We are now in Mobridge, SD. I’m sitting at a picnic table writing in this journal. It’s extremely hot at 3:30 and the sun is beating down from a cloudless sky. Let us regress back to the morning in Center. We got up at 5:30 and when I crawled out of the tent at least fifty percent of the tents were already down. You could hear people getting up at 4:00 and many people left before it was completely light. Our tents were again wet with dew. Some of the town’s people had breakfast in the park which cost $5.00. They had cold cereal, yogurt, partially frozen orange and apple juice, homemade muffins, and coffee. When I went to get coffee an old guy standing by the pots pointed out the regular and decaf ones. When I took the regular he made the comment that almost everyone was selecting high test. The first part of the day was fun. The prairie was rolling but the highway had new asphalt which made riding easy. Ron had left when I was putting in my contacts and Don (at his request) wanted us to really bust butt. Don left shortly before I did and it took me about ten miles before I caught him. He had stopped but I continued on since Ron was still ahead of us. We were facing a 98 mile day so we were anticipating a long time in the saddle. The wind was coming from the south at about ten miles and hour and continued to increase in velocity. I made two mistakes in judgment this day. The first was when I was going up a long hill. I could see a rider coming up on me and decided to try and not let him catch me. I sped up and was satisfied to see him drop back. However, when we crested the hill and started across a fairly level area he again started coming up on me and soon started moving to the left to pass. At the time I was going about nineteen mph and sped up to about twenty two mph. He then dropped back behind me. When we came to a short uphill he again came up and moved abreast of me. He said “Nice morning”. He was riding a Trek road bike and didn’t look like he was laboring at all to go twenty plus mph. I found out that he was a farmer from the Sioux Falls area. He told me that last year he had ridden a Schwinn and this year had upgraded to the Trek. Next year he was hoping to get a “Postal” bike. After this short conversation he simply moved on. We had come to the crest of a long descent and he was soon out of sight.

