Day 29 Plan B

After a slightly late breakfast, we mounted our trusty steeds and wound our way out of Bismarck. The roads leading into town were busy with all sorts of vehicles. Fortunately, we were going in the opposite direction. Not to worry anyway because we were off main roads. The bad news is the wind, road conditions and terrain were not in our favor.
While the terrain was slightly hilly, there seemed to be more up than down. 20 miles into the ride, Bill's Garmin said we'd only climbed 350 feet! We all knew that was not an accumulation but a point of how much altitude we had gained. I know. Gaining altitude in ND seems like an oxymoron. I'm not so sure about the rest of this nice state, but it isn't all flat. It has a robust amount of hills for sure. Probably making the climbs worse was the wind.
The winds were pretty consistent throughout the day. Coming out of the SSE 10 to 15mph. Not horrible just pesky. Peddle up. Peddle down. That's the annoying part. You're supposed to be able to let gravity help you out. But when the slopes aren't so great, peddle you must. Sigh. Then there was the run towards Moffitt.
Nothing brings traffic into town but a post office. Even the road we took was uninviting. That's because of it's surface. Ok we've been there before in other places. Rough like a corncob. Lots of cracks across the road making it a steady, bump, bump, bump every 10 to 20 yards or so.
So we have corncobs, cracks and wind. Actually, I'm not trying to whine or complain, although I'm good at it. I'm simply trying to paint you a picture of our day. How bad can it be!? We're survived most of it.
Once we got off that joyful stretch of road, we turned directly into the wind for a while. Hills and all. Because the route zigs and zags a bit, the wind gets to have its way with us at varying angles. For 13 miles we climbed and dipped on rt 83 into the wind until we reached  Hazelton. We had been 45 physical miles. Our intended destination was Napoleon. 29 miles away. If we stayed there, that would leave us with 32 miles tomorrow to reach Gackie.
Gackie is an important starting point because after that, a 74 mile stretch of no services (food, water, you get the idea). That distance is a good day's work. So Hazelton it is! We found the municipal park campground. It doesn't stack up to the last one but it does have a bathroom and shower. A picnic shelter is open to us as well. $12 a tent.
Weather is warming up the next few days into the 90s, but NOTHING like southeast VA heat. It's pretty dry here. Makes a difference. My shirt freshly laundered in the shower is hanging along with my riding shorts and towel. Should be dry in a jiffy.
Oh crap! I forgot to add what's probably the highlight of our day. When we made our turn on to the rough road we saw a truck turn in behind us heading our way. It was just a septic waste truck. As it passed, we broke out laughing! The name of the company emblazoned on the side? Turd Burglar. I can say nothing more after that.
Today 45 miles
3 hours and 56 minutes riding
11.4 mph avg
26.3 max

Thanks for reading.
Cheers!
Kim