Fickle weather and good people

(Susan here)

Our rest day in Napoleon was uneventful–it felt good to do nothing at all, especially with a wind blowing in the wrong direction outside. We did meet some real nice locals, though, as always, among the early morning breakfast crowd at the restaurant in town. The morning we left, they very sweetly sent us with a couple gifts for the journey, including some homemade donuts. Someone even chased after us in his pickup truck in order to catch up with us and give us a little something.

Now that I’m rethinking that episode, I’m reminded of that scene in every fantasy story ever, where the wise old woman of the forest gives the heroes three gifts for their journey before they set off into the dark realms. The dismal weather and the long distance we had to cover that day did make it kind of epic, and not in a fun way. We covered about 75 miles to Bismarck in a steady drizzle that never exceeded 50 degrees. Given that I’d somehow left my favorite green fleece in Enderlin, I was wearing one of Brice’s warm layers, so both of us were slightly underdressed. We had to keep moving and not dawdle to stay reasonably warm. Hence no pictures from that day. We did see our first buttes, though, south of Bismarck along the Missouri. Kind of exciting–actually in the west now for real.

In Bismarck, we got me a new warm layer at the Farm and Fleet and stayed with Cathie, the mom of our friend Timothy in the Twin Cities. Cathie fed us a variety of German-North Dakotan delights that we’d never had or heard of before including fleischkuechle, knoephla soup, and a custard-like peach kuchen.

Today the sky was gorgeous and blue, the winds were ok, and the scenery breathtaking. We also enjoyed the novelty of biking on the interstate for a while. Camping in Glen Ullin tonight. Brice says that North Dakota is his favorite state so far for overall scenery:

(Crossing the Missouri west of Bismarck)