Day 21: The Great Escape

 

Fargo ND to Fergus Falls MN, 66 miles, less than 1000 feet of climbing

We watched a major storm roar through Fargo this morning, complete with strong winds, rain, hail, thunder and lightning - but this time from the safety and comfort of our hotel rooms in downtown Fargo.  The storm cleared up mid morning, which made for a late start for us.  We were determined to leave North Dakota, and leave we did, but not without a full portfolio of challenges.

We made our way out of downtown onto what started out to be a very nice bike path that was to lead us over the Red River and into Minnesota. However, a short ways in, the path was interrupted by a huge pile of topsoil stretching a few blocks long - and note from the photo that we’re talking about lot of dirt and mud (on a bike path?). Undeterred (and undaunted, although spooked), we took to the surface streets that would lead us to the river.  We finally made it over the Red River only to be blocked by a mile long freight train (hard to believe but this is not uncommon in the west and Midwest) on three occasions within a few blocks of each other. So, along with the challenges of rain, lightning, thunder, high winds and hail earlier in the week, we encountered mud, closed roads, flooded roads, blocked railroad crossings and torn up bike trails. We are generally not paranoid types, but we found ourselves looking over our shoulders and speaking in hushed tones as we believed that the ND authorities were enjoying playing with us.  It took us about 50 or so miles to accept that we are out of North Dakota and that we were not stuck in some ND-based hologram.

The late start had us limit how far we could go in Minnesota today, which was a bit disappointing but we are nonetheless happy to be here. However, we had a bit of a dirty trick played on us today.  As you might have gathered from our prior posts, our evening prayers include requests to the divine to provide us with a westerly or northwest wind, even a southwest would be okay too. Well, we got it today: a stiff wind out of the south-southwest.  The only catch was that today we headed almost due south for the first time. So the would be tailwinds were not to be for us today; instead we got a pretty stiff cross wind.  Such is life; be careful what you wish for.

The scenery for nearly the entire day were the prairie and farmlands of Minnesota, with corn, still small, making up a lot of the landscape. We continue to be amazed at how wide open this part of the country is, and how the winds can pick up when there is nothing to buffer them. As a side note, our limited interaction with drivers here in MN has been eye-opening. Mike stopped at a red light and while looking at his phone did not see the change to green so he was inadvertently blocking a line of traffic. And the surprise: not one horn honked. The drivers just politely waited until Bill yelled at Mike to get moving. If this was NY, Mike would have been run over by the entire line of cars and cursed at as they did it. We like Minnesotans.

We used today as a sort of transition day. We’ll have to hone our navigation skills a bit going forward, as there a lot more small roads weaving through Minnesota and Wisconsin than there are in Montana and North Dakota. Tomorrow we hope to get back to our usual mileage, with the help of two long bike trails. Thanks Jay Z for the tip.  We think that they’ll be fun.