Thursday, June 22, 2000

Today we traveled 101 miles. We rode our bicycle form Wolf Point MT to Williston ND. The start of the trip was along a road that had just been resurfaced with asphalt and was smooth as glass. This super road lasted for 13 miles. In addition, the wind was partially at our back. We are now going almost straight east so the northwest wind that aided us so greatly for the last two days did not help as much today. For 36 miles the road was almost flat and we made very good time. Shortly after we passed through Brockton MT, we took a short cut through the Fort Peck Indian Reservation that added an additional 15 miles of flat riding. On this shortcut, we road besides some bluffs that looked like the South Dakota Badlands.

For the rest of the trip we went up one side of a hill and down the other side of the hill and up and down the next hill until we wanted to scream. In some of the valleys were working oilrigs pumping crude oil. Our legs were tired when we started the day. By the end of the day, Mary Kay was completely exhausted. She complained that it hurt to sit down. The only good thing was that the road changed at the North Dakota border. In North Dakota the road was asphalt without any rumble strips and at least 6-foot wide shoulders. In Montana, the road was almost always chip sealed with 2 foot or less shoulders. If the shoulders were greater in width than 2 foot, it seemed that they always had a rumble strip. When we arrived in Williston we had some trouble finding the motels, however, in our wonderings, we did run across the bike shop and we were able to pick up some extra links of chain, incase ours breaks again.