The first rest stop was at the twenty mile mark. I pulled in and saw Ron sitting in a chair drinking a gator aid and having a conversation with an athletic looking blond. Don soon arrived but didn’t want to stay long. He started out after a short rest and I worked hard to catch him. When coming into Mandan there were irrigated corn fields along the road so Don and I stopped to take a leak. Even though the corn was irrigated the height of the stalks couldn’t compare with the height of those we saw in Iowa last year. There were a lot of mosquitoes in the corn that attacked you as soon as you entered. Don finished before I did and took off. I had to wait for a couple of trucks so I didn’t see Don again until just before Fort Abraham Lincoln. I soon arrived at the Burlington Northern Park where Scout Troop 54 was hosting a breakfast. They had pan cakes, bacon, eggs, coffee, and juice and were selling bottled water and sport drinks to replenish your water bottles. Ron was there but Don hadn’t even stopped. My second error in judgment occurred here. I saw Ellen and walked up to her and said, “Do you want to ride with me?” She said “Sure, when ever you are ready”. I said “You lead the way and I’ll try and keep up with you”. We jumped on our bikes and Ellen took off. We zipped through Mandan at about eighteen mph passing many other cyclists. We rode to Fort Abraham Lincoln and met Don shortly before we arrived there. We were routed part way through Mandan on a bike trail and at one point had to go through a gate on the path. Ellen pointed out to me that my rear fender was loose on one side. I could tell by the tone of her voice that she didn’t think much of my fenders. I didn’t have a replacement bolt or to my embarrassment any tape even thought I had worked in tape divisions my entire career at 3M. Ellen removed a short piece of electrical tape from her handle bars and offered it to me. When she handed over the tape she said “Don’t you have any duct tape?” Followed by “Real men always carry some”. After repairing the fender with Ellen’s tape we proceeded on to the fort. Both Ron and Don decided to keep going but I accompanied Ellen on a tour of the fort museum. The ticket taker didn’t have enough change for my $50 so Ellen lent me the $4.00 entry fee. We went into the museum and saw displays of many Mandan artifacts. They had materials on display which predated their contact with Europeans as well as artifacts from after their contact. After touring the museum we went out behind it to look at a number of earth lodges that had been constructed. In one of the lodges a park employee was giving a talk on the everyday life of the Mandans. We listened for awhile and then left. Since we still had sixty miles to go we decided to skip a visit to the George A. Custer house. We got on our bikes with Ellen again in the lead. For about eight miles the road was fairly level and Ellen really moved out. By this time (shortly after noon) it was quite hot. She was going eighteen to twenty one mph and I was having a difficult time staying up with her even though I was sucking on her hide wheel. After about four miles and passing numerous bikers I decided enough was enough and pulled up along side Ellen and said “I can’t continue to go twenty mph, so go ahead if you want”. She gradually moved ahead but at one point pulled off and waited until I caught up. When she saw that I didn’t want to follow her again she left and gradually rode out of sight. For these two errors in judgment I would pay dearly in the later afternoon. From this point on we had many long up hills. One rider said that he had clocked one of the longer up hills and it was over two miles long. By this time it was extremely hot and whenever I stopped I would quickly become drenched in my own sweat. I saw Ron at the Cannon Ball rest stop which was at the sixty five mile mark. I was pouring down the sports drinks and water and had eaten four bananas and two power bars at the previous rest stop. Even though I was drinking about as much as I could I still started cramping at about the seventy mile mark. My inner thighs would begin to tighten and gradually the pain would build. I’ve learned to psychologically fight cramping but it became a continuing struggle until the end of the ride. By this time it was extremely hot, the sun was beating down, and we seemed to be continually going up hill. I’m sure we had as much down hill but it didn’t seem like it. One rider commented that we must have climbed to the highest point in the county. I finally caught up with Don shortly after we entered the Standing Rock Indian reservation. He was low on water and since I had two full bottles I gave him one. He said that he was having problems coping with the heat and had become nauseous and light headed. I told him I was cramping up and he gave me a packet of vanilla power gel. I told him that I was going to stop and eat at the casino but he said that he would probably go on. A couple of miles farther down the road the casino could be seen perched on the top of a big hill. To me it looked like a medieval fortress. The hill that the casino sat atop was long. By this time I was getting down into the lower gears and crawling up the hills. When I got to the entrance I didn’t go into the casino but stopped at a convenience store that was near the entrance. I stayed there about thirty minutes resting and drinking gator aid. There were a number of other bikers there and people coming into the store looked at us like we were crazy. Before I left I filled my biggest water bottle with ice and water. However, it was so hot that by the time I took my first drink it was already warm. We had about thirteen more miles to get to Fort Yates. There were a couple of more climbs and one long descent into the town. We learned later that Don sagged the last three miles because of his light headedness, not wanting to chance going down the hill into town. We camped at the high school. It was 6:30 when I arrived and most of the riders were already in. There wasn’t very much lawn area around the school and we were forced into putting up our tents in a tight cluster. Some of the late arrivers set up their tents on the surrounding hay fields. Don arrived shortly after I did and said that he was still light headed. We sat around waiting for Ron to arrive. I saw Ellen and she said that she had seen Ron back at the Cannon Ball rest stop. Finally Don and I decided to take our showers. The showers were ice cold but the cold water in small dosages actually felt good after our day exercising in the broiling sun. Ron arrived shortly after we showered, we were glad to see him. He said that the sag had no AC and broke down twice. However, he was happy that he had decided not to complete the day’s ride. We ate supper at the high school where they had Indian tacos, vegetable soap, kool aid, and coffee. We were offered as much food as we wanted to eat. When the men got tacos the servers asked if you wanted a big one. After supper the Indians put on a show. I went to bed during the demonstration of the moccasin game, a game that the Indians have been in the process of reviving for the last fifteen years. It is played with long and short sticks, a blanket, moccasins, and a stone which is hidden under one of the moccasins. I believe that the object of the game is to guess which moccasin the stone had been hidden under. Of course there is much side betting that goes on during the game. When I crawled in my tent I quickly fell asleep. It was like falling off a cliff, I don’t even remember dreaming.

8/7/01 It is now later in the afternoon and I will write in this journal some more.

