Day 29: Williston to Stanley, ND--72 miles
Milestone: 1500 miles!
We left Williston a little late due to a VERY slow breakfast service--only one waitress for the whole restaurant! If you want to move to western ND, I think I know where you can find a job... Anyway, the waitress was great but overwhelmed--just like many government workers I know (OK, all of them).
As we headed out of town, we figured that as usual, we'd be climbing. Sure enough, we went up-up-up and then a bit down; repeat that about 10 times and you'll have our trip north out of the city. I thought that maybe when Rt. 2 turned east, we would be in some kind of river bottom and would have wonderful flat roads. WRONG!!!
It turns out that we climbed today to the highest town in North Dakota (at least according to the locals)! Our rollercoaster was up-up-up-up-up-down; repeat. It was pretty crazy. You'd top one hill only to see the next three looming in front of you! In addition, we had about 25 miles of construction which took our great 4-lane divided highway to a small 2-laner. The shoulder was littered with tar bits that were almost impossible to avoid. We stopped with traffic at one point and a construction guy suggested to David that everyone might be happier if we just rode on the new road--so we did! It was the biggest bike path ever! We enjoyed our time on the closed road and only had to avoid a couple of large construction machines. Much better than dealing with traffic...
There were green fields on each side of the road--not as big as they seemed in Montana, but quite beautiful. In each field there was a rock wall or mound. At first, I thought those rocks occurred naturally, but David informed me that they were put in place by those poor people who had to clear them before they planted the fields! What hard work!
It was an exhausting day--the weather is heating up as we head into true summer. Together, David and I have one good butt: my left cheek and his right cheek both feel like they've been through the wringer. So we're stopping a little more often and getting off those bike seats to give ourselves a break!
We headed into Stanley pretty late--at almost 6 p.m. We stopped a lady to ask for directions and she pointed the way through the business part of town (about 2 blocks). She suggested that we stop right away for a World Famous Whirl-o-Whip at the drug store. So we did--but they were closing up for the night. As a testament to the people of Stanley, they stayed open just for a couple of sweaty bicyclists and made us the best dessert ever! It's kind of like a DQ Blizzard, but I think made with hard ice cream. And the drug store has an old-fashioned sode fountain with stools and everything! What a treat!
We camped in the town's FREE campground, amidst a fog of mosquitoa. The skin-so-soft worked wonders for a while, but I guess it wore off, because after we finished laundry, we came back and decided we better head indoors--to the close local tavern. The problem was, we hadn't found and ATM and we were almost out of money!
We went into the 5-spot Bar which was pretty quiet. Rob the Hippie (that's what they call him in Stanley) was tending bar, and we whipped out our last 5 bucks and said "what can we get for this?" He said he'd make us a deal and served up a couple of beers. Then we chatted for awhile. Rob is a guitar maker by trade--creates acoustic guitars by hand. He was a great guy and actually gave us another beer on the house! Needless to say, we slept well that night--mosquitos or not.
Stanley, ND may have the most helpful and kind people we've met yet--and that's saying something!
Thursday, June 21, 2007
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