Home at Last

We had a lovely farewell dinner at the Radisson, our ending hotel. We all cleaned up pretty well.... CJ and I sang our song, which the audience appreciated. Here it is, sung to the tune of "The Old Gray Mare".

25 cyclists left Anacortes, climbed mountain passes, got sore a$$es.

25 cyclists left Anacortes on a Woman Tour.

25 cyclists rode across Washington, faces to the morning sun, resting when the day is done.

25 cyclists rode across Washington on a Woman Tour.

25 cyclists crossed into Idaho, stayed a day then had to go, headed out for Fargo.

25 cyclists crossed into Idaho on a Woman Tour.

25 cyclists rode to Montana, drank margaritas, ate some bananas.

25 cyclists rode to Montana on a Woman Tour.

25 cyclists toured North Dakota; we drank our quota, of beer wine and soda.

25 cyclists toured North Dakota on a Woman Tour.

25 cyclists ain't what we used to be, we're stronger than we'll ever be, from mountains and prairie.

25 cyclists ain't what we used to be on a Woman Tour.

I guess you had to be there....

The flight from Fargo to Chicago was pretty painless. Dianne and I got in a few last games of Scrabble on the plane, and all the tiles were there when we counted them at the end. Grand total for the trip: 170 games. We played for a penny a point and Dianne owes me $33.71. She was supposed to buy me a dinner, but we could not find a restaurant that expensive in Fargo...

The plane was diverted due to thunderstorms, so I missed my flight to Detroit. They had already booked me on a flight at 7:40, which meant almost 7 hours in the airport. I asked to be put on standby on the 4:17 flight which was fully booked. Fortunately for me I was the first passenger on the standby list (and standing at the podium) and I got on the plane when someone who had checked in was not at the gate on time.

We sat on the runway for about an hour due to weather delays in Detroit, but finally took off. I heard later that O'Hare airport stopped all flights after we left, also due to weather. I am glad to be home!

July 21, 2010: Mayville to Fargo, ND. 60 miles.

This was another perfect cycling day! How is it that we can ride almost 2,000 miles, through snow, rain, mud, high winds, and terrible traffic and then forget it all when we get to the end!? The last 2 days have been wonderful.

I woke up this morning at 4:30 with a headache. The toilet overflowed around 6 AM and I woke up the on site manager when I called to report it. Breakfast was oatmeal (I didn't eat it). And then we got out on the road in bright sunshine and didn't look back.

I finally got the photo of the Lindas--that is, me (Detroit), Lin, Lynda Lou and little Linda after talking about it for a month.

And we got a photo of CJ and me before we left at 7 AM. Below is Dianne and little Linda, the tallest and the shortest, with each other's bikes, the smallest and largest.

CJ and I started together, caught up to Dianne, Laura, and Marti. We all rode together for a while and then I sort of pulled away from the group.

I stopped for a few photos along the way, rode with Lynda Lou for a while, and then pulled away from her. I was first to arrive at Fargo--and that's a first! I walked in the bike shop with my bike and asked if they could get my bike out today. They said it would go out Friday, since they had a 2-day turnaround on disassembling and shipping bikes. So I got my bike box and went out on the patio to box it up. Then I wheeled the box back in and after a few false starts a nice young man named Jeremy got the shipping plans all in order.

Dianne boxed her own bike too, we had lunch while waiting for the shipping thing to be resolved, and then took a short walk around Fargo. We had not yet been to the hotel so we were wearing our Woman Tour Northern Tier jerseys, and a couple stopped us on the street--they are riding the northern tier and going by train to avoid a few key spots (like the great plains) since they are in the US for only three months. They plan to ride from here to the east coast. Of course I invited them to call me and stay in our guest room if they pass near home.... her name was Linda (I should have taken their photo too!) and his was Hari (not sure of the spelling). It was neat to run into them.

Now we are in our room on the 10th floor of the Radisson. This is a much different view than the ones we've been looking at the past 5 weeks, and a much nicer room too. The farewell dinner is tonight. And I am looking forward to going home tomorrow.

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.

July 19, 2010: Spirit Lake to Carrington, ND. 50 miles

We knew this was going to be a relatively short day, only 50 miles, so we planned on leaving late: breakfast at 7:30 and 8:00 departure. But it started raining around 4 AM. (I know this because that's when I woke up with a headache). It rained through breakfast, and we started taking our stuff out to the van and bringing our bikes down, but no one really wanted to leave in the rain....

