65.3 miles, 1630′ of climbing, (1599 tot) – to read from the beginning, click here.
Good sleep and off to Bismark today. Still have a tailwind: at least that’s what the weather says. We’ll see. A little slow moving today, we made some breakfast, some coffee, packed up the tent, and hit the road.
The first 14 miles were glorious. A strong tailwind and a slightly downhill course pushed us at over 14.5 miles per hour. We were on a highway with good shoulders and felt like we were flying compared to earlier days. Of course, that didn’t last long. Once we turned west that tailwind became a cross/headwind and slowed us considerably. When we finally turned north, the stair step route had us alternating between head and tailwinds with every turn.
When we got to Bismark, we found a pretty nice cycle path network. We headed for Scheels Sporting Goods — a sport superstore with way too much stuff but nothing we needed — my shoes are starting to fail after probably 10,000 miles on them and are being held together with shoe goo. Will have to last a little longer as the “superstore” was out of any option in my size.
We did a very little tour of the state capital grounds and its nondescript Capitol building. A stop at an Irish Pub for a couple of beers and we firmed up plans for tonight and tomorrow. Today, we crossed the Missouri River and headed to Fort Lincoln State Park for the night. Tomorrow, more westward progress towards Teddy Roosevelt Nat’l Park.
