Sunday, June 11, 2006
Crossing North Dakota
Glasgow, MT to Drayton, ND
After a relaxing evening at La Casa Glasgow, I left fairly early, headed for North Dakota. I went 2 blocks for gas and immediately ran into a BMW rider from Cleveland who was going to Alaska. He said there was some really bad construction zones east and be prepared for some riding in soft sand/gravel.
The first construction zone was okay - a short detour; second one was okay as well. #3 and #4 were much worse - I waited about 15 minutes for the escort car to arrive from the other end and he took me across some soft sand, but not really bad stuff. Same thing with #4 - escort car. Finally got out of the construction at Wolf Point and headed for Culbertson, where I turned south to go to Ft Union NHS, just inside the ND border.
Ft Union was pretty cool. It was a reconstruction of the fort as the NPS thought it would have looked like in 1851. There was a man in costume at the first place I stopped and he gave an interesting spiel about the activities in the merchant shop and showed me some of the things that would have been traded between the merchants and the Indians. Apparently this was a very friendly relationship and intermarriage between the two groups was common. The center of the fort held the "bourgeois" house, the living quarters of the fort commander. Quite unlike the man in costume, there was no one at the visitor center, so I found the stamps and left without seeing another soul.
Got to Williston, ND in time for lunch (Pizza Hut buffet - $4.91) and gas. It had started to rain along with the strong winds again, making riding a bit more challenging, to say the least. I fought this combination to Minot where I stopped for a break. At the truck stop I me another biker on a Harley, headed back home to Nevada. He told me that the rain and wind let up about Rugby, 60 miles down the road. Rugby is well known to LD riders as the geographic center of the North Americal continent, I stopped for gas at Rugby and saw the monument to that factoid across the street.
By Rugby, the wind had died down considerably and it was almost comfortable riding. Temps were still low (54*), but tolerable with electric liner and winter gloves. As I was riding this stretch of road, I wondered what the wind chill factor is at 54* and 100mph (70 mph bike speed + 30 mph wind speed on the nose) Any guesses?? It's not as cold as I would have thought, but certainly cold enough to justify the Kanetsu and the winter gloves (Answer is 43* F, but it felt a hellofa lot colder than that...)
At Devils Lake I decided to disagree with the GPS. GPS wanted to take me to Grand Forks, which took me away from my destination and I wanted to go north from Devils Lake to Rte 17 - shorter. The Captain won and we went my way. I wanted to get as far up the course as possible in as short a time as I could. I know that tomorrow is going to be a long day.
Finally got to I-29, north of Grand Forks, only to be at one of those exits with "No Services", so I proceeded north, certain that there is going to be a motel up here somewhere. Got off at Drayton and found the "Motel 66", a dumpy little place, but a room for the short evening ahead.
I'm planning to leave at 0430 to get up to Angle Inlet ASAP, then hot foot it down Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Later,
Mike
After a relaxing evening at La Casa Glasgow, I left fairly early, headed for North Dakota. I went 2 blocks for gas and immediately ran into a BMW rider from Cleveland who was going to Alaska. He said there was some really bad construction zones east and be prepared for some riding in soft sand/gravel.
The first construction zone was okay - a short detour; second one was okay as well. #3 and #4 were much worse - I waited about 15 minutes for the escort car to arrive from the other end and he took me across some soft sand, but not really bad stuff. Same thing with #4 - escort car. Finally got out of the construction at Wolf Point and headed for Culbertson, where I turned south to go to Ft Union NHS, just inside the ND border.
Ft Union was pretty cool. It was a reconstruction of the fort as the NPS thought it would have looked like in 1851. There was a man in costume at the first place I stopped and he gave an interesting spiel about the activities in the merchant shop and showed me some of the things that would have been traded between the merchants and the Indians. Apparently this was a very friendly relationship and intermarriage between the two groups was common. The center of the fort held the "bourgeois" house, the living quarters of the fort commander. Quite unlike the man in costume, there was no one at the visitor center, so I found the stamps and left without seeing another soul.
Got to Williston, ND in time for lunch (Pizza Hut buffet - $4.91) and gas. It had started to rain along with the strong winds again, making riding a bit more challenging, to say the least. I fought this combination to Minot where I stopped for a break. At the truck stop I me another biker on a Harley, headed back home to Nevada. He told me that the rain and wind let up about Rugby, 60 miles down the road. Rugby is well known to LD riders as the geographic center of the North Americal continent, I stopped for gas at Rugby and saw the monument to that factoid across the street.
By Rugby, the wind had died down considerably and it was almost comfortable riding. Temps were still low (54*), but tolerable with electric liner and winter gloves. As I was riding this stretch of road, I wondered what the wind chill factor is at 54* and 100mph (70 mph bike speed + 30 mph wind speed on the nose) Any guesses?? It's not as cold as I would have thought, but certainly cold enough to justify the Kanetsu and the winter gloves (Answer is 43* F, but it felt a hellofa lot colder than that...)
At Devils Lake I decided to disagree with the GPS. GPS wanted to take me to Grand Forks, which took me away from my destination and I wanted to go north from Devils Lake to Rte 17 - shorter. The Captain won and we went my way. I wanted to get as far up the course as possible in as short a time as I could. I know that tomorrow is going to be a long day.
Finally got to I-29, north of Grand Forks, only to be at one of those exits with "No Services", so I proceeded north, certain that there is going to be a motel up here somewhere. Got off at Drayton and found the "Motel 66", a dumpy little place, but a room for the short evening ahead.
I'm planning to leave at 0430 to get up to Angle Inlet ASAP, then hot foot it down Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Later,
Mike