The morning in Fort Yates Don and I again arose at 5:30 and this was the first morning that the tents were dry. The wind was already blowing hard from the south. We had a breakfast of scrambled eggs, pancakes, and coffee at the school. Ron was up before us and had eaten by the time that Don and I were packed up. After breakfast I went to put in my contacts and by the time I got back Ron had already left. Don still had some light headedness so he decided to sag. He was going to try and see the doctor who accompanies the CANDISC ride and ask her about further biking. I started out on my own. Unlike RAGBRAI where there are thousands of bikers and you ride in a crowd the entire day one can ride alone for much of the time. You see other bikers at the rest stops, you are occasionally passed by other bikers and you pass other people but basically on this ride you are riding alone if you don’t ride with the people you came with. I saw Ron at about the ten mile mark sitting by the side of the road waiting for the sag wagon. Because of the wind he had decided not to ride any further. The first fifteen miles were quite hilly. We went down one long hill that was a straight shot down to a valley floor. Just as I reached the crest of the hill I caught up to a guy on a recumbent. I decided to stay back and not pass him. He quickly outdistanced me and when I caught up with him on the flat valley floor I asked him how fast he had gone. He had maxed out at thirty eight mph while I had gotten to only thirty one mph. The recumbents have really good aerodynamics and ride well into a wind.

This morning we went along Lake Oahe. It formed a very pretty sight in the distance with the sun glinting off the surfaces of the waves. I had to force myself to look up once and awhile and enjoy the scenery. It’s is very easy when one is riding into a stiff wind to become mesmerized with your head down staring at the surface of the road, not enjoying the countryside. At one point I saw an animal in the left ditch. At first I thought it was a fox but when I got along side of it I could see that it was a badger. It crouched down in the grass staring at me as I passed by. Although we only had to ride fifty miles this day it was almost as hard as the previous day. Fortunately we went inland away from the lake after the first fifteen miles and the road became fairly level. When you looked ahead you could see wide sweeping curves or straight a ways in the road. However, the road’s surface was quite rough which along with the head wind impeded progress. The wind did have a good side since it helped to mitigate the heat. This day was even hotter than the day before which had been a scorcher. At the Wakpala rest stop I pulled off to replenish my water bottles. I had been stopping every thirty minutes to drink and my bottles were empty. They had ice cubes in a cooler so I put some cubes in my scarf and put it around my neck. It felt heavenly and helped to cool me down. People were dropping ice cubes down the fronts and backs of their shirts and putting them on their heads. Everyone was grabbing what available shade there was and sitting and trying not to sweat too much. From this point we only had about ten miles to go to get to Mobridge. We went across a causeway over a bay on Oahe and shortly thereafter turned east to cross the bridge. It was great to finally turn out of the wind. The bridge was over a mile long. When I was approaching its east end a pick up loaded with giant round hay bales which overhung the edges of the box passed me. Fortunately there were no cars coming from the east just then and he could move over. We camped in a city park located in the middle of town. It is quite nice with some shade trees and grass. I was one of the first ones in and set my tent up by Ron’s and Don’s tents in the shade of a large elm. Apparently the sag wagon was already in with its first load but the boys were not by their tents. I went into town to take a shower at the sports arena which was three blocks away from camp. This time there was no cold water and the showers were hot. They had removed all the cold water handles and the mixing valve was apparently not working. After all the heat a hot shower didn’t feel very good and was far worst than the previous day’s cold shower. Fortunately, there was a faucet on the wall of the shower room where you could turn on the cold water and let it run over you. I stuck my head under the cold water and let it cascade over me. I’m writing this in the town library. It is pleasantly cool in here and I am sitting at a table with a number of other bikers escaping the outside heat. I’ll continue this saga tomorrow or the next day.

8/9/01

We are now in Bismark. I’ll go back to the evening in Mobridge. Ron, Don, and I went downtown and had a beer at a local pub before going to eat. We decided to eat at Rick’s restaurant on a couple of local’s recommendations. We arrived at Rick’s café and went in. There was one empty table so we sat down. A tall, bald headed, graying man wearing an apron and dressed in a tee shirt and Bermuda shorts riding low on his hips finally came over and brought us menus. He had a sullen expression on his face and didn’t say a word to us when he handed us the menus. After waiting for some time and seeing some locals who had come in after us getting their meals the tall guy returned. All this time we saw no other worker in the café. When he took our orders he mumbled a lot and wrote on his order tablet. We assumed we would get what we ordered but it was difficult to determine if our orders were actually being taken. He appeared to be totally alone and when he had taken a order would disappear into the kitchen for a moderately long time. On the wall behind the counter was a sign that had “Best food in South Dakota”, “Best hamburgers in the state”, along with “Best Chile” printed on it in bold letters. This was apparently a quote from an Aberdeen newspaper. When we paid our bill we found out that Rick was doing it all, taking orders, cooking, running the cash register, and probably later doing the dishes. However, he was not doing it with a smile and when we paid our bills complained about the town not making provisions for all the cyclists. When we got to the front door it was locked, apparently Rick didn’t want any more business even though it was only 7:30. The food in Rick’s was good but the service wasn’t.

