July 13, 2010: Culbertson, MT to Williston, ND. 42 miles

What a great day! We started out with a tail wind and bright sunshine and it stayed with us throughout the ride! Cycling just does not get any better than this... Dianne took off early; in fact almost everyone left before CJ and me. But it just did not matter... we flew down the hills and the tailwind was like an invisible hand pushing us up the inclines. We passed a few oil wells along the way, the first we've seen on this trip.

We started out on US 2 and stayed on that road for 33 miles. There were 2 serious sections of road construction, one in MT and one in ND, but the flag persons were considerate of us and gave us space to ride before allowing vehicular traffic back into the one-lane sections.

It's a bit of a culture shock being in such a large town! There were commercial buildings for miles before we reached the city limits of Williston. Very unlike the small towns we stayed in throughout Montana.

We are in North Dakota now, the last state on this odyssey. We crossed the state line this morning, leaving the white crosses and casinos of Montana behind us. It seemed like there were casinos at every gas station, convenience store and restaurant we passed. As I was leaving Montana I realized I had not taken photographs of them, so I took one parting shot.

We arrived at our motel before lunch so we walked across the parking lot to Gramma Sharon's restaurant where we had lunch. Here we are: Mary, JoAnn, Judie, CJ, Sherrie, me, Dianne, and Laura. We had a great lunch in this busy place. Now Dianne and I are going to play Scrabble until our rooms are ready at 4 PM.