Salish Sea to the Potomac : Day 24: Napoleon to Enderlin, N.D.

There are days on the route where, because of the spacing of services, we need to choose between either two shorter days or one longer day. From Napoleon, where we stayed last night, it was 37 miles to the next town, Gackle, which didn’t have much for services. Though, there was a “cyclist bunkhouse” run by an heir to the Honey Stinger company, which may have made for an interesting accommodations. We considered taking a short day to Gackle, however, there didn’t seem like much else to do in either Napoleon or Gackle, so we decided to push on to the next town. Unfortunately, the next town was more than 70 miles down the road from Gackle. So, we opted to push for our longest day of the trip yet. Thus, today, we are 112 miles further on our journey, and very tired.

We planned to get started early, though, since we’ve entered a new time zone, sunrise isn’t until after 6am. And when we woke up this morning, we were fairly fogged-in. Temperatures were hovering around 50F for most of the morning. The first 30 miles were actually very stunning, with low sun, fog, and lots of small ponds creating interesting scenery and soundscape. Around mile 30, we took our 2 turns for the day to get onto SR 46, which we followed for the next 80 miles. We stopped in Gackle, as that was supposed to be our only services for the day, and we hoped to get a meal there. The only restaurant in town which looked like it may have been open in the morning was the tasti-freez, but it was definitely closed when we arrived. So we stopped and ate our second bagel of the day at the picnic benches. While we were eating, a kind woman in a mini-van pulled to up to ask if we had all we needed. Being at the edge of a 70-mile stretch with no services on a popular cross-country route, we speculated that they may be accustomed to seeing needy cyclists. She let us know that there was a convenience store just at the edge of town. So, we stocked up on what fresh food we could get, filled our water bottles, and headed east. There’s not much to say about the route after that. We continued on that road, headed straight east, with very slight rolling hills, for the rest of the day, mostly through cornfields and other agriculture. The road was mostly quiet, though there were a handful of fast moving grain trucks that were heading somewhere. Also, one giant tractor that took up an entire lane plus the shoulder.

Around mile 90 there was a convenience store and we stopped for a quick snack and cold drink to get us through the last push. Outside, a young girl asked how far we were riding, and when we told her, her mom remarked “you rode all that way, and you chose North Dakota?” I wasn’t quite sure how to explain that we wanted to ride cross country, and going across either North Dakota, Kansas, or Texas were really the only three options in terms of routing. So, North Dakota was less of our top choice and more of the best option. I did note that so far North Dakota has been more pleasant than parts of Montana. I was also amused at the low esteem for her home state.

When we arrived in Enderlin, we rushed to the restaurant here in town before it closed at seven to get dinner, and are now going to enjoy some rest before a relatively short day into Fargo tomorrow. Because of our long day today, we will be able to take a fairly leisurely pace to Minneapolis by Saturday.

By the numbers:
Miles traveled: 112
Total climbing: 2000 feet
Total moving time: 7 hrs 57 min
Average temperature: 70F
Bagels consumed: 6
Donuts consumed: 6
Wheels on a single axle of the aforementioned tractor: 6

A note from Ed, our technical editor:

This is a picture of my Digital Dashboard (simply my bike computer). It is a GPS unit that always knows where it is and synchs up with my phone. It is a truly amazing device that Brenda bought me for Christmas this year. This provides the numbers for much of By the Numbers part of the blog. Starting up in the upper right you see Speed, Heart Rate, Total Ascent, Temp, Distance, Time in the Saddle, Average Speed, Calories (do not believe that one), Time of Day, and Grade %. Many of you may say that only an engineer would appreciate this data but I am an engineer and I do!! This data is downloaded daily to Garmin Connect where it can be displayed and stored. It also synchs up with Strava. If you are a member of either of these please ask to connect with me and you can see the data as well.