The next day we ate breakfast at a grocery store a block away from the park. I was bummed out that morning since I had forgotten my glasses in the locker room back at the Fort Yates School. I went to ask a CANDISC official about contacting the school and found Dick Messerly himself. He said that a pair of glasses had been turned in and were in the lost and found bin and could be mine. Luckily they were mine. The CANDISC riders really watch out for one another. The owner of the grocery store where we ate breakfast was quite nice. Over my concern for my glasses I forgot and rolled up my sunglasses in the tent when I packed up. She gave me a pair that had remained unclaimed for a long time from her lost and found file. This was just another example of Dakota (Mobridge is in South Dakota) nice.

The first part of this day’s ride was great. The wind was still blowing from the southwest and there seemed to be more downhill than up. On the east side of the river the hills are not as high and generally have gentler slopes. On one downhill that was a long sweeping S curve Don got up to forty one mph. We were riding up and down the buttes bordering Lake Oahe and we had many beautiful vistas of it. This year as mentioned earlier ND has had a lot of rain and the vegetation and grasses were luscious and green. It’s a slightly paler shade of green than one sees in Minnesota and is gentle on the eye. The coolies and hills running up from the river looked like the surface of a giant rumbled blanket with many light and shadowed areas that formed continuously changing patterns as the sun moved across the sky. I remember one section where the land seemed to tilt gradually down for a long ways and with the wind behind me I was able to average over twenty mph.

After leaving Don behind me I rode with a woman from Fargo, ND for a while. She ran a food processing plant that makes sauces and salsa. Her husband was an electrical engineer and three years ago returned to his profession. They had inherited the business and she was enjoying running it. We traded recipes as we rode along. I told her about preparing venison with balsamic vinegar and she said that she used the same recipe with steak but added rosemary. That sounded good and shortly after arriving back home I prepared venison with balsamic vinegar but added fresh rosemary. It was delicious.

The first town that we came to was Pollock, SD. There were a lot of bikers at a grocery/convenience store and I stopped and bought a couple of bananas and a bottle of orange juice. Don arrived shortly after me and Ron shortly after that. It was about 10:00 in the morning and we agreed that we would meet at the State Line resort for lunch. The ride continued to be good but the temperature was rising, however it wasn’t yet oppressive. As we approached the State Line resort it was very picturesque. We were in a wide sweeping valley with huge sunflower fields interspersed with hay fields that had the omnipresent large round bales scattered across them in random patterns. A farmer who was irrigating his corn field had set up so that the end spigot on the boom was throwing water onto the road. By this time it was very hot so it was a charge to ride through the down falling curtain of water. Ron said that when he was there some of the riders had turned around and had ridden back and forth through the spray many times.

When I got to the State Line resort I laid down in the shade of a tree and waited for Don and Ron to arrive. The resort only offered hamburgers, French fries, barbeques, water melon slices, and water and pop to drink. They appeared to be overwhelmed by all the bikers coming into their establishment. A friend had stopped by in the morning and was helping out the owners. When leaving Don and I saw a strange sight. An older biker standing over his bike in the drive way was smoking. When he saw us looking at him he said “Don’t tell anyone”, and then he winked. He only had a mild coughing attack as we were watching him. When we saw him later at supper he was puffing away. I also saw another sight that I couldn’t believe. A man was dressed in a long sleeved shirt and had black tights on. This was a day when the heat index eventually reached 112! The tights didn’t appear to be wet. All the other bikers were dressed in shorts and for the most part had light colored tops on. Even in shorts and a light colored tee shirt I was sweating up a storm.

