Indeed it was our destination and was perhaps close to 60 km. away.
The disturbing thing was, there were no corners between us and town, just one long straight road.
The disturbing thing was, there were no corners between us and town, just one long straight road.
Caramel Pig
Peddling the Dirt across North America
Straight Out Boring
Stage 5.2
Napoleon, North Dakota – Horace, North Dakota
164.69 Miles – 265.04 Kilometres
Total distance ridden 2281.62 Miles – 3671.91 Kilometres
As usual I was first up in the morning. I made coffee and snuck outside to watch the day wake up. It was beautifully humid with a sky alive with thunder and lightning. The storm must have woken Sharon, she joined me and together we watched it blow on through.
We had quite a lazy day, mostly speaking with family on Skype. In the early afternoon, I was back outside in front of our room with another coffee, when I noticed a UPS van dash down towards the Catholic church, so I jumped on my bike and followed him. Yay God, he had my package. I spent the next few hours changing our Ortlieb brackets to our new, easier to install and use, Klick-Klack ones. I also ordered a replacement bracket to be sent to us further down the road. Now Sharon could carry her bag conveniently in front of her, this is important because our bar-bags hold all our valuables and can easily be clicked on and off our bikes to be carried on our shoulder into shops. When we lock our bikes together at night beside our tent, usually we leave our panniers attached and rely on sound to wake us if they are being tampered with. In theory this is hugely risky. This is the reason why our un-clipped bags spend the night with us in our tent
Anyhow, had a great day off, drank too much coffee and didn't get a good sleep. Because things were cooling, we rose at 5 a.m. Sharon wasn't that enthusiastic about the day and I was having circulation and pain problems in my right leg. Even though we had a spectacular sunrise, neither of us really wanted to be cycling.
Everyone, or at least every motorist, had been telling us with excitement how the prairies were dead flat. We had been waiting for this mythical flatness, it had not come, in fact today the roads were starting to get almost hilly. They were dead straight and dead boring. We rode 40 miles and only turned two corners. Boring, boring cycling. To mitigate the boredom, we stopped at a row of rolled hay bales. I clowned around, running along the top of them while Sharon filmed. Just after Sharon stopped filming, I attempted to jump to the ground. The clips on the underside of my shoes got caught in the netting, which meant I succeeded in only throwing my head and torso off the bale. I was left suspended upside down until the netting gave way, plummeting me head first to the ground. Thank goodness I was wearing my helmet.
We continued riding through the corn and wheat fields, noticing that lakes were starting to appear. Bill and Julie had told us about a small biker hostel in Gackle, so we finished our day early and spent the night there.
The hostel called the Honey Hub was located at the back of someone's home. There was just one room and only had two beds, but had tent space outside. We were able to do a load of washing, have a shower and purchase cold Gatorade. What more could we need. They had a box of stuff that previous cyclists had donated to the road, in this treasure chest Sharon found a really good Pearl Izumi cycling jersey. We spent the afternoon shopping, tightening bolts, cleaning chains and pumping up our tyres with the Hub's easy to use pump. Like the cycle hostel in Mitchell, I cannot stress enough how welcoming and comfortable this place was.
We jumped into bed about 7 p.m. and were quite quickly dead to the world. I awoke around 9 p.m. to the sound of someone quietly pushing a bike, shortly afterwards the door opened and a voice whispered hello. We quickly woke and beckoned in Martin from Pennsylvania. He was quite tired, had been cycling long distances and opted to pitch his tent rather than share the room. I was so so pleased that even though I can sleep through the noise of trains and trucks, that I was woken by someone softly walking in close proximity to our bikes. I knew that soon we were going to be in more populated areas and at higher risk of foul play, so this literal wake up call was comforting.
We snuck past Martin's tent around 4:30-5 in the morning, he let out a quiet goodbye.
