54.4 miles/ +1003.9 ft/ Total miles 2213.3/ Flat tire: 1 (total flats 4)
I crossed the Red River into North Dakota this afternoon. But first, Minnesota threw some curves: road construction!
Shortly after I left Pelican Rapids, I turned onto a County highway with the dreaded “Road Work Ahead” sign. When I got up to the flagger, I asked what was going on, as the long-bed sand and gravel trucks whizzed by in both directions.
She said that the first mile of the one-lane road was paved and the remaining 2 miles were grooved pavement with sand and gravel. Even though they were flagging regular traffic through in one direction at a time, the trucks were driving up to and back from the work area, regardless of vehicles being sent through the one-lane section, with no pilot car. The flaggers were using cell phones to communicate because the company did not give them radios (probably wouldn’t work over the 3-mile distance).
This looked to me like a recipe for disaster. So I asked her to stop the next pickup or SUV and ask if they would take me and my bike across the work area. There wasn’t much traffic but within a few minutes a SUV pulled up and the driver said they could take me. It was easy to fit the bike and bags in the back of the vehicle, and off we went on the adventure ride of Minnesota’s version of traffic control. Trucks coming straight at you and then pulling off to the work area at the last possible second. Multiple times. Somehow we got to the end of their work area, and I got back on my bike.
Not too far down the road, I came to another Road Closed sign. This time, when I got to the work area, they said they were working on utilities and I could get through OK on the gravel road. So I rode through about 3 miles of their work before I got back on pavement. No more road construction until I got to Fargo, where I made my way through a couple of detours to get to the center, where the bike shop is located in the old train station.
As I got closer to the Red River, I lost some elevation, and came down to the very flat Red River valley (glacial Lake Agassiz basin), as was pointed out in the comments a few days ago. Note the clouds: somehow all the rain showers missed me.
I decided to take a day off here in Fargo. I will make a final trip to the Post Office, to send back items that have not gotten much use, including my backpacking stove. I’d rather eat gas station food for breakfast than make my own, so I’m sure I will manage fine without it. Now that I am heading into “the west” I feel like I need to lighten the load as much as possible. There will be some long-mile days, there will be a lot of wind, and there are long stretches between towns with food. So it will be (slightly) easier with less weight on the bike.
Sneaker art along the county highway:
Elevation profile for today shows the big drop to Red River valley. Fargo is at about 950 ft – quite a drop from Minnesota. Now I have to gain it back – and then some.
Judy's Bike Ride 2017 
Excellent choice for a day off. Fargo is very cool by midwest standards. See the art Deco theater and various good eateries nearby. Fargo – the movie – was actually filmed over toward Brainerd, but the famous “wood chipper” is in the visitors center out on I-94, signed by the Cohen Bros. If you took your photo of the straight, flat, RR tracks – added snow drifts and and a barbed wire fence it would be a great place to bury the “stash”.
I will miss seeing the wood chipper since I will be heading out of town early on Friday. Too bad.
A few days more you will cross the 100th Meridian, John Wesley Powell’s surviving demarcation between the “moist” eastern U.S. and the arid west, between dry land farming and irrigated agriculture. A stunning achievement Judy to have ridden this far!
A bit west of Enderlin, Marion offers a nice cafe — good lunch stop if you are riding Enderlin to Gackle. There is a bee guy in Gackle who has a spot for bike tourers in the back of his house. Napoleon is a nice town with a cafe; I recall camping at the town park and striking up a great conversation with the 90-year-old German/Russian immigrant farmers there. That is right about where you cross the 100th meridian. As Bob noted, this is the traditional beginning of “The West.” Welcome home. — Dave
So impressive that you are in North Dakota, and over 2000 miles from Boston! I flew back from west to east last Saturday and thought of you. It’s still weird to me that I can get in an aluminum tube and be somewhere completely different in a few hours. You got to where you are now on your own power and know every detail of the way. I hope the long stretch in North Dakota is another day with a tailwind.
Love the sneaker art!
Scary! May want to go south away from the Baaken Oil Shale gold rush boom zone!
Adventure Cycling already thought of that. I will head south to Enderlin and then head west parallel to I-94 (and sometimes on it) to avoid oil shale truck traffic. After Dickinson ND I will head NW and connect to US 2, parallel to the Great Northern (BNSF/Empire Builder) tracks across Montana.