Month: July 2011

Pierre SD to Fort Thompson SD I awoke early and went down to the continental breakfast.  As I ate, a lady motel clerk walked to me with this morning’s Pierre newspaper and asked if I’d seen it.  On the front page was a full color picture of Scot King, a bicyclist headed around the country on a two year mission to reach every state capitol, honoring military vets.  The clerk had seen a bicycle out front with the same kind of yellow panniers (Bill’s) and thought he might be staying here, but looked in the computer registry and couldn’t find

Pierre SD This should be the shortest post yet, because Jack and I did almost nothing today.  Did we see the state capitol or roam around Pierre?  Nope.  Did we check out a decent restaurant or two?  Nope.  Did we do any shopping?  Nope. In fact, the two of us never even left the King’s Inn motel.  Continental breakfast, serious wi-fi/blog catchup, watch golf on TV, work on route options, use in-house laundry machines.   Bill and Roger came over to visit.  We discussed route options and decided it’d be a lot smarter for them to stay in our room tonight,

West Whitlock Rec Area SD to Pierre SD Up this morning with a mind that, if winds were the same, we’d stay here for another day to recuperate and wait it out.  The rangers told us that we might not be able to stay since there was a fishing tournament going on, but I’m not sure what they are smoking, really.  The park has acres and acres of open grounds, and yet they tell us they are full and can’t allow our tiny one-person tents.  Government workers…. We hit the bait shop for breakfast.  Our pancakes were given a second

Indian Creek Rec Area (Mobridge) SD to West Whitlock Rec Area SD A long climb up a hill out of Indian Creek Rec Area started out our day.  And I might add this was all without pancakes.  Little did we know… We parted ways with Roger at the junction of SD1804 (the Lewis and Clark Route we’re following) and US83.   Roger decided to take a straighter, possibly less hilly, and possibly better paved road today, meeting up with us about midway through. This idea immediately proved out correct, because we were presented with a series of steep hills in the

Beaver Creek Rec Area ND to Indian Creek Rec Area (Mobridge) SD This morning, around 3AM, I awoke and gazed up at the best stars yet of the trip.  I grabbed my camera and started playing around with long exposure times, hanging out of the tent, and even got one to sort-of turn out, despite a jostle of the camera at the beginning of the exposure.  Just fantastic in person. Jack and I breakfasted in camp and hit the road – another long ride planned today.  The route included plenty of hills and stunning country, and the terrain turned into

Bismarck ND to Beaver Creek Rec Area ND A trek to the grocery store first thing this morning was needed since we’re headed into to primitive camping tonight.  We then hit Perkins for omelettes and pancakes – what else.  Mr. Pancake. South out of Bismarck, we passed by a neighborhood that was readying for flooding.  I couldn’t believe the preparations.  Sandbags not only barricading each house, but team efforts that barricaded whole blocks of houses.  Well-designed steps leading up and over the sandbag walls.  And elaborate plumbing of the houses rain gutters so that the runoff would drain into on

Bismarck ND Super chill rest day in Bismarck ND.  Late rise, then breakfast at the Super 8 feed trough.  Back to the room for more rest, wi-fi, TV.  Basically some serious chilling. Among the few items we did accomplish today was a trip to the bike shop for spare tubes and also a spare chain for Jack.  Lunch at Applebee’s (I had a sirloin dinner), then I went shopping for  a Sham-wow since I left mine hanging on a tree at Totten Trail Resort.   Finally found a box of them at a CVS, took two out and gave all the

Don Steckel Boat Landing ND to Bismarck ND Fantastic stars last night – the best of the tour so far.   By sliding my sleeping bag up and opening the tent fly, I had a perfect view of half the sky for the entire night, well, when it wasn’t blocked by eyelids. Ran into another bull snake down ND1804 – there seem to be plenty of them around.  This one blocked the bike lane but just snaked off at the unwanted attention.  I read that these guys intentionally mimic rattlesnakes, and occasionally eat them too. ND1804 took us along the Missouri

Stanton ND to Don Steckel Boat Landing ND I am truly finding every day on tour great in its own way.  But some days just stand out. Breakfast at Café Du Mond in Stanton ND, pancakes (Kimmie scale = 5.5) and eggs as usual.  Then south on SD31 into a headwind.  For the first time Bill rode with us, taking his usual pace WAY down.  He said it was actually a difficult thing for him to do, and he really had to work at it. Gary spied two snakes, one of them a rather big bull snake, by the roadside. 

Totten Trail Resort ND to Stanton ND Relaxed departure from our camp at Totten Trail Resort ND this morning for a short riding day.  We rolled across a 2 mile land bridge that separated Lake Audubon from Lake Sakakawea. Our route called for a turn onto ND48, but when we reached it there were ROAD CLOSED barricades.   Gary, Jack and I asked ourselves if we felt lucky, and the answer was yes, so we turned onto it and started down.  Roger, about 150 yards back, stopped at the signs, saw us rolling along, and started crowing, “What is going on!?”