Blown Hard

Yesterday we battled a 48 mile per hour wind with gusts to 59 mph. The wind was out of the East/Southeast. The air temp was right around 103 so it was a hot wind too. It was one of those winds that snatches your helmet and twists it around. We could not hear each other over the communicators because of the wind noise. We poured some of the ice water from our cooler over our heads to try to keep them cooler under the helmets and used our cooling bandanas around our necks..the kind you soak in water and the beads soak up the water and slowly release it to keep your neck cool. They worked for about half an hour and were dried out and hot. Not comfortable riding and we thought with only 200 miles to go it would be an easy ride. HA. We couldn't go as fast as we had wanted because the wind really pushed on Ray's bike. So we got to Dickinson, ND about an hour and a half after we thought we would. We thought Friday was hot, but Saturday was even hotter. It was close to intolerable. I think it was hard on the bikes too. I got only 34 mpg and Ray got 51 mpg. I think the two big windshields really hurt my mileage. That and the weight in the car. Here we are at a gas stop, trying to cool down people and bikes.


Our niece tells us that the high temps are most unusual, that this is the hottest weather they've had all year. We do have such good timing! We are at 2532 feet elevation, higher than Snoqualmie Pass back home, and yet this is so much hotter! You'd think this high up it would be some cooler, but perversely enough, it is not.

We started the day with breakfast at Gallagher's next to the motel and hit the road. The scenery in Eastern Montana and Western North Dakota is pretty neat. These are views to the north and south just west of Dickinson.




Robin calls it badlands. I suppose it is bad for trying to raise crops and cows, but it is still fine to look at. As soon as we got into North Dakota, we saw hundreds of rolls of hay wrapped in greenish mesh. They are everywhere, in the medians of the interstate, along the edges of the interstate, in the fields. It looks like the Jolly Green Giant came through and scattered rolls of scratchy brown jolly green toilet paper everywhere. We estimate there are approximately 200 rolls of hay for every person in North Dakota. The land owners adjacent to the roads and highways are required to mow the hay and grasses for snow control in the winter. And that is why this time of year there are thousands of hay bales littering North Dakota.

Before we got here, we got hungry and really needed to cool down, so we stopped in a little town to find lunch, but it turned out to be packed with tourists and tourist traps, so we went back to the highway and continued on. I hear they have a neat dusk concert out there, but we were too tired last night.

We encountered lots of grasshoppers yesterday. They fly up around you as you walk thru the rest areas. And they have rattlers here. Robin says out in the wilds that the hoppers are much more numerous and you feel swarmed when you walk out there, they jump in your hair, your mouth, your clothes. Robin walks out there because she works for the National Forest Service and is in charge of the Federal Lands in one of the least populated counties of North Dakota. Although we think this is very dry country, Robin says water rights are not a problem here like in other parts of the country. Grazing land for everyone is the problem. It takes a large patch of land to feed one cow as not much is growing except around the water sources and creeks. And now the oil people want to put in wells and that takes up space too. In any low spot the water gathers and green things grow. They do have many large cottonwoods in town. Robin says they were all planted and are not native to this place. We got to tour Robin's offices yesterday and it was quite interesting to hear about all they do and all the different specialties who work in that office.

We had lunch with Robin at the Wendy's and then went to the Dakota Dinosaur Museum near our motel. They have fossils that have been recovered in North Dakota and many examples of minerals, fluroscent minerals and gemstones from around the world. Then we three retreated to a cooler movie theater to see "Scott Pilgrim Against the World". We all thought it was clever and we liked that you could never tell what was going to happen next. It was also quite funny. At least I thought so. Robin and I decided that one day 3 guys were hanging out stoned and drinking beer and one of them said, Duuuuudes, what if life really WAS like a video game and that's how that movie came to be.

We saw Robin's house and toured Dickinson, something which can be done fairly quickly, as Dickinson is none too large, but it is growing by leaps and bounds. They have so many new businesses in town and since horizontal oil well drilling has become doable, there are many oil field workers in town. There is a severe housing shortage and so there are "Man Camps" set up just outside of town, tent cities for the oil workers. Women are not allowed in the Man Camps, so Robin can't tell us much about them. Robin says crime has gone up since the advent of Man Camps. And they have huge problems with meth, but that was before the Man Camps. Just about everyone is hiring and that's a good thing. We went to dinner at Pizza Ranch and came back here and shortly hit the sack. We were so tired we slept thru til nearly time for Church, and so instead of Church, we went to have breakfast with Robin.

Now we are doing our laundry and cleaning our helmets, two much needed things, and later today Robin will pick us up and we'll go out to Roosevelt National Park for wildlife viewing. We needed to wait til later in the day for that, as she says the wildlife are too smart to be out in this hot sun. And after sundown, we'll be able to see the Milky Way if we are out of town. That is a treat for urban people like us. I am wishing we could stay another day, but Ray says we have to get on the road tomorrow. It is nice to not be on the bike for a day. Our jackets will surely need washing when we get to Elgin. And Ray's mesh pants. He's got bug splatters on the knees! Ugh! I'm glad I have a nice fairing. No bugs on my knees. Not yet.

Our route is getting some minor reworking for tomorrow's travels, as Robin has recommended we travel the Enchanted Highway on our way out of town. And the road we had planned to take she says has no services. hmm. Tomorrow we are off for Mobridge, South Dakota and that will be on non-interstate roads. Robin says to watch out for farm machinery on the roads.

For my brother especially: We went 200 miles yesterday and my right hand was killing me 95% of the time.