Start: 7:16 AM

Finish: 4:00 PM

Saddle Time: 6:27

Ascent: 1,183 feet

Descent:  888 feet

Miles: 65

Total Miles: 1,416

Highlight: Entering North Dakota.

Lowlight: Have to go with the wind again.  Almost made today unenjoyable.

Cyclemeter:  Follow this link to see the data I’m collecting with the cyclemeter app. You can see gps information, speed, elevation, distance, cadence and heart rate. Better viewed on a computer where it’s easier to play around with the graphs.

One of the things I like most about traveling is breakfast, getting a good breakfast in a restaurant.  Great way to start the day. Unfortunately on this trip if there are any breakfast restaurants around they typically don’t open until 7:00 AM, too late. No 24h diners in rural Montana until today.  The restaurant attached to my motel is open 24 hours probably because it sits on the interstate. Last nights steak was good so I have high hopes for a 5:30 AM breakfast. It didn’t disappoint but the serving was HUGE, of course I ate it all.

When I opened my door at 7:00 AM the wind was already blowing hard, it’s going be a rough day.  I don’t even need to check my Windy app, it’s going to be a headwind because it’s always a headwind. Turns out it was blowing out of the south-southeast so a slight headwind but kept shifting to full on headwind from time to time.

I started the day riding on Interstate 94 for about 10 miles which isn’t as bad as it may sound.  I spent the last couple weeks traveling through Montana on highways with 70 MPH speed limits and at best a few foot shoulder or often none at all so a massive interstate shoulder was awesome.  I was a good 6 feet from traffic and oddly enough most cars and trucks moved over to the other lane when they passed. They gave me more space than on rural Montana highways.

The elevation profile called for a long 30 miles of climbing out of the Yellowstone River valley, so the opposite of my descent into Glendive yesterday.  At 1.5%-2% grade it should have been barely noticeable but I spent a lot of the morning in my climbing gears, sometimes making only 6-8 mph. Super frustrating.  I was hating on Montana something fierce.

I crossed the North Dakota border on the interstate around noon then soon exited the highway to follow a road that paralleled the interstate which later turned into Old Highway 10, the original highway through the region. The road was similar to what I experienced in Montana but I was glad to see 55 MPH speed limits.  It was a nice ride.  I kept telling myself that as wind was blowing in my face. 

Like Montana this is also farm country.  I’m seeing a lot of colors I recall from western Montana and Washington, shades of green and brown.  I also saw corn for the first time. Eventually the scenery changed again, gone were the farms replace by more of a western movie look. Much more arid but with patches of green in the lowlands including trees. I’m definitely seeing more trees than in Montana. The soils is taking on more of a yellow tone with striations of grey and red.

In addition to the wind it was getting really hot but fortunately there were enough places I could stop for water.  Twice today people asked me if I needed a cold drink (well I did but not what they were offering). While on the highway I saw a truck pulled over way up ahead so I assumed he had mechanical issues or something.  As I approached he stood behind the truck with a bottle of water.  I stopped and talked with him for a while.  He was from Nebraska and had done a number of cross country rides in the past.  Seeing me peddling out here he thought this area would be tough to cycle through.  I know that.  Later in the day while only about 5 miles from Medora a car pulled up along side of me and asked if I needed a cold drink.  I was singularly focused on getting to town and I did have water so I said no and thanked them.  Later I regretted not stopping and taking them up on a cold drink.  They probably wanted to hear about my ride and it would have been good for me to meet more locals.

It was about 4:00 by the time I made it into town, much later than I wanted.  I hoped to get in a couple hours earlier so I could walk around.  Medora is a gateway to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park and is done up to look like a western town, touristy but still interesting. I’m staying in an RV park walking distance from town since the only rooms available were over $200/night. By the time I setup camp, took a shower and did laundry it as time for dinner then soon after bed.

It is hot.  The highs are not crazy but low to mid 90’s means it’s not cooling down into the low 70’s until after midnight. I do want to get back into camping especially as I get to areas that have better campgrounds rather than the RV parks in Montana which were mostly just dusty parking lots.  Not much for trees out here. I still would like cooler weather.