of the place, so since we were arriving on gravel roads from the south, we were forced to use the almost-never-reliable Google Maps to find the place. This resulted in us riding four extra miles when the road which appeared to be a direct route ended abruptly in a cornfield.

After those wasted miles, the heat began to bother Joy, so we stopped for a while under a shade tree before riding the last few miles, into a headwind, to the old, nicely restored farmhouse which housed the bed and breakfast. No one was there except a couple of dogs, who Joy immediately named “Waggy Butt” and “Fluffy Paw.” We sat on the front porch for ten or fifteen minutes until Judy, the friendly sister of the B&B’s owner, arrived to check us in.

We were several miles from the nearest town, Milnor (population 653), and when we asked if any place there would deliver food to the B&B, Judy told us no, but then she drove to her own nearby home and brought back a frozen pizza for us, which she wouldn’t allow us to pay for. That was nice.

Joy and I discussed the possibility of taking the day off at the bed and breakfast; it was an appealing, restful place, with comfortable furniture and a surprisingly interesting and eclectic collection of books. Ultimately, though, we decided that its distance from the nearest town was just too impractical.

We attempted (for the nth time) to plan the rest of the trip, and actually made reservations at a motel in Grand Marais, Minnesota, a day’s ride from the Canadian border for the 26th through the 28th. I was a little dubious about this, since it was committing us to a fairly aggressive riding schedule for the rest of the trip, but Joy was more confident than me, as she has been during this entire tour.

Today's ride: 69 miles (111 km)
Total: 2,120 miles (3,412 km)

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