Trip Excerpt #1

...It rained on us from Bismarck, ND to Belfield,ND. Ed and I were so happy to finally shed our raingear and relax that we hung out at the convenience store for about half an hour. He bought a pocket knife, I bought a ND patch and talked to some of the locals. We picked up a traveler's guide on SD, and decided to hit the road. We finally turned of 94 and were headed for White Butte, the highpoint of ND, and the town after that was Amidon. I knew I could make it to Amidon, where Ed's highpoint book said there were "services."
We ride in the sunshine to White Butte, and you can see the mountains to our left, blue skies up above,and I know one of those is the highpoint. The land is all flat except for the mountains in the distance and the hay bales, which look like beige cows scattered about the fields.

We got to the highpoint and got our trekking poles out of storage. The book said that there were rattlesnakes, and to make sure we hit the ground to scare them away as we hiked. It had rained earlier (see above), so the ground was soft and the dirt was slippery. Ed slipped on the way down "showing" me how to use my trekking pole, but that's another story for another day. Too bad my camera wasn't handy. There were no snakes to be found, and you can see the picture in bike talk. We're sitting next to a rock cairn (a bunch of rocks piled up in a triangle). The view from White Butte was spectacular. The rock formations are amazing. It seemed as if no one had been there for a long time, but the log book said someone had been there earlier. So much for thinking I'm a good looking Christopher Columbus.

We left White Butte, and as we were traveling the gravel road back to the main road, I hit reserve. No problem. I can make it 4 miles to Amidon. We get to Amidon, where the speed limit is 25. There was an old Coca-Cola sign that had food, gas, lodging on it, but the food, gas and lodging words had been scratched out and rusted over. There was an old building to the right that was covered with weeds, a few houses, but I didn't see a soul. There was a hill ahead and who knows what was on the other side. I pulled over and told Ed 'I don't know what's over that hill, but I need gas.' I'm going to knock on the door of one of those houses, and you ride over that hill and see if there's more of a town.' He sped off and I parked the bike and ran (ok, I just got done hiking, I walked) back to a house where some people were gardening. I asked if there was a gas station nearby. They answered that the place across the street has a gas pump out back, under a tree, and they will turn it on for you, if it's open. It's only open three days a week. I said 'thanks' and went to wait for Ed to return. Ed returned and was following a red pickup truck. He told me that the man in the truck was leading him to the restaurant across the street and would check to see if it was open. It was! We rode around back and got gas. By now it's about 6:30 or 7, and we're starving. The woman in the restaurant said she had just taken a Prime Rib out of the oven, and asked if would we like to stay for dinner. Who can say no to a Prime Rib in ND?...