52 miles. No flat tires!!

We stayed with a Warm Showers host, Joel, who provided shower, bed and a good meal plus he’s an avid baseball fan. I even forgave him his allegiance to the Cubs!

We got on the road early and purchased breakfast at a grocery store as well as a sandwich for lunch later.  The first part of the ride was on a county road, newly paved with almost no traffic… Very nice riding. We rolled through Hebron, a.k.a. “Brick City,” and had a nice long break in the city park of Glen Ullin but shortly after that were forced back on to I-94.

Break time and email check. (Also the latest Trump and Brexit stories)

Today’s experience was very much more stressful than our other rides on the interstate. Part of if was the road surface, concrete roadway vs. new asphalt, so the tire noise from cars and trucks was much louder and more sibilant. Another part was that the shoulder had almost full width rumble strips so every 20 feet or so we had a 12-18″ strip we had to navigate. But the biggest difference was the huge volume of truck traffic all whizzing by at 75 mph! So we had a not very relaxing 11 mile stretch on the highway before we exited back onto another small two lane road. Whew!

This corn definitely qualifies as “knee high by the Fourth of July.”

We biked to New Salem to stay for the night. New Salem is Home to Salem Sue, the world’s largest Holstein cow sculpture – 38 feet high and 50 feet long. It rivals the world’s largest Bison and the world’s largest catfish sculptures in nearby North Dakota towns.

Tomorrow we are on to Bismarck.

The German Evangelical Lutheran church in historic Old Salem.

29 miles.  Maja’s Birthday!!!!

We had planned on a short day today since we had a package to pick up from REI, stuff to mail back and a quick visit to the local bike shop to see if the mechanic could fix a problem Maja is having with her rear shifter. Well … the REI package arrived a week ago or so and the post office has a 4 day hold policy so it was sent back!! We did manage to get the tent etc. sent back to PHX via UPS so cross that off the list. We got to the bike shop early hoping that someone could look at the shifting and Jason, the mechanic, spent 45 minutes or so straightening a problem with the cable and shifter then noticed that Maja’s chain had an issue so did some repairs to that, too. She took the bike out for a test drive and Jason tweaked things then announced that he wasn’t going to charge us anything! “It’s how we treat travelers,” he said!  Kindness of strangers department yet again.

Returning to our hotel to pack up, I found that my brand new rear tire was flat!  Over 3 weeks on the road without any tire problems and now 4 flats or so in the last 3 days. I pumped the tire up enough to limp back to Jason and he installed a new one that we paid for this time!

Our ride was uneventful and very short. We have been sitting in the local grocery store for an hour (they have wi fi) waiting for our Warm Showers host to get home.  We are bringing some food and a birthday dessert tonight to the raucous celebration!

Tomorrow we’re back on the road for real and hope to be in Fargo (oh jeez!) for the 4th.

40 miles.  Not bad for a rest day!

First, I’ll remind you to take another look at yesterday’s revised posting. Now that we’re in the sphere of reasonably good wi fi I have updated that day with photos etc.

Now to today. Late yesterday, after looking at the predicted winds, we decided to forego our rest day and take advantage of the westerly breezes to help us at least part way on our trek.  We have some things being shipped to us in Dickinson at the PO so we went ahead and packed up to ride. The first rude awakening was that we had two flat tires … one each.  I replaced Maja’s then started on mine. In the process of searching for the offending needle like piece of metal in my tire, I was shocked to find that the tread on my rear tire was worn almost all the way through revealing the bias ply just covering the tube!

Early morning bike repair

Very fortunately, Medora has an “awesome” bike shop and, hallelujah, they were open on Sunday morning! Just over 100$ later I had two new tires and two new tubes.  The woman at the shop, Jennifer – who, it turns out, spends winters in the Phoenix area – said that the Continental tires that came with our bikes are not long lasting, something about the rubber compound being soft.

Needless to say, I would have been very nervous about riding on the nearly worn through tire so it was a huge relief to have found a solution before we even got on the road!

Jennifer also recommended a less traveled route that allowed us to get off of I-94 and enjoy a relatively quiet, wind aided ride into Dickinson.  Tomorrow we will pick up the items mailed to us and – big decision – ship back to Phoenix our camping gear. We have found the night’s sleep we get camping not as restorative as staying in motels or with our Warm Showers hosts so we are unburdening our load a little. Another thought is that as we proceed eastward and deeper into the summer, the days and nights will be increasingly hot making air conditioned motels all the more attractive.

Our last tenting site

We pulled off the road to an overlook featuring a scenic vista of The Painted Canyon.

The Painted Canyon in The Badlands. I learned that the term refers to a geological formation and not just to this area of North Dakota. The word is a translation of Mauvaises Terres so named because the soil is dry, crumbly and doesn’t hold together.

Our bikes at the overlook. While at the bike shop, a passerby noticed the Wright Foundation logo and said to the owner of the bike shop, “Ask that guy if the inventor of Lincoln Logs wasn’t Frank Lloyd Wright’s son.” A cigar to that gentleman!

61 miles. Finally out of Montana.

We expected wind today in our favor so timed our departure to take advantage of it. Today our route had us riding on Interstate 94 and with the wind advantage we expected to make great time. At first the boost from the breeze was a little disappointing given that the forecast was for stronger wind but we still appreciated the all day help.

At first blush cycling on the Interstate sounds terrifying but the reality is that the shoulder is very wide and the road surface fairly smooth. It was a lot less scary than some of the seller roads we have been on over the past three weeks if only because the cars and trucks weren’t so close.

Finally out of Montana

not good wi fi coverage so I’ll add photos tomorrow

one last thing. we’ll give details tomorrow, we want to the Medora Musical. Great experience and thanks to Jay and Carrie for the ride and conversation.

OK. I’m back with the promised details and photos. We are in Dickinson on day 26 and have fairly good broadband so I’ll update.

Medora is home to the Medora Musical, a 90 minute stage show put on every night of the summer in a beautiful amphitheater with the backdrop being the Badlands. The show has been described as “A high school musical for adults” and is a sometimes corny but still professional evening of song, dance, country music, patriotism and a little bit of history – namely the influence that this area of the Badlands had on Teddy Roosevelt.

Before the show, the tradition is a Steak Fondue Dinner and on this evening they served 1000 people! The steaks are put on the tines of pitchforks and dunked into boiling soy oil for a short time then allowed to rest then served.

Some of the 1000 12 oz steaks ready for the fondue

The strong wind that helped us get to Medora so fast this morning continued right up to showtime but the amphitheater shields the stage so on with the show! The opening featured horses and riders and the singing of the national anthem.  The MC had been a  child actor in the Musical years ago and now was in the spotlight.

Medora Musical on stage

Among the acts such as a tribute to our National Parks, a country gospel segment, and a rodeo tribute was the featured performer, Todd Oliver and his dog Irving, a ventriloquist with an amazing way of making the dog open his mouth as though he were talking! This guy had been on America’s Got Talent and the Tonight Show and was really exceptionally good. The funniest bit was two volunteers from the audience on stage with Todd. It’s difficult to describe the schtick but he asked the volunteers to open their mouths whenever he squeezed the back of their necks. With their mouths open, he put sounds  and words in their mouths with his ventriloquist’s skill. As I said, it is difficult to accurately describe the routine. You can search Todd Oliver on YouTube and get a flavor of his bit.

The end of the show was a reenactment of The Rough Riders charge up San Juan Hill and after that a rousing rendition of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA”and the evening was truly over.