17 miles, 110′ of climbing, (1341.6 tot) – to read from the beginning, click here.
It’s nice to have an easy day planned every once in a while. Today was one of those days. The camping equipment needed to be dried out, so we laid things in the sun, made coffee, had breakfast, and Dana went for a run. Our next host was 13 miles away, so we planned to hang around Fargo that afternoon.
Thankfully, checkout time was noon, so I had a leisurely morning to pack things up and Dana got to have a run with a shower at the end. We loaded up and left the campground around noon and headed to Fargo ending up at Broadway Square. There was a lot of activity this morning as there was a Pride Parade set for 2 PM. We parked the bike and ate our lunch while watching the proceedings and quizzing the locals who quizzed us about our ride what to do in Fargo. The Prairie Art Museum and Roger Maris grave site and museum came up multiple times.
We went to the art museum, caught the Murray Lemley and Floating Beauty exhibits, then went the two blocks back to Broadway to watch the Pride Parade. We supported the community and got the bonus of lots of candy to take with us. A Tootsie roll and the middle of a long day can give you the fortitude to sally on.
We went back to the museum and Dana dropped some candy off with the staff at the desk. We finished our tour with the Ghost Writing exhibit by Jaque Fragua, a contemporary artist from Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico. Very interesting museum.
By this time it was mid afternoon and the Roger Maris Museum awaited. We picked the museum vs. the grave site because it was kinda on the way to our host. It wasn’t an easy ride to get there — busy streets and impatient (and apparently vision impaired drivers — it was a 3 lane road and many insisted on staying in the right lane behind us rather than merging over). To top it off, the museum was in a mall, so we had to maneuver our way around that. Dana got some pics for her Yankees Fans brothers and we headed to our hosts in Horace, ND.
That turned out to be more of a slog than we expected because the whole south side of Fargo is being developed and there was one road closed that was on our route. That led to about 5 miles of gravel road riding. Not fun for sure, and we were glad to finally pull in to meet our hosts, Warren & Mara. We were greeted by their dog Rosie on the way in, and were shown to our room by Mara. After some quick showers, Dana stayed with Mara while Warren took me out to scout our way through another detour and show me the flood control project that was a big part of all the detours. When we got back, we were treated to fresh corn, fresher red beets, and a salad for dinner. We chatted with Mara and Warren and then hit the sack for a good night’s sleep.
