MONTANA!

Leaving TRNP, we knew faced some major dirt roads and hills, but we did not know we would face buffalo. They were just roaming in the middle of the roads and there were many more of them than us. We quite outnumbered and out-sized. It was quite and amazing sight. We kept inching closer to them pushing them along. When they realized we meant no harm to them, they all took off together and ran up a hillside. It took a while to get out of the park, but it was completely worth being as close as we were to the buffalo. We also had to get behind a pace car to lead us through the construction on the road out. Once out of the park we ascended a huge hill and backtracked about 20 miles to the next town which we passed yesterday. The park made all the backtracking completely worth it. In the town of Watford, about a dozen of us stopped at truck diner and got another breakfast, because the first one was not satisfactory. After breakfast we were about 10 miles away from the first lunch, but when we got there, the only thing remaining was the cooler with a few things in it; the van and trailer weren't even there. I guess we had run out of food. Good thing we already ate. We continued on and eventually hit Montana, posed for some pictures, and then turned around and got a few with the North Dakota sign. 6 more miles followed and we hit second lunch where they had restocked with food! A PB&J with a banana, and we were back on the road with about 25 miles in our 97 mile day. Going into Culbertson was absolutely beautiful as we crossed the Missouri River and hit really cool mountains. One more climb and we were in town. We were finally staying at a church again! And they had food waiting for us when we arrived. It was awesome. We showered at the local high school, came back ate dinner, then had an affordable housing meeting and were exhausted from our near century, so it was time for bed.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park

I'm not even going to talk about today's ride expect for the fact that we face enormous winds until the final 14 miles where it was at our backs and we were going up hills at 20+ mph. We arrived at Theodore Roosevelt National Park around 2 pm, but had to wait to get into the park because we need to cram everyone into the van in order to save money on entrance fees. There was also construction on the road to our campsite, so the wait was even longer. On the 5 mile van ride we saw some bison, which was pretty cool, but they were at a distance. When we got to our site, we set up the tents and then most people went exploring. Heather and I went on a hike through the valley and then headed up hills to get some amazing views. We roamed around the park through trails for 3 hours until we headed back to the campsite just in time for dinner, where I grilled up some brats and hot dogs. They were pretty good after what was already a great day. To make the day even better, after dinner we headed up another rock formation near our camp and sat on top to watch the sunset in front of us, and the moon rise behind us. It was breathtaking. We stayed up there awhile and just took everything in. Once we finally came down, we got ready for bed, crawled into our tents and went to sleep.

PICTURES TO FOLLOW LATER. SORRY.

More North Dakota

Today we were leaving Minot and headed to New Town, ND. I was supposed to sweep, but because a large group of riders wanted to stay in town and get coffee before they left, one of them volunteered to do this. By the time this was decided, most everyone else had left, so I had to book it for the first 10 miles to catch people. It was kinda fun, but it was also exhausting. After I caught people we took it slow, which was nice. The whole ride until lunch was a piece of cake. There were basically no winds and the scenery was awesome. By the time lunch came the winds had picked up and it looked like a storm was coming. Behind our lunch stop we found a really cool field of sunflowers, so we took some photos. We also had a Kodak moment at the hay bales. After lunch I rode through the really strong headwinds with Heather, and we stopped a lot for more photos. It just seemed like the day for pictures, as we could see for miles down the long straight roads, that were surrounded by fields. At the end of the ride we arrived in New Town, put our bikes at the High School, and went our for some ice cream and burgers. Afterwards I put a call into the family reunion and talked to a bunch of people and wished I could have been there. Dinner wasn't provided, so we made mexican again. The rest of the night consisted of everyone trying to catch up on their journals in the computer lab at the school.

Day Off in Minot

After one of the best nights we had, we woke up at 9 am to a pancake breakfast. It was delicious and I was able to eat as many as I wanted, because I wouldn't have to bike afterwards. I ended up having some of my pancakes with ice cream on them. Following breakfast, everyone just relaxed and planned their days. Many people planned on going to the ND state fair. Before the fair, we took a trip down to the bike shop to allow people to get new things for their bikes. Next, shuttles were run down the fair. The majority of people went, but I decided to hang back and ended up running errands with Nate. We had a lot of fun doing it though. We ended up getting a lot of things donated, including our lunch which was 2 whole pizzas from Pizza Hut. Once we got back to the church people were coming back from the fair and I ended up cleaning my bike with a bunch of other people. I really needed to clean it, because it had been making noises. That was pretty much the whole day. Not too much of anything. Really just a day to recover and rest up for a 11 day stretch of riding.