Week 41b - Across North Dakota

NOTE: This week is broken into multiple parts on account of having too much material for one post. The week starts here.

Leaving Lac Qui Parle in the early morning, I rode into Big Stone County, passed by what I believe was the big stone, and arrived in Ortonville, a little old town on the steep banks of Big Stone Lake. I stopped at the post office to mail my wood stove home; it was starting to feel like a waste of space for several reasons, not least the unusually hot weather that continued to hang over the Midwest. The staff were very friendly as I tried out various creative ways to fit all the parts into a flat-rate box, padded by some clothing items I didn't need. I stopped at the hardware store to buy fuel alcohol, and it was one of those old-fashioned places that sell all kinds of stuff: furniture downstairs, housewares, an aisle of board games. Resisting the urge to browse through this time capsule of a store, I got back on the bike, and since the only breakfast option in town was at the bowling alley, I decided to press on and see what I came across. The road wound along a bluff with views out over the lake and bent north up to Beardsley, where I stopped at a place called Betty Jo's for breakfast. As well as being a restaurant and catering weddings, it seemed to serve as a defacto community center; a business meeting for some local organization proceeded quietly in one of the rooms. After getting some foil to pack the leftovers from the huge portion of hash browns, the owner asked if I was riding a pedal bike. "If I was riding a pedal bike," I said, "there
wouldn't be any leftovers."

From there it was just a few miles before I crossed the Minnesota River into North Dakota. In the distance I could see the bluffs rising on the other side of the James River, but otherwise the land was gently rolling and fairly featureless grassland. And yet... there was something captivating about it. This was the Prairie Pothole Region, where glaciers carved out countless ponds and lakes and heaped up the spoil into hills. I realized then why the prairie is so much prettier than cultivated fields: it's because the fields have only one shade of fertilizer-enhanced dark green, while the grasslands have many shades. Swathes of greens, yellows, and browns surrounded still waters that reflected the metallic blue of the sky. The papery smell of rotting marsh grasses hung in the air like the smoke of a just-lit cigar. A crop duster seemed to be playing as it hovered and turned for another pass over the field. I entered Sheyenne National Grasslands, where I planned to spend the night, drove down many miles of dirt roads, and found the entrance to the area I'd chosen on the map.

Without GPS and a good map I would certainly have missed the overgrown dirt track. There was a primitive gate across it that consisted of several strands of barbed wire nailed to wooden uprights, and secured to the fence-posts on either side with loops of wire at the top and bottom. I figured out how to open it, rode through, and closed it behind me, which required a substantial amount of stretching and pulling. The road on the other side was very rough, and got even rougher as I headed farther into public lands. Deep ruts and sandy patches tried to throw me, but my practice riding on sand in Florida paid off and I stayed upright. I passed an old windmill-powered pump, the mechanism stopped with rust and the cattle trough below it filled with nothing but sand and dry weeds. I passed what was left of a coyote's carcass, just some desiccated skin, a few bones, and a bushy tail. It felt like such a wild place, and as I worked my way deeper into it, I began to feel a little uneasy at the remoteness of my position. But after a while the track joined a wide and well-graded gravel road, though the one I'd been on was marked exactly the same on the map. With the easier riding, I could take in more of the scenery. This was the only area of native tallgrass prairie under USDA protection, though unfortunately it was too early in the year for the grass to be "hat high" as they say. Nonetheless, the grassy hills were very pretty, dotted with oaks spreading over pools of deep shade, and bordered by larger groves that filled the low places where the water was closer to the surface. But above ground, everything was so dry! When I got off to scout campsites, the sun beat down and the grass crackled underfoot.

