Sunday, August 8, 2010

It's the little things that count

Like paved roads. After a stressful ride into New Town on Hwy 23, the leaders decided that our next day of riding would need to be different, and thus, they set out for what would be a 8+ hour quest to find safer roads for us to ride on into Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP). By 4:30 in the morning, the leaders (Gramelly and Kyle) had a new route for us that made our trip into TRNP 100x better than the previous day. However, leaving out the stress of giant oil trucks and no shoulders meant riding on unpaved gravel roads for over 25 miles. Moving at 6 mph is way better than worrying about getting run off the road by a billion ton truck, at least I think. However, once we hit paved roads again, I felt as though my bike had grown wings. I didn't realize how much I loved smooth pavement until that day.

My knees and left arm have been really bothering me lately, but I've been adament to see this part of the country on my bicycle and avoid the van for as long as I can handle it. As we've been biking across the vast expanse of the North Dakota plains and into the flatlands of Montana, I can't help but think that this is the closest way to experience the country as the earliest settlers did, and it's pretty exciting to see Lewis & Clark trail markers along our route.

The last eight miles of our ride into TRNP were nothing short of spectacular. As we descended into the park, the contrast from great plains to the Badlands was breathtaking. As soon as we arrived, around 4 pm, we biked five miles into the campground to see our tents all set up. It was so exciting to finally have our first night of real camping in such an amazing place. Jamey, Abby, Andrew and I decided to take a mini hike after showering off with freezing water from the pump at the campground. Along the way, we witnessed two bison within a football field's distance of us. Pretty exciting!!!

For supper, we made some delicious hobo style meals and sat around the fire.  As soon as I sat down to eat, I was delighted to hear Neil Young's "Old Man"  (my favorite song of all time) followed by the rest of the Harvest album! Such a great way to relax. It's so nice to have so many people with such great taste in music all contributing tunes for our mealtimes. Later that night, we all made s'mores and journaled. Many of us were excited to lay out and watch a night sky free of light pollution. Within 20 minutes of laying down on a tarp under the stars with my teammates, we witnessed at least five shooting stars.

After a good night's sleep, we woke up to near freezing temperatures and I prepared myself for a day of 97 miles as sweep with Kelsey. It wasn't even four miles into our ride that the entire team got trapped in TRNP by unpredictable bison near the road. We probably waited over 20 minutes before we all felt safe enough to bike on out. It made for a pretty entertaining start to our day. Overall, sweeping was way more enjoyable than I had anticipated, despite the fact that our friend Jillian got two flats and fell ill whilst riding, causing us to wait back for quite a while as the van came back to pick her up. In total, I was outside on my bike for over 10 hours, but it was a tremendous ride nevertheless, especially when Momgela and Corcoran came and found us 10 miles out and gave us water and cookies and a morale boost!

We crossed another stateline that day - finally entering the great (and huge!) state of Montana! We stayed in a small town about 35 miles from the MT/ND border called Culbertson and once again had a delicious dinner cooked by members of the Bethel Community Church. How did we get this lucky?!?!?!

I was in pretty great spirits until we had our 54 mile ride out of Culbertson and into Wolf Point, Montana. Strangely enough, I really don't like shorter mileage anymore - mainly because I mentally fail and anticipate a much shorter ride and thus start watching my mileage, making it go by much, much slower. Yesterday basically felt like I was biking in slow motion. The wind was strong, the roads weren't great, and I just felt like blah. However, once we arrived, the day really turned around.

We had probably one of the most homey and welcoming stays of the trip at First Lutheran Church yesterday. Special thanks to Glo, Joe, and Laurie for spoiling us with wonderful watermelon, junk food, and town facts! I got to learn so much about the Assiniboine and Sioux Indian culture of Wolf Point. After relaxing for most of the day and enjoying an amazing dinner, we were able to experience a real Powwow and were invited to participate in the dances. It was so incredible to see them in their authentic dress, listening to members of the tribe beating a drum, and just really getting such an authentic cultural experience. I loved every second of it.

Today was another short day - 50 miles into the town of Glasgow. MUCH MUCH MUCH better than yesterday's ride. Flat, minimal wind, and 18.5 mph average allowed me an 11 am arrival time. Since we were in so early, many of us decided to bike downtown and grab some lunch or ice cream at a diner. Now that I have awoken from my food coma, it is nice to relax, update my blog, and get excited for the night we have ahead of us - a RODEO!!! Can't wait!

It's hard to believe that there are less than three weeks of the trip left. We've currently completed 5 of the 11 straight days of biking - the longest leg of the entire trip. I can't wait for our next build day and our nearing arrival to Glacier. Montana is pretty flat right now (nice for biking, not so nice for the scenery) and I am very much looking forward to seeing the Rockys in the next few days!

No comments:

Post a Comment