Day 17: North Dakota, Here we Are!

Two days ago we had a great ride from Harlem to Wolf Point, MT, a distance of 120 or so miles. We didn't even start our ride until after lunch (Andy had to hitchhike to Havre in the morning to buy a new bicycle tire for our rear wheel), but the wind was with us and we both felt strong. We cruised! We made it into town before sundown with our highest-yet avreage miles-per-hour (17.2).

Today was something of the opposite... with a strong wind in our faces, we spent the majority of the day battling our way from Culberston, MT, to Williston, ND, a mere 47 miles of pedalling. Our day's average speed was the lowest yet (10.5mph), even lower than the day we climbed mount Washington. Oh, we were exhausted, hungry, and grouchy when we rolled into town. Upon parking our bike in the city park, we immediately went into emergency resuscitation mode, which involved forcing graham crackers, chocolate chips, and water down Andy's throat, before taking him to the recreation center (yes, re-creation) for a shower and then hitting up the grocery store for a quart of chocolate milk and two corn dogs. He's in the park, now, rubbing his tummy and boiling brown rice (our real dinner) as I sit in the library across the street, uploading photos.

Let me go back a few days in time...

Last Sunday, just three days ago, we were merrily powering along toward Dodson, our tentative camping spot for the evening. We were in a bit of a hurry, because the sun was falling fast and we still had another 20 or 30 miles to go. As we cruised past Harlem toward the Fort Peck Reservation, Andy noticed a wallet on the side of the road. We went another thirty or forty feet before angling the tandem around and going back to investigate. As we pedalled back on the opposite side of the road, we saw a credit card, which we stopped to pick up. When we opened the wallet, we found several other ID cards with the same name as the credit card. Down the road a little further we found two more credit cards, a Fort Peck Reservation card, and, finally, off in the grass, a social security card.

We put all of the cards back into the wallet and stood by the road wondering what to do. We were already a mile past the town, but we didn't want to carry some stranger's wallet thirty miles before turning it in in the next town. After brief deliberation, we concluded that the only option was to go back and turn it in at the Harlem Police Station.

In town, we found two policemen vaccuuming their car across from the station. They accepted the wallet and told us the owner had reported it missing some months ago. Turning our noses back toward our destination, we pedalled down over the a low curb back onto the road. We hadn't even travelled a block before Andy pulled over. The rear tire looked completely lopsided. We pulled into the city park and Andy took the tire off for closer inspection. He concluded that our tire was worn too thin: when we rode over the curb, the air ballooned out on the side, where the tire was worn through the thinnest. It was too worn to continue using, so we hobbled back over the the police station and pitched our tent in the front yard.

We were fairly discouraged. Examining our maps, we saw that the closest bike shop was in Havre, whiched we'd passed through forty miles earlier. No more bike shops until North Dakota! We were stranded in a town of a few hundred people, and chances of finding a replacement tire in town seemed slim.

We thought we might have to take a few days off, but, as fate would have it, everything worked out in our favor. Andy caught a Fort Peck Reservation shuttle at 6:45am the next morning which delivered him to Havre at 7:45. He found the bike shop, which didn't have regular hours but did have a cell phone number posted on the door. The fellow arrived promptly and sold Andy a tire. The return shuttle to Harlem didn't leave until 11am, so Andy decided to give hitching a try. He stuck out his thumb and waited. After about thirty cars passed, one pulled over and offered him a ride. The two young women in the front seat were registered nurses on their way to a conference in Billings. They settled him into the back seat next to a baby in a carseat and gave him two homemade cinnamon rolls. When they dropped him off in Harlem, they both got out of the car and came over to see the bicycle. I was at the library, so I didn't get to meet them.

Andy fixed the bike and went looking for me. The librarian told him that she'd just given a blonde girl directions to the post office, and that's where he found me. We packed up our things and headed out of town.

Now we're in Williston, ND, preparing for tomorrow's 130 mile jaunt to Minot. Depending on the wind direction, we'll either make it or we won't. We might end up pitching out tent half way there.

Three states down, eleven to go!!!

~April

Day 16

Well, we've concluded our first two weeks on the road. We're in Wolf Point, MT right now, half way through our day--50 miles beyond Glasgow, where we slept last night, and 57 miles away from Culbertson, where we're hoping to sleep tonight. Tomorrow we'll cross the border into North Dakota.

We're both doing well. We go back and forth between feeling strong and fresh and achey and exhausted, depending on how much rest, protein, fat, and sugar we're able to provide ourselves with. Last night we didn't get into town until almost 9pm, so we ended up getting burgers at an empty bar down the street.

We did have some nice adventures on Monday, but I'm too spaced out right now to relate them. Instead, you can just enjoy the new photos below.