I reached the place I'd picked out to camp for the week, and there was a white truck parked there, which appeared to be empty. I figured it might be someone out walking on the nearby North Country Scenic Trail, and that they might give me some local knowledge when they came back. I picked out a spot, rode Punkin to it, and started to set up camp. As I was clearing away a mostly-dried cow turd, I heard a voice from the truck: "What the fuck are you looking at, asshole?" I still couldn't see anyone inside. "Are you talking to me?" I replied. "Yeah I'm talking to you, you little Twitter bitch," said the voice. "I'm not on Twitter," I protested. "Yeah you are, you little bitch," said the voice. I thought introducing myself might help: "Hi, my name's J." "Fuck you!" said the voice. "Uh, I was just going to camp here," I said. "Fuck off, find somewhere else." Yeah, that did seem like a good idea, and luckily I hadn't unpacked much yet. As I was about to leave, I thought about what Peace Pilgrim would do in a that kind of situation and decided to try one last thing. "Are you okay?" I called out. "Fuck you," said the voice. "Well I hope things get better for you," I said as I started the engine and rode off, followed by a continued stream of abuse along similar lines. I felt a bit shaken as I rode with no destination in mind. I could see that the man was in a very painful place, and I wanted to have been able to help him. But at the same time, I knew why I couldn't, because the fear I'd felt had prevented me from being fully open and loving. My offer of help had come from the right place in my head, but not in my heart. Maybe you'll think I'm crazy and the best possible move was to get away, because the retired mob chauffeur back in Beaufort was right about guys in white trucks being dangerous. But I still wanted to have been able to handle it in a less fearful and more loving way. It got me thinking.

But hey, with over 70,000 acres to camp on, there was certainly room for any number of people to be alone. As I put miles between me and that guy, my nerves started to settle. I didn't like the extreme dryness and decided instead to explore campsites along the Sheyenne River. I found one small canoe access that looked good, but decided to check out another before deciding, so I went up to Mirror Pool to see if it might be better. On the way, I tried a shortcut across the prairie, which didn't pan out but was a whole lot of fun. Mirror Pool didn't look like a good place to camp. There was a dirt parking lot, and on the edge of it a sign forbidding target shooting, which was barely readable because of all the bullet holes in it. The only other sign of life there was a beat up burgundy sedan, the trunk tied closed with string, the windows open, clothes across the back seat, and a phone with a cracked screen charging on the console. Something about it made my heart reach out to this poor and trusting person, and on an impulse I decided to leave them an envelope with $1000 in it that I'd been carrying to distribute to those in need. On the envelope I wrote: "You can probably use this better than me. Safe travels! You are loved." And that cleared away all my remaining disturbance about the guy in the white truck. Then I headed back to the canoe access, made camp, filtered water from the river, and cooked a big pot of sweet potato stew. Much later when darkness fell, fireflies drifted by, some yellow-green and some a rich amber.

I'd been planning to stay put for the rest of the week, but I changed my mind and decided to continue west. I found that at least for me, born and raised in the forest, the prairie was a fine place to travel through but less comfortable to stay in. I would see a fine shady tree in the distance that looked like a perfect place to stop, but when I got there it would be somehow unfulfilling. The view of the tree was more compelling than the view from the tree, and so the landscape held a kind of restless energy for me. So after a peaceful night, I packed up and headed west. In North Dakota, there are only a few places to cross the Missouri River, and I decided to aim for the one that was least out of my way, which was the bridge at Bismarck, right in the middle of the state. I passed through fields of canola in bright yellow bloom. A dry cold front sweeping in brought a lot of wind, with gusts near 35 miles per hour. But I'd learned my lesson in Minnesota, and packed all the heaviest items as low as I could, so Punkin was a lot more stable, and I'd picked up a few skills as well. I felt the air as a such a strong and palpable element, with variations in temperature, speed, and direction, and the draft of passing trucks sucking me back or pushing me along. Once I stopped to switch over to my reserve fuel supply, noticed a historical marker sign, and decided to see what it pointed to. It turned out to be Standing Rock Hill, a hilltop about a half mile off the paved road topped with a pointed stone protruding four feet out of the top of it. From up there you could see for miles around, and the place had understandably been a sacred place for the indigenous people of the area. Some offerings of stones and bones had been left at the base of the rock, and I sat there for a while feeling the quality of the place, waiting for spiritual inspiration, and singing a little.