Ron decided to sag from this point which proved to be a good choice. Don lasted until the Strasburg rest stop which was another ten miles down the road before sagging. He was still experiencing bouts of light headedness. Strasburg is the home town of Lawrence Welk but I didn’t take time to dance a champagne waltz. There was a beautiful, long downhill just before the rest stop that went straight down. I got up to thirty seven and one half mph and some people on road bikes exceeded forty five mph. The Strasburg rest stop was a good one. They had a variety of fruit and I had some green grapes and a juicy peach. Before Strasburg I again saw the farmer biker from Sioux Falls on one of the up hill sections. When he came up on me he slowed and rode along side of me for awhile. We chatted about genetic crops, herbicides, and land prices. I pulled off to the side of the road after a short distance to take a drink and he proceeded on. On another long up hill I could see him standing up and pumping away attacking the hill. Needless to say I had no desire to even attempt to keep up with him, I had learned my lesson the second day.

From the Strasburg rest stop the ride became brutal. It had become very hot and we had two very long steep up hill climbs, one coming just before the Bosch rest stop. I sat down at the top of the hill and immediately became covered with sweat. One biker saw me sitting there and came over and asked if I was all right. Many bikers chose to walk up this hill rather than ride. Our destination was Linton and we had to side track off route 1804 unto route 13 to get there. Oddly it was exactly thirteen miles from the intersection to Linton. This section of 13 had just been freshly tarred and gravel had been laid down over it. It was so hot that the tar was liquefying and one soon built up a layer of tar and pebbles on your tires. I could hear this scraping noise every once and awhile and finally realized that it was gravel hitting the fenders as the rocks were flung off the tires. One advantage of having fenders, the gravel wasn’t hitting me. I could see Linton from a distance of ten miles. It seemed to take forever to get there. I was thinking that it was like crossing a desert with a mirage floating along ahead on the horizon. When we got to Linton we had to ride another two miles to a park where we were camping. Upon entering the park entrance I checked my odometer and we had put in a 90.5 mile day.

After setting up my tent (Ron had gotten my bag for me) we waited for Don to arrive. We didn’t know if he had ridden or sagged but he finally showed up on the last sag wagon. After Don had his tent set up we got a shuttle to go into town to shower and eat. Neither Ron nor Don put their rain flies on their tents and I forgot to close up the door on my rain fly. We showered at the high school and since we were some of the last people to shower the water was almost as cold as it had been at Fort Yates. Again, however, because of the hot day it actually felt good. After showering we caught a shuttle for down town and ate at a restaurant called Sisters. The food was good solid Midwestern fare, our oldest son would have laughed because they had a least three different puddings at the salad bar. When we got out of the restaurant a storm had come up and the wind had shifted to the northwest. The rain cell wasn’t very big and we could see clear sky on its trailing edge. There were lightning flashes and the following thunder sounded just like the huge fire crackers that are shot up in the air at fire works displays. It would rumble and boom for a long time after the flash. When we got back to camp some bikers had put the rain flies on Ron’s and Don’s tents and had closed my rain fly flap. Again this was another example of CANDISC bikers watching out for one another. The rain brought cooler weather and the temperature was already cooling when we went to bed.