I loved the mornings and this was one of the best. The lakes seemed to have been warm and steam rose from them as their heat hit the cool morning air. Morning prairie mist was often right across the road, forcing us to gleefully ride through it. Our glasses, mirrors and map-holder were all steaming up. The landscape was mostly flat, I do not think I have ever seen a land sunrise from so far away, it looked as if the sun was rising over a teal and red sea.
As dawn broke we climbed a wee hill and from up there I could see a village with grain silos in the distance. I said to Sharon, I think that is Marion. Indeed it was our destination and was perhaps close to 60 km. away. The disturbing thing was, there were no corners between us and town, just one long straight road.
As we turned off the 46 and headed towards the settlement, I mentioned to Sharon that I would quite like to buy lunch today. We rode along Main Street, noticing they had a nicely-equipped town park and rode a block further, noticing a cafe and a bar. Finding ourselves at the end of town, we turned around and cycled back down the main drag. As we passed the Marion Community Cafe, a man in a ball-cap popped out and said, 'Welcome to Marion, come in, take a load off your mind and have something to eat'.
Oh what a lovely and timely invite, we immediately jumped off our bikes, lent them against a side window, un-clicked our bar-bags, entered and took a seat where we could see our bikes. The cafe was square, with long rows of brown tables on a brown floor. There was a gaggle of farmers sitting around one and other than staff, it was empty. When the friendly waiter came to take our order, I asked him what was good, what would he recommend? He thought for a moment, gave a wee smile and said, “You should try my Caramel Pig, I created it myself”. After a quick explanation, we eagerly agreed.
It was so nice to just sit and relax in the air-conditioning, knowing that our day was done. Eventually our host arrived with his amazing Caramel Pig. It was a thick slice of ham under a cinnamon bun, topped with thick caramel sauce and garnished with a single large strawberry. It was quite unorthodox, not terribly healthy, but delicious. We were content to wile away the afternoon in the cafe, but eventually in fear of outstaying our warm welcome, we exited into the early afternoon sun.
We rode the block back down to the town park and sat in the shade at a picnic table, charged our devices and read. It was going to be a lovely afternoon. We noticed a girl approaching the park, she plonked herself on a swing and asked us to push her. So I did, it seemed logical at the time. She had a million questions for us. I ended up playing basketball with her and a boy that quietly appeared and disappeared. Her name was Ayva, she was seven-years-old and it very quickly became evident that she was bored and we were her entertainment. At one stage, she started telling us she was hungry and asked for money. This was the final straw of a lightly-ruined afternoon, we told her to go home and get food. After much persuasion, she sulked away, leaving us in peace. Because lunch had not been sufficient, we cooked a meal before pitching our tent inner on a little stage and lying on top of our sleeping bags for a very early night.
After about an hour resting, I was disturbed by the sound of a chair scratching the stage. I popped my head up to see Ayva with a friend sitting on a bench looking at us sleep. I asked, 'What are you doing'? She replied, 'I brought my friend to watch you'. After a quite cranky discussion, I convinced her to get lost.
We did have a good sleep tucked out of the dew. Once again according to the new schedule, we were up at 5 and on the road around 6:30. We rode around 40 miles east on the 46 and did not turn one single corner. This is Sharon's least favourite type of riding.
It turns out that we were not the only people bored on the highway. We were harassed by a local Sheriff. North Dakotan roads are pretty rough. I presume that they expand and contract with the extreme heat and cold. About every couple of metres, there is a crack or expansion joint in the asphalt. On a bicycle the result leaves us feeling as if we are riding over sleepers on a railway line. We couldn't ride on the far right because of the irritating rumble-strips, however in the very centre of the road for some reason they had sealed over a rumble-strip, so this was the smoothest section. So we rode centimetres to the right of the centre line. This was not a problem, the road was pretty flat, we could see for miles ahead and through our rear-vision mirrors, miles behind us. And if this wasn't enough, because of the bad roads, rumble-strip and America's need to drive huge pick-ups with knobbly off-road tyres, we could hear people approximately a week away.
