July 20, 2010: Carrington to Mayville, ND. 92 miles.

This was the perfect day for a bike ride--even a 92 mile bike ride! We started out at 7 AM, noticing on the way out that Carrington Inn welcomed us on their sign. We turned on to ND Hwy. 200 East and stayed on it for almost 92 miles. Winds were from the WSW, which suited us fine--a quartering tail wind... perfect!

We stopped at the sags every 20 miles, and Suzanne even found a cornfield to stop at! Much better than bean, flax, or canola fields! Below you can see me and CJ after checking out our own personal rows, and Pat after she tangled it up with her bike. (the bike won).

We did not see any more flax and canola fields today, just soybeans, wheat, barley and corn. ND is, after all, the largest wheat producer in the US. We saw some large equipment, some on the roads and some in the fields. I took photos of some "prairie pothole" lakes. (Thank you Mike for telling us what they were). They are low spots gouged out of the earth by the glaciers thousands of years ago. They fill with water during wet seasons, and I had been considering them "inadvertent lakes" because they looked like they did not belong in the middle of the farm fields.

Traffic was light and most drivers were considerate of us. The one exception to this perfect cycling day happened at mile 61. Hwy 200 East turned north for 4.5 miles running concurrent with ND 32 North. It was newly paved, with rumble strips right on the edge of the pavement, and it was the heaviest travelled road we were on all day. One of the times that I pulled off the pavement because 2 vehicles were meeting I took a photo. Unfortunately I did not get the camera out quickly enough to catch the trucks in the photo--this one shows a car going way around us on the other side of the road, which most drivers did when there was no opposing traffic. It was at this point that a lot of riders got in the van. Dianne, CJ and I, along with about 10 others cycled through it.

Once we were back on 200 East, there was even less traffic than before and we fairly sailed into Mayville, a lovely little town with good ice cream. I saw this tin sided barn along the route between Finley and Mayville, as well as the sign for Bang Church (below). OK I give--what is a Bang Church?

Tomorrow is our last riding day as we head into Fargo. Hard to believe that this tour is nearly at an end.