It was a beautiful night in North Dakota and I slept better than ever. I awoke right on time at 5:30am and didn’t lounge very long before getting dressed, out of the tent, and taking care of morning duties. Sarah and Bart were up and after a bit we had our breakfast: banana bread and oatmeal and her coffee and me herbal tea. After that we took our time taking down the tents and getting things packed up. The first destination is Dickinson where I’ll get gas and update the blog with yesterday’s entry and she’ll get a short charge on her car.
On the way I asked her to save some video of me on the bike and she did. (I’ll have to fiddle with the format to get it to load.)
The stop in Dickinson didn’t take that long. I filled up at the corner station and she got a charge next to a restaurant that wasn’t open yet. I sat at one of their outside tables to update the blog. Her she is, on her way.
I had looked the map and wanted to get off the freeway and take some local roads and the best solution was turn off at New Salem. Along the way we stopped at rest area. We were noticing the smoke from the Canadian fires.
I charted a course that started in New Salem and kept me off the competitive adventure of the freeway and would allow me to see some of North Dakota that I would not otherwise experience. We said our goodbyes and agreed that we’d meet up at the campground this evening.
When I got to New Salem, I did a very short side trip to get a photo of my bike with “Salem Sue” in the background.
Now it was all about racking up the miles on some 2-lanes roads and enjoying the scenery, what I could see of it with the smoke. You know, someone should do something about that Canadian smoke. Maybe put a tariff on it. Here’s a view from along the way.
I was calculating the distance I would travel and considering the remoteness, when I arrived in Center, ND I stopped to top off my tank. It took 1.7 gallons and gave me a sense of ease. The gas was $2.79 per gallon. What a deal! That is two dollars less per gallon than I paid last week in North Bend, Washington.
Center is a really small place but appears to be to be quite pleasant with a strong sense of community. There were banners on the light posts throughout the town with photos of the 2025 graduates. Everything was clean and tidy.
A few miles out of town I saw a sign and hit the breaks and pulled into a small parking lot. It said that this was the “Scientific Center of North America.” There are various claims about where the center is but, according to Wikipedia:
Peter Rogerson, a professor of geography at the University at Buffalo in New York, used new scientific methods and the azimuthal equidistant projection to calculate the "geographic center" of the North American continent. By some extraordinary coincidence, he found that Center, North Dakota, is the continent's geographical center.
So I had to check it out. There are three flags, one for each of the countries of North America, and, up a short walk, is a large rock and a sign marking the spot.
This is the type of “tourist site” I like to visit.
I was back on the road. From here the road meandered east, with the occasional turn but mostly east and for many miles, mostly east. There was very little traffic and the roads, in very good condition, were straight and took me past miles and miles of farm land. Grain elevators and silos abound. Here’s one on Hensler.
I stopped in McClusky to see these.
Along the way, in Bowden, I took this photo which shows my view for most of the day.
It was about 3pm when I arrived in Carrington and I decided to stop for a bite to eat but first saw that they had a courthouse. Another photo of my bike in front of a county courthouse.
I spied a Subway and got my usual: 6” veggie with everything and a small drink. I don’t do caffeine or artificial sweeteners so the lemonade is fine. My bike was parked right outside.
I went across the street and topped up my gas at $2.89 a gallon and then it was back on the road. More roads with smokey scenery. This is in Hope.
I finally arrived at the Buffalo River State Park. I pulled over to check which campsite I was looking for (had that on my phone) and took a photo of the train going by.
I found the Tesla right away and pulled in right in front of it. The campground is primarily RVs, big ones. I haven’t seen any other tenters and, for sure, no motorcycles.
I sat down to write this blog, with a beer, of course, and kick back for the rest of the day.
Here’s our site.
I covered 431 miles.
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