When we saw the Sheriff behind us, we naturally pulled hard to the right to let him overtake. He drove past me and then slowed alongside Sharon and asked what we were doing. He went on to tell us that we should be riding on the hard right where the rumble-strip was and that the other day a cyclist was killed here by a truck. I didn't like this guy's attitude and didn't appreciate being bugged by it. I asked, 'How recent, how long ago did this happen?' His reply was, 'Oh sometime last year'. After much discussion, I challenged him a little and said; 'Just to be clear, we are allowed to ride two abreast anywhere on the right hand side of the centre line, correct?' He replied, 'Yes'. The funny thing was, we were pedalling through all this conversation and he was driving with two wheels on either side of the centre line. Eventually he got bored and just drove away and within a few minutes we crossed the county line and left his jurisdiction.
Before long, we hit the intersection of 46 and 32 South and found a lovely clapped out gas-station and diner there. We walked in, hoping to buy milk. The place seemed about 600 years old. The family running the joint used the cafe as their dining table. It was so homely and quaint that I instantly loved it and felt the ache of not having the luxury of a stable home. I said hello and went to the fridge and purchased milk and just before I handed over the money, the lady serving me said, 'Do you realise that is half buttermilk?' I corrected my mistake and without thinking, asked if we could bring in our cornflakes and eat at the counter. The family was more than happy for us to do this. So we purchased a solid coffee, poured our milk over the cereal and relaxed. As we did this, the grandad, who was hard of hearing, came over, gave us more coffee and started politely asking about the ride. These people seemed so simple and so, so nice, we were really blessed by their shabby cafe and kind, kind hearts. The old man even offered to wash our dishes.
I have said it before, but North Dakota really did have lovely people.
We cruised into the advertised cycle-friendly town of Enderlin. It was a railway village, I enjoyed walking around the trackside grain elevators. I even found a lovely man to answer my harvesting questions. We visited a second-hand shop. I had been caught a little by surprise by just how many coins I had gathered in this cash-dependant country and had been searching for a loose-change purse. The attendant was fascinated by our trip and was very helpful. After much rummaging, she found a small purse and would not accept any payment.
Our next venture was to the local swimming pool to cool off. The pool seemed to be mostly full of poorer people, which in this case meant Latino and black customers. I had been very keen to talk to people of colour on an equal status, so tried to chat with one of the black fathers in the pool. It was a bit of a fail, I think having a white fella with a strange accent trying to make friends in a public swimming pool was just a bit too weird.
We moved on to the public library and used their internet for a while before settling across the road from the rails in the town park. I loved the trains, they seemed to be miles long, I also got very excited every time I heard the bells ringing as the boom gates lowered across the roads. Railway culture is not really something we have in southern New Zealand.
I had a great sleep that evening, but not so for Sharon. She lay awake listening to teenagers enjoying the park and then the all-night sound of iron against iron as the trains were shunted across the yard. Poor Sharon, she awoke quite frazzled and was not appeased by my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed self.
Not a lot happened this new day, except for the fact that after 119 miles of straight boring roads, we turned a rather nondescript corner. Perhaps the reason North Dakotans are so nice is because they are trying to compensate for their landscape.
We stopped in a rather hickish shop in Kindred to fuel up, but it didn't work. Food and soda couldn't compensate for Sharon's lack of sleep and it was here, 25 kilometres before our Warmshowers destination, where she gave up on the day.
We fumbled on, Warren our host had given us good directions but neglected to warn us that the last mile or so was a very demoralising gravel road. The stones were too thick for our thin tyres and we ended up having to push the bikes. We were exhausted when we arrived, however Mara and Warren's warm hearts salved our aches and pains away. They were new to Warmshowers and I suspect have learnt a lot since our visit. We needed food there and then, but didn't quite feel comfortable enough to pull out the stove and cook. This meant being forced to snack and upset our important eating rhythms. Eventually, Kevin from Australia turned up on his bike and we all settled in for a good farm- cooked meal. In the evening, Warren and their son Bjorn took us to Fargo, drove us around and took us to a health food store. It was like heaven, I had not seen any healthy food for weeks.