By 9 AM it had almost stopped, so we put on our rain gear and started our riding day. We left the way we came in, west on highway 57, which had much less traffic than yesterday afternoon--apparently Monday morning is not a peak casino time... By 8 miles into the ride we were peeling off our rain gear. CJ thought I looked "hot" with my rain pants pulled up around my chest (both to keep my front and back pockets dry and to keep them from falling down. I really need to buy some raingear that fits).

After 12 miles on hwy 57 we turned south on US 281, but the section we were on was not quite as nice as yesterday's section. There was less shoulder and much more traffic. Especially TRUCKS, and we are quite nervous around trucks now. At the 20 mile sag, Dianne and several other riders decided to ride in the van to the end. They were that unnerved by the trucks.

SAG means support and gear, and above you can see Carol, our sag driver for today, party hat and all. The car decal says Little Bo Peep, and Carol (and the other drivers who take turns by the day) always makes sure she knows where her sheep (we riders) are.

Shortly after the 20 mile sag the traffic abated. There was a gravel quarry about a mile from the sag and a town with a grain elevator (Sheyenne) a couple of miles from that. So the ride improved immensely. I told CJ that I wished the shoulder on the road would improve, and it did! We were quite surprised by this. It was not perfect, but there were sections of 4 foot shoulder, much better than the 18" shoulder we had been on before. So we decided I should wish for a bakery. I wished for a bakery in New Rockford (the next town). When we pulled into town I asked the first person I saw if there was a bakery in town. She said Yes! But it's closed on Sunday and Monday. I guess I need to make my wishes more specific.

After New Rockford the shoulder widened out to about 6' and we were able to ride side by side and talk that last 17 miles of the ride to Carrington.

At Carrington we all cleaned our bikes up and then ourselves, and I called Mike. Mike is a friend of my cousin Kat and she absolutely insisted I call him when I was here. So Mike picked me and Dianne up at the hotel and took us on a tour of the area.

First we went to the Foster County Courthouse, still very much like it was when built in 1908. We walked around inside and looked at the murals of life in Foster County throughout the years and the courtroom, unchanged in many decades but still in use. Then we went past the large pasta factory (big employer in the area) and distinctive water tower and headed out to the farm.

Mike's mom (Bert) made lemonade and we sat around drinking lemonade and talking for a while. Mike's dad (John) gave us a mini history lesson about Foster County and Carrington. Mike and his brother and their dad (sort of semi retired now) farm the same land that Mike's great grandfather homesteaded in 1887, before North Dakota was a state. It has been larger and smaller through the years (especially smaller during the Great Depression), and is now about 8,000 acres, 2,500 acres of it cultivated and the rest pastureland.

After the lemonade we went for a ride up to Hawk's Nest Ridge and looked down on the town and all the surrounding area. It's beautiful country.... there are trees now, but at the time it was settled there were none. There are still "teepee rings" up on the ridge, from the 1800s when the Sioux Indians from Devil's Lake used to pass through here on their annual migration to South Dakota to escape the bitter ND winters.

We had to cut our tour short because we had to be back at the hotel for map meeting at 5:30. It's a big day tomorrow (over 90 miles) and we did not want to miss the briefing. Jackie (owner of Woman Tours) and her sister Jennifer were our guests and they gave us the update on the investigation into the accident that killed one of our riders.

July 18, 2010: Rugby to Spirit Lake, ND. 82 miles.

Almost all of the hotels we have stayed at have featured small signs in the bathroom and on the beds stating that they are "green". They ask us to leave the card a certain place if we don't need clean sheets every day. And to hang our towels if we plan to reuse them.... but last night's hotel is the greenest hotel ever! Just look at the bathroom!

This was certainly the most enjoyable 82 mile ride I can imagine. We left Rugby around 7:30 AM, also leaving US 2 behind us. Yay! We went south on highway 3, a 2 lane nicely surfaced blacktop road with NO traffic on Sunday morning. After 25 miles of highway 3 with a quartering cross wind of 5 to 10 MPH (very comfortable) we turned east on highway 19. Now it was a gentle quartering tail wind. What could be better?

