What would you do on a rest day after biking 375 miles?

June 12, 2018 — Rest day

Horse

It’s our rest day in Medora, ND, just outside the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and what do we do? Go on a hike, of course.

We’ve already ridden more than 375 miles on our bikes, but now it’s time to stretch our legs in a different way.

We had our breakfast at the Farmhouse Café with the same Macedonian waiter who waited on us for lunch the day before. Like all help around the United States’ national parks, it’s fun to spot the nametags of where all the serving staff, desk clerks, housekeeping and store clerks are from. We had a wonderful spinner of tales from a Southern state at the Ferris Store. We had a very attentive young woman from South Africa for our server that night at the Theodore Restaurant in the Rough Rider Hotel (celebrating Kathy’s birthday).

It’s this hotel and the nearby Ferris Store that got this place up and running. That’s when Harold Schafer – the man who brought us Mr. Bubbles — bought these two places in 1962 and started putting together the village that helps support the national park, bringing the good times out to the Badlands, aways from much else.

All four
Kathy, John B., Don and Mary Jo

Now we are four, with Don flown in from Cincinnati. We drove the truck on the 36-mile loop that goes through the southern portion of park. Saw bison, wild horse and many, many prairie dogs.

BisonPrairie dog

We stopped at Jones Creek trail head and had a nice picnic out of the back of the truck before our three-mile hike. We were warned by a trekker coming off the trail to watch out for ticks, which he was shredding from his back. We made it through with no bloodsuckers that needed to be glad to get out of our skins.

We didn’t go to the “rootin, shootin” Medora Western Musical, see an impersonator tell Theodore Roosevelt’s story here or eat at the Pitchfork Steak Fondue restaurant. We didn’t stop at some of the old cabins and other structures that were here when TR made this his way of growing up and then putting it back together after his wife and mother died on the same day.

It’s the kind of remote (where did this landscape come from?) setting that makes a human admit he needs to make it on the land by himself without too much help from the dry, uneven earth around him.

But it is beautiful, and I hope the faux TRs don’t give it away.

From the mission statement of the Theodore Roosevelt Medora Foundation:

“PRESENT opportunities for our guests to be educated and inspired through interpretive programs, museums and attractions that focus on the Old West, our patriotic heritage and the life of Theodore Roosevelt in the Badlands.”

Trail

 

 

Bicyclists should be allowed on the freeways

June 11, 2018 Glendive, MT. to Medora, ND

We got up early and both of us – the truck and the two bikes – entered the on-ramp to Interstate 94 next to our hotel. Not with the bikes in the back of the truck, but with both of the riders pedaling along the freeway.

Apparently it’s the only way to make bike contact with North Dakota from Glendive. Mary Jo and I would be un-supported this day, as Kathy was driving 194 miles to Bismarck airport to pick up Don, Mary Jo’s husband, to be our next SAG person.

We rode well coming out of the Yellowstone River valley. The grades angled up not so steep as on the back roads. The surface was smooth not like the rougher chip seal on the other roads. The traffic was light this early in the morning in northeast Montana.

As soon as we exited the freeway, we came across a bunch of cowboys, horses, trucks, cows and calves strung out over a field with a branding going on. What a racket. Men shouting, but mostly cows and calves mooing out their desperation.

North DakotaNot much farther came the border to North Dakota: Mary Jo only has 45 states left to ride across, and we were started on No. 46 with another return to I-94.

When we arrived at where we were supposed to exit off the freeway, MJ noticed the sign noted Medora, that night’s stopping point, was only 22 miles ahead. The indication on the “Adventure Cycling” maps (highly recommend) said 33 miles to go.

Why shouldn’t bicyclists be allowed on the freeway? The grades are better. There’s a big wide shoulder that makes riding out of traffic easier – especially when there are rumble stripes placed across the highway as they were in North Dakota. A simple stripe along the highway is perfect – you stay over there with the speedy traffic and we stay over here, bicycling along at a slower place. And in a place like Seattle, where the freeways are parking lots most hours of the day, the bicyclers would be the fastest things on the freeway.

The problem would be the exits, since bikers on the shoulder have to ride through the off ramps when they are continuing down the road. That would have to be the bikers’ responsibility to get across the exit without tangling with a car or semi. Hey, we helped pay for some of the best roads in America, why should we use them?

We tour the last 22 miles on the freeway: 62.5 miles in 4 hours and 45 minutes, for an above average of more than 13 mph.

Glendive, MT, to Medora, ND