A corner, lovely people, a good farm meal and a health food store were the perfect way to finish off stage 5.2 and the almost corner-less state of North Dakota.
Stage 5.2
Napoleon, North Dakota – Horace, North Dakota
164.69 Miles – 265.04 Kilometres
Total distance ridden 2281.62 Miles – 3671.91 Kilometres
As usual I was first up in the morning. I made coffee and snuck outside to watch the day wake up. It was beautifully humid with a sky alive with thunder and lightning. The storm must have woken Sharon, she joined me and together we watched it blow on through.
We had quite a lazy day, mostly speaking with family on Skype. In the early afternoon, I was back outside in front of our room with another coffee, when I noticed a UPS van dash down towards the Catholic church, so I jumped on my bike and followed him. Yay God, he had my package. I spent the next few hours changing our Ortlieb brackets to our new, easier to install and use, Klick-Klack ones. I also ordered a replacement bracket to be sent to us further down the road. Now Sharon could carry her bag conveniently in front of her, this is important because our bar-bags hold all our valuables and can easily be clicked on and off our bikes to be carried on our shoulder into shops. When we lock our bikes together at night beside our tent, usually we leave our panniers attached and rely on sound to wake us if they are being tampered with. In theory this is hugely risky. This is the reason why our un-clipped bags spend the night with us in our tent
Anyhow, had a great day off, drank too much coffee and didn't get a good sleep. Because things were cooling, we rose at 5 a.m. Sharon wasn't that enthusiastic about the day and I was having circulation and pain problems in my right leg. Even though we had a spectacular sunrise, neither of us really wanted to be cycling.
Everyone, or at least every motorist, had been telling us with excitement how the prairies were dead flat. We had been waiting for this mythical flatness, it had not come, in fact today the roads were starting to get almost hilly. They were dead straight and dead boring. We rode 40 miles and only turned two corners. Boring, boring cycling. To mitigate the boredom, we stopped at a row of rolled hay bales. I clowned around, running along the top of them while Sharon filmed. Just after Sharon stopped filming, I attempted to jump to the ground. The clips on the underside of my shoes got caught in the netting, which meant I succeeded in only throwing my head and torso off the bale. I was left suspended upside down until the netting gave way, plummeting me head first to the ground. Thank goodness I was wearing my helmet.
We continued riding through the corn and wheat fields, noticing that lakes were starting to appear. Bill and Julie had told us about a small biker hostel in Gackle, so we finished our day early and spent the night there.
The hostel called the Honey Hub was located at the back of someone's home. There was just one room and only had two beds, but had tent space outside. We were able to do a load of washing, have a shower and purchase cold Gatorade. What more could we need. They had a box of stuff that previous cyclists had donated to the road, in this treasure chest Sharon found a really good Pearl Izumi cycling jersey. We spent the afternoon shopping, tightening bolts, cleaning chains and pumping up our tyres with the Hub's easy to use pump. Like the cycle hostel in Mitchell, I cannot stress enough how welcoming and comfortable this place was.
We jumped into bed about 7 p.m. and were quite quickly dead to the world. I awoke around 9 p.m. to the sound of someone quietly pushing a bike, shortly afterwards the door opened and a voice whispered hello. We quickly woke and beckoned in Martin from Pennsylvania. He was quite tired, had been cycling long distances and opted to pitch his tent rather than share the room. I was so so pleased that even though I can sleep through the noise of trains and trucks, that I was woken by someone softly walking in close proximity to our bikes. I knew that soon we were going to be in more populated areas and at higher risk of foul play, so this literal wake up call was comforting.
We snuck past Martin's tent around 4:30-5 in the morning, he let out a quiet goodbye.
I loved the mornings and this was one of the best. The lakes seemed to have been warm and steam rose from them as their heat hit the cool morning air. Morning prairie mist was often right across the road, forcing us to gleefully ride through it. Our glasses, mirrors and map-holder were all steaming up. The landscape was mostly flat, I do not think I have ever seen a land sunrise from so far away, it looked as if the sun was rising over a teal and red sea.
