Day 39 – July 21, 2015 – Medora ND – Dickenson ND

Day 39 – July 21, 2015 – Medora ND to Dickenson ND – 37.5 miles

Bumble Bee – Audrey:

Welcome to North Dakota! Welcome to the winds of North Dakota! And the hills of North Dakota, up and down and up again. It was a hard day. The winds were cross winds, not really head winds but close. It took us 5 hrs to do what would normally take us 3 – 3 1/2 hrs. Remember we are monsters on the road, we are heavy and not very aerodynamic. At one point today I was pushed by a gust of wind which may have been gusting up to 30-40 mph, clear into the center of the frontage road. Luckily just at that moment there wasn’t a oil truck passing us.

Yes, we have made it into the heart of an area that I know well, the Bakken oil fields. Each town is speckled with oil field service companies, and Haliburton staging areas. Though it seems busy to us little ants of the road, it is far less busy then I remembered when I visited 2 and 3 years ago. The oil boom!

It is kind of funny and ironic to be doing a journey powered by pedal power, not carbon power, and having to travel right through this region. We came upon a the little town of Belfield where we stopped at a gas station for a cold drink. The gas station had no gas or diesel, all gone. And strangely enough one of the big oil trucks had run out of diesel and coasted into the station on fumes. To his dismay the station was dry. He called his wife who picked him up in her pick up truck and they drove to the next town to find diesel. This all took well over an hour or two to do. I overheard the cash register lady tell a customer that. Funny, here we were surrounded by the Oil Boom, in a gas station with no fuel, as we rode away on our bikes. Ha, we don’t need no stinking gas. But that chocolate milk of Gregg’s, my iced mocha drink, and or pints of cucumber Gatorade was enough to fuel us. It made me smile.

Once we got to Dickenson we couldn’t find an open bar, or restaurant open at about 3 pm when we arrived (We actually got a lake start due to a early morning thunderstorm). I missed Montana just then. Every little town, even if it had just 3 buildings, one of them was a tavern with food and drink. We had to pedal up to the Interstate to find Applebees, the only thing around besides all the regular fast food joints. And in Applebees we decided right then, to stay in town and continue our slog tomorrow. There were no good options that were within 15-25 miles away, anything longer we probably couldn’t do. So we found a Best Western at the freeway, did our laundry, went to a terrible overprice Mexican restaurant for dinner, and tried to get some shut eye in a comfy bed. We both hope to dream about tailwinds for a day that looks much like today, with rolling hills on roads frequented by rumbling oil service trucks. Let’s hope our dreams come true.