While on highway 19 we rode through 11 miles of road construction. Of course they were not working this Sunday, so we had smooth sailing all the way. I am concerned about the other group riding through it tomorrow when all those idle machines will not be idle any more. Above you can see Dianne and Laura riding away from me on the newly paved section of road at the end of the construction.

I stopped along the way to take photos of horses and hay bales. These were the first spherical hay bales we saw. We have seen large and small rectangular bales, and many round bales with flat ends, but these were different.... we saw fields of canola, flax, wheat, and soybeans all along the route. There even was a cornfield (first on this trip) as we neared the end of our day. But thankfully there were no more oil fields!

At 58 miles into the ride we turned east on highway 281, which was another low traffic paved 2 lane road. Then at 70 miles we turned on route 57 which took us through the Spirit Lake Sioux Reservation and along the lake to the Spirit Lake Casino where we are staying tonight. It's a pretty impressive place. I won't be going to the gambling floor--not my cup of tea at all. I suspect we will play some Scrabble and then go to dinner with the group. Time to kick back and relax.... only 3 riding days left on this trip.

July17, 2010: Minot to Rugby, ND. 68 miles.

I was awake at 5 AM when the thunderstorm rolled through Minot. The roads were already dry when we left around 7:30, and we enjoyed blue sky with a few clouds all day. We were stopped by a train on the way out of town--just one for us but some riders had more than one train delay. It was an interesting trip out of Minot--13 turns in the first 11 miles. Then we got on US 2 and stayed there; we are still on it actually--this motel in Rugby fronts on the highway.

CJ and I rode together all day, and there was not much to photograph. The terrain has flattened out considerably, and I hear this is how it will be all the way to Fargo. We had shifting winds today: sometimes a tailwind, sometimes a headwind and everything in between. Several people did not ride at all today, some due to the stomach/intestinal virus that is making the rounds of both groups and some due to the accident yesterday.

By the time we reached the construction zone at about 50 miles into the ride we caught up with Dianne. We were OK riding on the highway but the construction zone was unnerving. The westbound US 2 traffic was routed onto the eastbound side (where we were), so there was 2 way traffic on our side of the road. There was a 2-foot shoulder but it had a rumble strip right in the middle. We rode anyway, but every time there was a big truck approaching from behind me I got all the way off the road.

Then a couple of miles into the construction zone we moved over to the westbound (closed) side of the highway. In the 4 or 5 miles we rode over there we saw only 2 people working (it is Saturday after all) and they smiled and waved. Near the end of the construction zone the pavement disappeared completely so we had to go back across the 2 way traffic and back on the shoulder.

At one point we saw a young man on a fully loaded bike and I said to CJ that he looked familiar. She agreed, but how silly is that? We don't know any of the same people.... It was Matt, the young man we met a couple of weeks ago, riding cross country with Margaret from California to New Hampshire. This time I took their photo and we stopped and talked a while on the side of the road. The van came by with a lot of bikes on top, since many riders sagged through the construction zone.

We stopped at the geographical center of North America and took a few photos, had some lunch and are now encased in air conditioned comfort in the motel room. I am glad every day that I signed up for a supported tour.

July 16, 2010: Rest day at Minot, ND.

We did not ride today but it was not very restful.

Dianne and I heard this morning that there had been a bicyclist involved in an accident on US 2, the route we rode yesterday and the second Woman Tour group was riding today.

We heard several hours later that she was killed instantly when hit by a truck. While her friends are saying that it is the way she would have chosen, it is not the way I would have chosen. But it's not about me.

It could have been any of us any day on this tour, or on any road anywhere. I am thankful to be here and whole, and looking forward to returning to my family at the end of this tour.

July 15, 2010: Stanley to Minot, ND. 52 miles.

We stayed last night at the Casino in New Town, which was named thus when the old towns and original homes of the Indians on Fort Berthold Reservation were flooded by Lake Sakakawea, created by the damming of the Missouri river in 1956. The bridge in the photo I took this morning spans Lake Sakakawea at one of its narrowest points. We would have biked across this bridge had we not been pulled off the route yesterday.

On the way to Stanley in the sag car we took photos of some of the trucks on county road 8. I don't see any room for bicycles in this picture.... do you?

We got out of the van and car and turned immediately on to US 2. There was a nice wide shoulder for some of the ride, and no shoulder in other parts. Sometimes the shoulder/no shoulder transitions happened several times within a mile. No idea why. The overwhelming majority of traffic moved into the left lane to give us room. One semi driver swerved toward me and Dianne today. What idiot driving a semi would want to play chicken with women on bicycles????? We were over as far off the lane as we could go.