8/10/01

We are now in Washburn, the last camping night of the trip. Let us go back to the morning in Linton. Ron had gotten up at 4:00 and said that by that time the sky had cleared. When we got up at our usual time the wind was blowing hard from the northwest but seemed to be slackening. We ate breakfast in the park and they had pan cakes, juice, sausage, and coffee. The sausage was similar to bologna and would have been good with American fries and catsup. The temperature was considerably cooler then on previous mornings and most people had on wind jackets and tights or wind pants. I dressed in my usual tee shirt and shorts and it felt great to be cool for a change. I rode with Ron most of the way to the junction of 13 and 1804. Because of the temperature the tar had solidified and the pebbles didn’t stick to your tires. I stopped at a farmer’s drive way to take a drink. The farmer was talking with another biker. His dog had been chasing bikers as they passed by and he had made her go lay down in the lawn about twenty yards from the road. You could see her watching the people pass by with her ears perked up but she was being a good dog and no longer was chasing anyone. There was a sunflower field behind the farm and I asked the farmer if sun flowers were a good cash crop. He responded that it was. He was retired and stated that two young guys were buying up the whole county and becoming bigger and bigger. We soon arrived at the junction of 13 and 1804 and turned north, directly into the wind that was by now blowing about twenty mph with an occasional gust over thirty mph. Shortly after turning north we came to a series of three hills. The first was a very long, steep, double humped hill. The second was not as long and steep as the first but came right on its heels. By the third we had a short respite by having a short down hill but then we were right back climbing. Since these hills came back to back and we were riding into a wind they really sapped your energy by the time you crested the last one. By this time I had developed the habit of looking far ahead hoping to see that the road we would soon be traveling would be reasonably level. Fortunately, the road from this point on was fairly level but we were still constantly fighting the wind. We again were riding in the high country overlooking lake Oahe. About eight miles outside of Bismark I saw an eroded clay butte that looked like a giant haystack. Someone had built a house between the butte and a ridge that ran out from the road. The house was distracting from a scenic point of view but from the owner’s viewpoint it appeared to be an excellent choice for a home site. We entered Bismark by going down a long hill and I managed to go thirty mph even though I had to brake because of some other riders. Naturally we had to ride across Bismark to the northwest corner where we would be camping on a school ground. We were directed to set up our tents on the football field. I set up my tent in the end zone. Ron and Don arrived shortly after I did and Ron set up his tent by mine. Don was staying with his son Dave and family who coincidently were passing through Bismark the same time we were. Don had to rough it at the Holiday Inn. Dave was going to be doing a twenty mile foot race on Sunday in the mountains near Bozeman, Montana. Peter Lund, the son of a couple from our church, had set up his tent close to ours so he, Ron, and I walked to the Red Lobster to have supper. Shortly before we left for Red Lobster Ellen came over and asked me if I had ridden alone all day. I told her yes and she acted impressed because she had ridden in a pace line. She said that she was good with hills but couldn’t handle the wind. I think she was trying to make me feel good after burying me on the second day. We had a good meal at the Red Lobster and had a couple of brews. They even had Killians red instead of the pervasive light beer on tap. When we went to pay our check the manager came over and she said that I had been randomly selected to complete a telephone survey and would receive a free dessert for taking it. I told her that I didn’t have ready access to a phone (don’t ask my wife about calling, I had finally called her from a phone in the school, the cell phone I had taken along didn’t work) but she gave us a free dessert anyway and Peter also got a free beer. We had a banana foster which we shared. After returning to camp we crawled in our tents and were quickly asleep.

The next morning there was a heavy dew so we were back to rolling up our tents wet. We only had forty one miles to ride and it was cool and basically calm. This was the first morning that most of the bikers slept in until 5:00 or 5:30. We ate at a Perkins where the waitress appeared to be harried from having to wait on all the cyclists. We didn’t get started until about 8:30 and were some of the last riders to leave Bismark. This section of the Missouri was free flowing and instead of having the road up in the bluffs we rode along on the flood plain of the river. The overall country also became much flatter once we were on the north side of Bismark. About ten miles out we came to an ancient Mandan village site called the double ditch village. At one time it was estimated that 10,000 people lived here. The Indians had their first contact with Euro Americans in 1738. In 1783 a small pox epidemic occurred that reduced the village’s population from 10,000 to 1200 people. To ward off the disease the Indians dug two ditches/moats in front of their town. When Lewis and Clark arrived here the village had been abandoned and the people had moved up the river. Peter Lund and I walked around the site of the village and I took his picture overlooking the river. I took off shortly thereafter. As previously indicated the land became quite flat and it was possible to ride quite fast. At a rest stop about ten miles down the road I picked up a second glass bead necklace that they had been handing out to the riders. When I got the second the woman giving it to me said that I could get a third (at that time I had three grand daughters) by trading something I had for it. She said be creative and that I would think of something. We are now camped in a Christian youth park on the outskirts of Washburn. It’s quite pleasant sitting here writing in this journal. I’m sitting in a camp chair of the farmer from Sioux Falls using his wife’s pen to write in this journal. I have to make a comment about the farmer. He doesn’t fit my stereotype of an agrarian person. He has a pony tail and dresses like a European biker. He is also into exercising on a bike rather then driving an all terrain vehicle. That just doesn’t fit with my image of a farmer. When he went to bed (his tent was right next to ours) his wife asked him if she should make up his bed. When Ron overheard this he asked if she could come to Minnesota and train his wife.