As dawn broke we climbed a wee hill and from up there I could see a village with grain silos in the distance. I said to Sharon, I think that is Marion. Indeed it was our destination and was perhaps close to 60 km. away. The disturbing thing was, there were no corners between us and town, just one long straight road.
As we turned off the 46 and headed towards the settlement, I mentioned to Sharon that I would quite like to buy lunch today. We rode along Main Street, noticing they had a nicely-equipped town park and rode a block further, noticing a cafe and a bar. Finding ourselves at the end of town, we turned around and cycled back down the main drag. As we passed the Marion Community Cafe, a man in a ball-cap popped out and said, 'Welcome to Marion, come in, take a load off your mind and have something to eat'.
Oh what a lovely and timely invite, we immediately jumped off our bikes, lent them against a side window, un-clicked our bar-bags, entered and took a seat where we could see our bikes. The cafe was square, with long rows of brown tables on a brown floor. There was a gaggle of farmers sitting around one and other than staff, it was empty. When the friendly waiter came to take our order, I asked him what was good, what would he recommend? He thought for a moment, gave a wee smile and said, “You should try my Caramel Pig, I created it myself”. After a quick explanation, we eagerly agreed.
It was so nice to just sit and relax in the air-conditioning, knowing that our day was done. Eventually our host arrived with his amazing Caramel Pig. It was a thick slice of ham under a cinnamon bun, topped with thick caramel sauce and garnished with a single large strawberry. It was quite unorthodox, not terribly healthy, but delicious. We were content to wile away the afternoon in the cafe, but eventually in fear of outstaying our warm welcome, we exited into the early afternoon sun.
We rode the block back down to the town park and sat in the shade at a picnic table, charged our devices and read. It was going to be a lovely afternoon. We noticed a girl approaching the park, she plonked herself on a swing and asked us to push her. So I did, it seemed logical at the time. She had a million questions for us. I ended up playing basketball with her and a boy that quietly appeared and disappeared. Her name was Ayva, she was seven-years-old and it very quickly became evident that she was bored and we were her entertainment. At one stage, she started telling us she was hungry and asked for money. This was the final straw of a lightly-ruined afternoon, we told her to go home and get food. After much persuasion, she sulked away, leaving us in peace. Because lunch had not been sufficient, we cooked a meal before pitching our tent inner on a little stage and lying on top of our sleeping bags for a very early night.
After about an hour resting, I was disturbed by the sound of a chair scratching the stage. I popped my head up to see Ayva with a friend sitting on a bench looking at us sleep. I asked, 'What are you doing'? She replied, 'I brought my friend to watch you'. After a quite cranky discussion, I convinced her to get lost.
We did have a good sleep tucked out of the dew. Once again according to the new schedule, we were up at 5 and on the road around 6:30. We rode around 40 miles east on the 46 and did not turn one single corner. This is Sharon's least favourite type of riding.
It turns out that we were not the only people bored on the highway. We were harassed by a local Sheriff. North Dakotan roads are pretty rough. I presume that they expand and contract with the extreme heat and cold. About every couple of metres, there is a crack or expansion joint in the asphalt. On a bicycle the result leaves us feeling as if we are riding over sleepers on a railway line. We couldn't ride on the far right because of the irritating rumble-strips, however in the very centre of the road for some reason they had sealed over a rumble-strip, so this was the smoothest section. So we rode centimetres to the right of the centre line. This was not a problem, the road was pretty flat, we could see for miles ahead and through our rear-vision mirrors, miles behind us. And if this wasn't enough, because of the bad roads, rumble-strip and America's need to drive huge pick-ups with knobbly off-road tyres, we could hear people approximately a week away.