We got away from the gas and oil wells and into some interesting agricultural areas--cash crops of flax and canola lined the sides of the highway creating a beautiful contrast of colors. The sag car was where it was supposed to be at 20 and 40 miles. The wind was at our backs, and the instructions were clear: turn right on US 2, ride 52.1 miles, get off at Motel. I averaged over 18 MPH on the ride, sometimes barely pedaling for miles.

We are at the Comfort Inn in Minot (pronounced my not) for two nights, since we have a much needed rest day tomorrow. We already ate lunch and did our laundry, and plan to do not much else the rest of today and tomorrow.

July 14, 2010: Williston to New Town, ND. 86 miles

The route we were supposed to take this day involved leaving Williston on route 1804 and riding it all the way to New Town, a scenic ride of 77 miles. At the last minute the leaders decided that 1804 was too dangerous, so they rerouted us.

We rode out of the motel on to Frontage Road alongside US 2 for the first several miles and then on to US 2 itself. We rode US 2 until mile 6.6 and then it was on to county road 6, which was an excellent ride! Paved blacktop 2 lane road with very little traffic. Perfect riding, complete with a tail wind. I stopped to take some photos of North Dakota horses at around mile 18 and upon resuming the ride got an immediate flat tire. Upon changing it I found that the boot I had put inside the rear tire a couple of days ago had split apart. Sherrie supplied a patch and I patched the booted tire, gave it a shot of CO2 and rode into the 20 mile sag, where I took it off and purchased a new tire. By the time I put the new tire on I looked around and all my riding partners were gone.

So I rode solo the rest of the day. After turning left on 123rd street we had a cross wind for a while, but soon enough (at mile 26) we were back on US 2 and the tail wind was extreme! We flew down that road all the way to Stanley! There was no shoulder for the first 8 miles (photo below), which made it a bit dicey, but after that we had a nice wide paved shoulder most of the way. The 42 miles into Stanley took no time at all--the winds were at our backs at 25 MPH, gusting to 35. The terrain was rolling hills; apparently this is the hilliest part of ND. Farms and ranches gave way to oil and gas wells at all stages: flaming, partially capped, and fully functioning pumping wells.

It was all fun and games until we turned south on to county road 8 (at mile 70). Suddenly the lovely tail winds turned into vicious cross winds. The gentle keening of the wind on the top of the hills when the wind was at our backs became a dangerous howling that pushed us further into the roadway where there was no shoulder and many trucks. There were oil trucks, water trucks, semis, double bottom ore trucks.... all interspersed with pickups and passenger cars. And to think we were put on this road because 1804 was thought to be too dangerous!!!???

Many riders pulled themselves off the road when they felt vulnerable and threatened by the heavy truck traffic. Dianne pulled off when a nice young man in a red pickup truck told her it was totally unsafe to be on that road on a bicycle. Kathy L and Jennifer pulled off when a trucker headed right toward them from the head-on direction to see if they would flinch.

I quit when the Mountrail County Sheriff pulled me over--blue lights flashing--and told me I could not ride any further on that road, and that the road we were meant to turn on (CR 23) was even more unsafe and we were not allowed to ride on it either! As we were about to load my bike into the Sheriff's pickup truck the Woman Tour van pulled up behind us and had room for one more person and one more bike. So I vanned it in to the hotel. They had already picked up everyone that had been behind me.

The Sheriff then stopped at the corner cafe where there was a group of riders and gave them the same talk. They had to wait for the van to drop us off and come back for them. He found Sherrie ahead of everyone on CR 23 and ferried her and her bike to the hotel.

I rode 86 miles; Dianne rode 79; CJ and several others rode 93 miles. Sherrie was the leader (as usual) with about 98. The tour leaders told us that we are still EFI since the ride was cancelled in Stanley and is to resume in Stanley after the van and sag car shuttle us all back there in the morning.

We stayed at 4 Bears Casino and Lodge, a giant Casino on the Fort Berthold Reservation. It is becoming even larger with massive ongoing construction. The rooms were nice, the buffet dinner was OK, but there were children running up and down the hallways screaming at each other all evening. Not what we wanted to hear after such a stressful day.