July 8, 2021
A capital day!
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Yesterday afternoon Ron pulled into the campground. Ron is a librarian from Arizona and is riding solo across the country. We first met Ron on the road when we were leaving West Glacier. We ate lunch with Ron at the Isaak Walton Inn in Essex, Mt. We stayed at the inn and Ron continued on. Ron is actually a pretty quiet guy and keeps to himself. We crossed paths a couple of times today but did not say much to each other.
Ron did have some good advice on how to get across Wisconsin. For the last couple of days we have been discussing and planning on how to get from Fargo, ND to Manitowac, Wi. We have decided to take the ferry across Lake Michigan and we board it in Manitowac. We have several options on routes to take and we have maps for most, but, not all of the routes. We are trying to plan a route that is efficient for us. Ideally we keep the mileage between 40 and 55 miles per day and have a place to stay ( we are finding that campground and hotels are full at times), and a place to get food. This has not been easy. We are also finding it difficult to find safe roads to ride in Wisconsin. I have bike maps for part of the state but I am missing other parts. Our current tentative plan is to go from Fargo to St. Cloud and then to Stillwater. Ron said hwy 64 in Wisconsin is a good biking road, so we will take that and then find a way to drop south to Appleton and then Manitowac. We need to spend time figuring out the details for this plan so it may change as we do that.
Last night a wind storm blew through and kept us awake for a bit. That and being in central time zone meant we did not get a very early start. We went to the local gas station for breakfast sandwiches and then got rolling at 7:45. The weather was sunny and cool, winds about 10 mph from the south, with the temperature forecasted to be in the lower 80’s and rain later in the afternoon. Our destination was the capital of ND, Bismarck. We have decided that we are going to ride the interstate as much as possible across ND. We know that the interstate has services periodically. If we go on small roads away from the interstate and pass through small towns we are finding that many small towns have no services that we require, like a place to get food and a place to sleep. Therefore we are going to ride the interstate as much as possible until Fargo. It took us 8 miles to get back to the interstate. The first service exit was in New Salem which was 17 miles away once we got on the interstate. The going was pretty slow. On the interstate there is a 10 foot shoulder. In the first section there was a rumble strip 8 ft wide every 20 feet. We had a small 2 foot area to get by the rumble strips. We had to ride single file and be careful while passing the rumble strips.
After about 8 miles on the interstate we came upon an open rest area. This was good because I really needed a bathroom break. After the rest area we cruised to the gas station at New Salem for lunch. After lunch the shoulder went back to normal with a small rumble strip on the left and about 8 feet of clean shoulder. We formed our pace line and had some fast and efficient miles. After 20 miles we got off the interstate because of traffic and the exits from the interstate get much more dangerous as we get close to town. We had about 7 miles and then the city riding started. We were on a bike trail that took us across the Missouri River. Then we took side streets past the capital building and then to our hotel. This is by far the biggest city we have been in on the trip. Bismarck is a very nice city and has some really nice homes in the city.
Tomorrow we are going to a small town named Steele. We expect it to be 40 miles.
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2 years ago
Today's ride: 60 miles (97 km)
Total: 1,637 miles (2,634 km)
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| Comment on this entry | Comment | 6 |
We too plan on the ferry across Lake Michigan, so maybe our paths will cross again.
Our route is probably a bit longer than yours, but we will cross from MN, to the Gandy dancer Rail Trail(RT) and down to catch a series of 4 RT, at La Crosse to elroy sparta RT to 400 RT...check out our maps.
Also, the Anderson's(to Rome) took a nice route across, and our planned route in MI is very similar to Kalamazoo then we are going south from their route. We have pdf of RT if you are interested.
Racpat
2 years ago
2 years ago
We talked to Rylan and he told us what a great 4th of July weekend he had at your place. I got to say we could of used your pool a couple of days last week. 😀. Glad to hear you are still keeping up with the journal. Thanks for the tip about the work gloves.
Take care and try to stay cool.
Terry & Janet
2 years ago
Hope you guys avoided the rain on your way to Steele today. We left Steele around 11AM and had a very light drizzle for the first hour or so & then it cleared up. We're in Medina tonight at the North Country Lodge. Would you be interested in meeting in Medina or Windsor to ride into Jamestown together? If you're interested, give us a call - 352-464-5823.
2 years ago