Bike Ride

Tennessee to Pennsylvania to Oregon to...

Three weeks have passed since my last update.

Near the late-middle of June, I loaded Honeychild on a trailer and sent her ahead of me to Pennsylvania. My father met her when she arrived in the late night at our neighbor's farm up the road. Honeychild stayed in the paddock for twenty-four hours until I arrived on a bright Sunday morning and led her out into her new slice of heaven: eight acres of rolling, grassy, green hills; a huge spring-fed watering tank; long lines of strong, straight fences; tall stands of shady trees; and the companionship of 23 hair sheep, owned by a local Amishman.

Each successive morning I arrived with a nosebag of oats which I fed to her in the small paddock before turning her loose again. The plan worked, and by the time I left Pennsylvania one week later, she was eagerly waiting at the gate each morning for my mother, father, or Bob (the farm owner) to meet her with oats. I can rest assured she won't go wild in my absence; she loves her oats too much.

I was in Pennsylvania for one week, and I think I spent most of the time in the garden. Or perhaps I spent most of my time in my room, dusting and sorting my things into piles: things that used to be important, and things that were still important. Working in the garden was the more enjoyable of the two tasks. My mom had warned me many times before my arrival that she was behind and that she felt she wasn't keeping up with the garden.

Of course, she exaggerated: the garden was beautiful and I was amazed at how many beds were already full of vegetables and flowers. She must have invested dozens and dozens of hours in the spring. We went to a garden nursury one day and bought some herbs and flowers. Her vegetable garden is impressive enough, but she also has flowerbeds, trellises, fruit trees, and a little stand of beehives. Down at the train station she and my father have window boxes, hanging baskets of flowers, and even six long planters of flowers along the edge of the bridge.

My mother had started a garden for me in the yard of the train station since I'll be living there this fall. While I was home I planted sunflowers, amaranth, and zinnias along the wall of the train station. At the bottom of the porch steps I planted lavendar, basil, parsley, and sage. In the sandy soil along the top of the creekbank I planted sweet potatoes and watermelons. I started some pumpkin seeds to plant there, as well. Just beyond the evening shade of the sycamore I turned a patch of soil just big enough to accomodate three tomato vines my mother had saved for me. I mulched them with the bamboo leaves we'd clipped off the fresh poles we'd cut for trellises. We transplanted big clumps of black-eyed susans to the front of the guard rail leading to the bridge. Over in front of the gazebo I began guiding volunteer trumpet vines up a prexisting metal framwork to form a shady arch. I meant to plant some winter squash for myself before I left but didn't get the seeds started in time. At least my mother will have a crop to share up at the house.

I left Pennsylvania on a Saturday and arrived in Corvallis late at night. The next five days were an exhausting blur of sorting, packing, recycling, distributing, and trashing the entire contents of the house I'd leased for the past year. I had "inherited" the lease from somebody who had "inherited" it from somebody else, and I was left with several year's-worth of at least a dozen different tenants' discarded or forgotten furniture and knick-knacks. The process of cleaning the house was a chore from hell, but it was aided, at least, by Andy, the one remaining subletter. Thankfully, he'd begun getting rid of furniture months beforehand, and had already made several trips to the dump.

On the morning before the landlord came to walk through, I swept every room, wiped down walls and sills, vaccumed the stairs, and hand-mopped every floor on my knees. I scrubbed the refrigerator inside and out until it shone so immaculately white that I felt I was gazing upon something from another world. We swept and dusted the basement, carting out a decade's-worth of dirt and grime. I wiped down the washer and drier and emptied the lint traps. In the kitchen I washed every shelf and every cupboard door. I scoured the stove burners and ran the dishwasher. I scrubbed the bathroom with bleach and polished the mirror.

Once the house was finished, I locked the doors and went into the garden. Andy helped me empty the last of the compost around the roses and then he rolled up the wire and put it away in the garage. I pruned the rose bushes and weeded around the garlic. I swept off the front and back steps, hosed dirt of the side of the house, and raked the yard. I swept the garage and put the few remaining items into their places.

Andy spent the day running our final errands (good will, recycling, the co-op, the hardware store) and carefully packing all of his belongings into the back of his truck. Once his boxes were packed, he managed to tie our tandem, his commuter bike, and my motobecane onto the top and over the bumper. The resulting sight was something so purely country we were almost embarrassed to drive out of town.

The landlord arrived and took our keys. We showed him the sketchy wiring in the basement and the broken light fixture upstairs. He offered us the roll of aluminum foil we'd left in the pantry cupboard. We admired the mimosa tree in the front yard, he shook our hands, and we headed off to our truck. "Have a nice life," he called after us. "Thanks," we said, as we climbed in.

The truck engine started without complaint and we drove out of town looking straight ahead of ourselves.