75 miles.  One month on the road and Maja’s official retirement date!

There are a lot things to talk about on this momentous day! But first the day’s events.

We had breakfast with Ron and Joyce and took Ron’s advice about a better route out of town instead of following the ACA maps that are our guides.  He was right and it saved us some time and a bit of climbing. Unfortunately the wind was against us and the dark clouds were sweeping in so the first 25 miles or so were a hard slog, no rain but cycling against the wind is never a lot of fun. After these initial miles we turned right and, mirabile dictu, we had a fairly pleasant tail wind for 24 miles!

The overpass in Sterling where we turned to get the wind more or less at our backs

At the town of Hazelton we turned to the east once more and reacquainted ourselves with the head wind for the final 26 mile run! In addition, this road had a lot of truck traffic, no shoulders and very rough expansion joints. The trucks hauling gravel and sand screamed toward us at 65 mph and, apparently, trailer covers are not required here so as they passed, we were peppered with what amounted to a sandblaster spray! Ouch!

Rolling hills, no shoulder and expansion joints as far as the eye can see!

We rolled into Napoleon and stopped to talk to a guy who was fishing in one of the lakes. He described catching three northern pike that were at least 4 feet long! Good eating but a little bony – he soaks the fish in Sprite or 7 UP before cooking it just to soften the bones!

We’re staying in a tiny  but very neat little cabin and walked to the only restaurant in town, a diner, for burgers and malts and a local favorite, fleishkueckle – a German/Russian meat pie.

The American flags are up on Main Street here as we come up to July 4.

I’ll gather my thoughts over the next few days to condense a month’s worth of what we’ve learned so far. But the first observation is that most people are very kind and helpful and that is a good thing to know.

The lakes in Napoleon have risen so much that they have swallowed roads and some houses … But the Pike fishing is good!

This photo doesn’t do the field justice.  As we approached it, both of us thought it was a very full lake but once next to it saw it to be a blue flowered crop.