The Dakotas – Day 27 – Little Yellowstone

63 miles, 1604′ of climbing, (1405 tot) – to read from the beginning, click here.

The Solbergs fed us a filling breakfast of eggs, toast, and potatoes (organic, from their son’s distribution company), let us tag along on the chicken coop opening, and also importantly, do a load of laundry.

We got on the road to our next stop at Little Yellowstone around 10 am. Nice, flat ride, with a bit of a crosswind most of the way. The wind was annoying, but did serve to keep the bugs away. ND Route 46 was very busy with minimal shoulders and we tagged teamed with Dana in front and me behind with my mirror calling out any potential conflicts. Fortunately they were few and we only had to revert to the bumpy shoulders a few times. There were many gravel trucks going to a road construction site about 20 miles in front of us. We had to be careful of the vortexes they caused as they passed — really much stronger than the winds we faced.

After we passed the construction intersection, it got a bit quieter, but was still pretty busy and sometimes even sketchier shoulders. We stopped in Enderlin for a rest break and found a cute little bar, Maple River Saloon and had a refreshing beer before tackling the last 20 miles. Another store in Enderlin was our second “Hardware Hank’s.” This one had the stove fuel we needed to keep Dana in coffee for the next few weeks.

The ride profile for the day was 40 miles of flat followed by 300′ feet of a gentle slope over the last 20 miles. Little Yellowstone was a the bottom of a river valley and the only time RT 46 had anything you could call a hill on it. For us, it was mostly downhill to the camp. We got set up and the only other campers there were two women and their dog. We chatted with them for a while and told them we were foraging for wood to build a fire to quell some of the mosquito activity.

We got the fire built and kept putting whatever small sticks we could find on it to keep it going. It was good and smoky and did cut down on the mosquitoes. We used everything we had against the foe — 30 deet, 100 deet, and essential oil patches. Still got a few bites and were thankful to get in the tent and get away from them. While we were stoking the fire with our wet twigs and sticks, Anne Marie, one of the two women mentioned above, brought us some logs for the fire. Road angels. Just after Dana got in the tent, it started gently raining. We had the fly on this time and stayed dry. The rain didn’t last long and we drifted off to sleep to prepare for the ride to Gackle!