8/12/01

I’m now writing in this journal at home. We left Garrison at about noon and I got home about 11:00 after dropping Ron and Don off. Let us go back to our night in Washburn. I finally decided to have a massage. Two gals who offered massages had been traveling with the ride. We had some time before the group picture so I signed up for a fifteen minute work over. The massage girl’s name was Cricket (at least that is what everyone who knew her called her) and she gave me a great rubdown. She said that the muscles in my back were pretty tight and she loosened them up for me.

Don started visiting with a woman in camp named Chris who was from the Fargo area. She was married with two boys but was doing CANDISC on her own. She had had a problem with heat exhaustion and so she and Don were commiserating and comparing symptoms. She and her husband had started a business in 1993 with $1300 and his tools and the business has grown dramatically. You could tell that she was proud of hers and her husband’s accomplishments.

We left camp shortly after my massage and were shuttled to the high school athletic field for the group picture. I offered my blue kerchief to Marilyn for the third glass bead necklace and she accepted. I now had one each for my three grand daughters. (I now have four grand daughters; Sophia was born on August 26th.)

After the picture taking a few of us went down to the Lewis and Clark bar to tip a few brews. It was happy hour and you were handed folded slips of paper that corresponded to the number of drinks you ordered. On the slips of paper was written either full, half, quarter, or free. Naturally I lucked out and got three full slips which apparently is hard to do. When Don bought his round he only paid full price for one of the beers.

After leaving this historic pub we took a shuttle back to camp. Some of the town’s people were hosting a Swiss steak supper. They had steak, baked potatoes, corn on the cob, various salads, and a wide selection of homemade desserts, lemonade and coffee all for $6.50. After eating we started talking politics and Ellen came over and joined us. For an hour we discussed political and societal topics. You could tell she was really enjoying the conversation and she told us that she should have hung around us more. After supper I shared the balsamic vinegar recipe for venison with one of the cooks. She was going to try it with buffalo.

The next morning we ate breakfast in camp which consisted of pan cakes, scrambled eggs, sausage, juice, and coffee. The sausage again was cut up hunks of bologna, may be they don’t know about breakfast sausage in ND. After breakfast we agreed that I would ride to Fort Stevenson Park to pick up our luggage and Don and Ron would meet me in Garrison. There was a slight tailing wind and we rode up highway 83 so we really could ride fast. I arrived in Garrison in about two and one quarter hours. I finally was hydrated enough so that I had to stop three times on the way there. This was an unusual experience for me on this CANDISC ride. I rode south three miles to the park, loaded my bike on the car, located our luggage, loaded it, and headed back for Garrison. One note about luggage, some people used suburban garbage cans. This was pretty neat, they are rain proof, could hold a lot, and could be wheeled over to the trucks in the morning.

As I was leaving the park I waved at the incoming riders and spotted a rider on a recumbent. To my surprise it was Don! Luckily I recognized him and drove into a farmers drive way waiting for him to come back to the car. We loaded his bike on the car; all the while he kept insisting that we had all agreed to meet at Fort Stevenson Park. Earlier Ron and I had discussed pinning a written note on him to make sure that he met us at the park in Garrison. Don talked me into driving back to the park to shower. Even though it was cold I have to admit it still felt good. In the shower building we also saw Peter Lund.

We drove back to Garrison to enjoy the spaghetti feed. Don went across the street from the park and bought a six pack of beer. We sat in the park eating spaghetti and drinking beer. Many people were taking pictures, exchanging addresses, and saying farewell to newly made friends. Ellen came over and said good by and exchanged addresses with us. Shortly thereafter we got in the car and headed back to Minnesota. The 2001 CANDISC ride was over.

What does CANDISC mean to me? Long climbs, awesome descents, sweeping curves, head winds, supportive, focused, tough riders, scenic views, buttes, round hay bales, sun flower fields, wide open prairies, manmade patterns, eroded river banks, coolies, a broiling sun, heat index, sweating, early risers, early to bed, star studded skies, cold showers, North Dakota nice, friendly people, honking cars, waving people, distant towns, Indian ghosts, Sakakawea country, Lewis and Clark, the mighty but tamed Missouri, sparse population, North Dakota, a full filling journey.

Louie Winslow