When we saw the Sheriff behind us, we naturally pulled hard to the right to let him overtake. He drove past me and then slowed alongside Sharon and asked what we were doing. He went on to tell us that we should be riding on the hard right where the rumble-strip was and that the other day a cyclist was killed here by a truck. I didn't like this guy's attitude and didn't appreciate being bugged by it. I asked, 'How recent, how long ago did this happen?' His reply was, 'Oh sometime last year'. After much discussion, I challenged him a little and said; 'Just to be clear, we are allowed to ride two abreast anywhere on the right hand side of the centre line, correct?' He replied, 'Yes'. The funny thing was, we were pedalling through all this conversation and he was driving with two wheels on either side of the centre line. Eventually he got bored and just drove away and within a few minutes we crossed the county line and left his jurisdiction.
Before long, we hit the intersection of 46 and 32 South and found a lovely clapped out gas-station and diner there. We walked in, hoping to buy milk. The place seemed about 600 years old. The family running the joint used the cafe as their dining table. It was so homely and quaint that I instantly loved it and felt the ache of not having the luxury of a stable home. I said hello and went to the fridge and purchased milk and just before I handed over the money, the lady serving me said, 'Do you realise that is half buttermilk?' I corrected my mistake and without thinking, asked if we could bring in our cornflakes and eat at the counter. The family was more than happy for us to do this. So we purchased a solid coffee, poured our milk over the cereal and relaxed. As we did this, the grandad, who was hard of hearing, came over, gave us more coffee and started politely asking about the ride. These people seemed so simple and so, so nice, we were really blessed by their shabby cafe and kind, kind hearts. The old man even offered to wash our dishes.
I have said it before, but North Dakota really did have lovely people.
We cruised into the advertised cycle-friendly town of Enderlin. It was a railway village, I enjoyed walking around the trackside grain elevators. I even found a lovely man to answer my harvesting questions. We visited a second-hand shop. I had been caught a little by surprise by just how many coins I had gathered in this cash-dependant country and had been searching for a loose-change purse. The attendant was fascinated by our trip and was very helpful. After much rummaging, she found a small purse and would not accept any payment.
Our next venture was to the local swimming pool to cool off. The pool seemed to be mostly full of poorer people, which in this case meant Latino and black customers. I had been very keen to talk to people of colour on an equal status, so tried to chat with one of the black fathers in the pool. It was a bit of a fail, I think having a white fella with a strange accent trying to make friends in a public swimming pool was just a bit too weird.
We moved on to the public library and used their internet for a while before settling across the road from the rails in the town park. I loved the trains, they seemed to be miles long, I also got very excited every time I heard the bells ringing as the boom gates lowered across the roads. Railway culture is not really something we have in southern New Zealand.
I had a great sleep that evening, but not so for Sharon. She lay awake listening to teenagers enjoying the park and then the all-night sound of iron against iron as the trains were shunted across the yard. Poor Sharon, she awoke quite frazzled and was not appeased by my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed self.
Not a lot happened this new day, except for the fact that after 119 miles of straight boring roads, we turned a rather nondescript corner. Perhaps the reason North Dakotans are so nice is because they are trying to compensate for their landscape.
We stopped in a rather hickish shop in Kindred to fuel up, but it didn't work. Food and soda couldn't compensate for Sharon's lack of sleep and it was here, 25 kilometres before our Warmshowers destination, where she gave up on the day.
We fumbled on, Warren our host had given us good directions but neglected to warn us that the last mile or so was a very demoralising gravel road. The stones were too thick for our thin tyres and we ended up having to push the bikes. We were exhausted when we arrived, however Mara and Warren's warm hearts salved our aches and pains away. They were new to Warmshowers and I suspect have learnt a lot since our visit. We needed food there and then, but didn't quite feel comfortable enough to pull out the stove and cook. This meant being forced to snack and upset our important eating rhythms. Eventually, Kevin from Australia turned up on his bike and we all settled in for a good farm- cooked meal. In the evening, Warren and their son Bjorn took us to Fargo, drove us around and took us to a health food store. It was like heaven, I had not seen any healthy food for weeks.
A corner, lovely people, a good farm meal and a health food store were the perfect way to finish off stage 5.2 and the almost corner-less state of North Dakota.