Glendive, Montana to

Medora, North Dakota

Tuesday, July 1

Westbound: Circle to Glendive Eastbound: Medora to Hebron and Bismarck

In the morning I went back to the same restaurant for breakfast. I had no reason to expect the air to be any cleaner or the service any better, but nothing else was nearby, and I had an unwarranted optimism. Besides, how could they not do eggs correctly? They found a way. They have studied their mistakes so very carefully and can repeat them exactly.

Having seen the shoulder-wide, rumble strips from the overpass, the previous afternoon, the presence of officers having breakfast gave me an opportunity for research. I asked them about the highway to the east. They thought and compared notes and, incredibly predicted that I would see rumble strips all the way to North Dakota and most of the way across the state. I asked about alternatives. No side road went through. Hmm. Could it really be as bad as they recalled?

Cheered by my sumptuous meal and the positive prognosis for the pavement, I went back to the room to see if I could make my email work better. I could connect with Earthlink but Earthlink would let me read Qwest mail but not reply or send via Qwest. Since I had some real business to transact, resolving the issue seemed worth some effort. Finally, I just called the Qwest help number.

The woman who took my call had the answers. First, however, she had to convince me that my home ISDN service still counted as dial-up. That actually was good news. It meant that I could use any of the Qwest dial up numbers anywhere. More than that, she showed me where to find the list of Qwest phone numbers. It was huge and extended beyond Qwest’s turf as a Regional Bell Operating Company.

She also confessed why using Earthlink was only a one-way process. Previously, Qwest had been insufficiently diligent about spammers. Somebody had found an open relay on Qwest and Earthlink was still punishing Qwest. Oh well; but if I could reach Qwest directly, Earthlink’s long memory would not continue to impede my access. I could live with that and give the company’s more time to work out their differences. I, of course, was willing to help them but didn’t think it would occur to them to seek my assistance.

The call to Qwest, while valuable and informative, was not brief. It was nearly 11 before I was under way.

I rolled down the on ramp to I 94 and immediately encountered the rumble strips. Deep and across the entire shoulder. On the other hand, there was no traffic. So I rode in the right lane, watched my mirror, and had no problems. Eventually, the rumble strips took less than the entire shoulder. As the day went on, I met a wide variety of rumble strip designs. Some allowed a slalom approach. Others were shallow and annoying but not shattering. Others were bad news and provoked cautious returns to the right lane.

After about an hour, I was hungry again, thirsty, and ready for a quick stop. I exited I 94 at Wibaux and soon found the Tastee Hut. The nice ladies served me a good sandwich and an excellent milk shake. They also filled my Camel Bak with ice and water, something I had been unable to do at the Super 8 in Glendive.

I rode through town to return to the highway and was almost to North Dakota when the rear tire went flat. Rats. Almost made it all the way across Montana without a flat. I change the tube and tire and resumed riding.

Progress was slower than I hoped. The rumble strips were a small hindrance. The wind, heat, and steady grade were bigger challenges. Somehow I had not anticipated climbing from Montana to North Dakota. On the other hand, with Glendive on the Yellowstone River, I should have appreciated the need to climb. I had thought Glendive meant smooth sailing. I was wrong.

The path continued modestly uphill in North Dakota. After the flat tire, I was ready for a stop when I saw a visitor center. Blessedly, it was air conditioned and had very nice plumbing.

With a late start and slower than planned progress, I stopped at the information booth to check on lodging. There weren’t many choices in the next miles, but the lady staffing the booth was an excellent conversationalist. She was a school teacher doing a summer job. We chatted about a wide variety of topics including the flaws in a high stakes testing program that expects every subpopulation to improve every year.

Just as I was ready to leave, a gentleman came up and looked at the same distances on the big map that I had pondered. Whereas I was checking how far I had gotten from Puget Sound, he was checking how far he still had to drive. As we compared notes, we discovered that he lived in East Wenatchee within a mile of where we had lived before we moved to the west side of Washington.

Eventually, I had to get going and bade them both good bye and thanks for pleasant talk.

Back on the highway, it was still hot, uphill, and into the wind, but I was rested. After a while, the scenery changed significantly. Instead of a long incline up a hill, the road crested and showed eroded badlands. I stopped for a few pictures and then continued into the southern unit of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Based upon my briefing at the Welcome Center, pulling off at Medora seemed wiser than fighting further. At approximately 60 miles, I’d fallen short of my target for the day, but it was late afternoon and the next lodging might not be for another two hours. Prudence prevailed.

Now I was in a real tourist town —how much would a room cost? Well, it wasn’t that bad. The Badlands Hotel has several locations. My room, away from the center of activity cost $65.20, tax included. It was small, the towels were small, but it did have air conditioning, and the site was quiet. I was happy to stop.

For dinner, I called in an order for pizza and walked “downtown” while they were baking it. This plan represented a slight error in that the pizza was bigger than I really wanted, and I discovered they had some nice looking pasta choices. Oh well, they—the people running the restaurant—were very nice, the pizza was tasty, and the leftovers would be ready for breakfast. I took my time eating and reading and then waddled back.

Upon returning to the room, I spent a bit of time fixing tires. I found some thin wires, but one tire never did get reliably clean.

Quite an adjustment to be among crowds again.

64 miles in 5:13 on the bicycle for an average of 12.2 mph.

Back up to Glendive to Fargo

Westbound: Circle to Glendive Eastbound: Medora to Hebron and Bismarck