I covered some miles today. No touristing, just riding. And since over 90% of it was in North Dakota it was long, straight roads.
We got up at our usual early and had breakfast.
We hit the road at 9 and I mapped out a route from where we were camped, Buffalo River State Park in Minnesota, to Buffalo Gap Campground near Medora, North Dakota. Almost all 2-lanes in parts of North Dakota I had not yet visited.
The weather was fine, cloudy, dry, and in the 60s so I just had a sweatshirt over my t-shirt under my jacket that still had the rain liner to act a windbreaker. The jacket and gloves had dried out overnight but my Levis were still wet so I switched to my armored riding pants since they were dry.
The ride took me north and the west. Here’s a photo of what I looked at most of the morning.
A bit down the road I saw a crop duster at work and stopped to watch and to shoot some photos and video.
I was running low on gas and found the village of Hope to solve that problem.
Now it was just more riding. I set the cruise control to 66. On my dash it shows 66 and next to that the gear I am in: 6. I get 666 across my dash. I’d say that’s some good luck if I believed in such nonsense.
I stopped in McClusky for a map check and shot this photo.
On I rode. In the helmet speakers I was streaming music by the Scottish band, Camera Obscura, and it really helped in eating up the miles. Their lead singer/songwriter, Tracyanne Campbell, is great and some of their songs are real keepers like “New Year’s Resolution” and “Williams’s Heart.” Just brilliant. After a bit of that I told Siri to play WESA (Pittsburgh) and listened to the news. Quite depressing. So I asked Siri to play Al Stewart, another genius, and also Scottish, singer/songwriter.
In Washburn I stopped for gas but the dispenser would only let me pump premium and wouldn’t let me cancel so I took 2 gallons and figured I’d top up with my 87 regular down the road. It was time for a lunch break so I rode down to their Riverfront Park which is right on the Missouri River.
I shed some layers as the temperature was quickly rising and got back on the road. I stopped in Beulah and topped up my tank. The navigator app kept telling me it found a shorter route but I knew that I wanted to stay on ND 200 and get to 85 south. Near Halliday I stopped for a map check and a couple photos.
Now I rode to Belfield, got gas, and did a map check. I saw that the car was already at the campground. The map showed that the 2-lane road from here has 7 miles unpaved. No thanks. I hopped on the freeway for the final 24 miles.
I found our camp spot, that same one we were in a few weeks ago on our way out eastbound. I got the bike unloaded and the first order of business was to get on a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. It was warm. The next item of business was to consume a beer or two. One advantage of traveling with a car is that I can keep the cooler in the car stocked with beer instead of finding a place that sells it near the day’s final stop. Every state has different liquor laws so one never knows where to buy a single beer.
It was a 447 mile day.
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