Back on 46, I passed several touring bicyclists going east, and one woman on a recumbent tricycle with a sun shade and a little trailer. We exchanged waves and big smiles. I crossed the continental divide, which in that area was so gentle I would have missed it without the sign. Ripples of wind passed over the grass on lush fields that reminded me of parts of Ireland. I was finding North Dakota a very pleasant place to ride. The sparse population meant there were few cars on the road, and people didn't seem annoyed about passing me, maybe because they were so used to passing agricultural equipment. Heck, even I was passing agricultural equipment. And when they passed they always gave plenty of room, because after all there was lots to go around. On one long stretch between towns I nearly ran out of gas, and only made it by slowing way down to conserve fuel. Lesson learned: out here it was wise to refill more often instead of waiting until I got low to look for a gas station. Another thing I like about North Dakota is they have over 200 Wildlife Management Areas, and nearly all of them allow free camping any place except on the road or trail. It was at one of these WMAs that I stopped for the night, called MacLean Bottoms and just south of Bismarck on the Missouri River. I camped right on the bank under a big cottonwood tree.

On Wednesday morning it was still very windy. I rode to the health food store in town and got there just as it opened to buy some fresh vegetables and replenish my kefir supply. In this area I was starting to see a few pointy outcroppings and buttes, one right next to someone's house but three times larger. But after I got out of the Missouri basin these petered out and it was back to hill country. Then the road turned to dirt, lined with field bindweed flowering pink and white, and surrounded by conical mounds of rock. I saw my first tumbleweed bouncing across the road. I stopped at a diner in Dickinson for lunch, and as soon as I sat down the man behind the counter served me a taste of cream-of-cabbage soup, which was delicious. He asked where I was coming from and I told him North Carolina. He wanted to know what the winters were like there. "Not as cold as here..." I said, and he interjected, "hell, nowhere is!" "...but a lot wetter," I finished. "I wintered down in Texas a few times," he said, "and with that humidity, shoot, thirty above was actually cold! Here you don't need a jacket at thirty above if the wind's not blowing, even ten above if the sun's shining." I enjoyed how he qualified his temperatures with "above" which we don't do where I'm from because there's no ambiguity about which side of zero we mean.

Over the past few days I'd noticed my engine was misfiring more and more, and at some point I stopped to take a look and found that the spark plug was thoroughly blackened and the electrode worn to almost nothing. But replacing it with a new one didn't completely fix the problem, so I'd need to do some more diagnosis once I stopped. The road turned to dirt again, snaking into proper badlands, and I scared up a herd of cows, sending them all running. Then I entered the little old cattle town of Medora and a few miles north of there reached my destination at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I payed the $25 entrance fee and rode the last six miles along the scenic drive to the campground, climbing up and down through steep bluffs overlooking stretches of prairie with grazing bison. Yes, I could have stayed for free in the Little Missouri National Grassland which surrounds the park, but first, I felt ready for some human company, and second, the campground was called The Cottonwood Campground, and having recently fallen in love with cottonwood trees, I just couldn't resist.

Things I Learned

• Gas stations in North Dakota are more like miniature truck stops, in that they provide all kinds of things you might need, not just snacks and drinks. I guess there just aren't many other kinds of stores around out there. The stations also seem like time capsules, often with ancient gas pumps labeled "unleaded", as if leaded gasoline hadn't been phased out 25 years ago.
• Standing Rock Hill was formed by a thrust moraine, where liquid groundwater was so pressurized by the glacier that it burst up through the top layer of rock and pushed a chunk of it into a more vertical position. From the top of the hill you could look out and see the pond that formed in the hole that the water punched out.

Wonderful Things

• An old man and a boy digging for fossils in a cliff face by the side of the road.
• The cottonwood tree! I'd read about them in books, but it was more wonderful than I imagined to be in the presence of one. First, they look very majestic rising above the grass, often with several limbs damaged by lighting but none the worse for it. Then, there's the sound of the leaves: in a gentle breeze it's like the very beginning of a rainstorm, in a moderate wind it's like a babbling brook, and in a strong wind it's like the ocean. And last but not least, when the fluffy seeds drift slowly down and glow in the evening light, they create a magical sense of space. What a tree.