Have Some Medora, M'Dear

What happens when you mix together three teenaged boys who decide they would rather start later in the morning, a tight schedule that has a tough 70 mile day scheduled, and two adult chaperones who tend to wake up anywhere from 4:30 am (first light) to about 6:00 am? The adults get extra votes due to seniority, and the ride starts at 8:00 am in spite of the evening rock climbing activities, and in spite of their failing to adequately douse the fire pit before going to bed, which ended up with Pat falling asleep in a chair beside the fire pit at around 3:30 am to make sure we didn’t light Montana afire before we left. 

The morning ride had a couple of changes from our routine. First, we rode for about 20 miles total on the freeway! No frontage roads existed, the freeway traffic was light, and the shoulders were wide. If it weren’t for the strong headwinds, it would have been a quick and easy day’s ride. The second change was that I complained that the boys were sometimes riding a bit faster than necessary, making me burn out my legs trying to keep up with them. As a result, they decided to let me lead all day. It would have been a nice gesture, if not for the aforementioned winds. It was like trying to ride towards Hawaii Kai along the Kalanianaole Highway when the trade winds are kicking up to about 20 miles an hour, and nobody else volunteering to buffer the wind for a few minutes.

Regardless of the wind and the freeway, it was a gorgeous ride. We crossed the border into North Dakota, and had lunch in the town of Beach. We then followed an obscure road out of Beach that paralleled the freeway. The following picture was taken by our support driver, Pat Wollner, who stopped at the top of a "hill" to look back and see if we were coming. 

With a magnifying glass, you might be able to spot us a couple of miles back, somewhere closer to the Montana border!

What started out as a pretty boring road soon turned into a ride through the paradise of the largest of America's National Grasslands (the prairie version of a National Forest), ending at the small town of Medora, at the entrance to the Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We are camping in TR National Park for the next two nights. (Since I won’t get this blog posted until tomorrow sometime, we will be camping in the park for just one more night). Our way back to camp was blocked (momentarily) by a rather large bison … a lot bigger than the cow elk that charged in my direction in Gearhart, Oregon, a few weeks back.

So it’s a day off from riding. Pat’s going to take a day off from support responsibilities. 

And the boys will doubtless find some way to exhaust themselves prior to getting back onto the road on Saturday morning with a 90 mile ride. The grasslands and the bison may be beautiful, but we’ve already had plenty of endless fields of grain and purple mountains’ majesty. For the next few days after our day off, we will ride hard until we get to new countryside. Or maybe North Dakota will surprise us!

Friday, July 10 – Medora, North Dakota

The Theodore Roosevelt National Park is definitely the place where “the buffalo roam.” Got up at around 6:00 am this morning, and a few minutes later, Pat got up and said, “Look! A buffalo!” We had two campsites, and there was a huge buffalo just wandering past the boys’ campsite. By the time I got my cell phone fired up, he was a couple of hundred feet away, chomping grass on his way to the Little Missouri River. 

After breakfast, we did a drive around the 36 mile loop road in the park. Lots of grassy valleys and interesting “badland” rock formations, but nary another buffalo in sight. 

TR started the National Park Service during his time as President, and it was the grasslands and badlands around Medora that inspired him to do so. Everywhere you look in town, there are movies, plays, statues of TR. There is also a North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame, so maybe I’ll go over there later to see if there’s anything of interest.

All summer long, every evening, there is a presentation of “Medora, the Musical.” We are giving into temptation, and will be in attendance at this evening’s performance. Whoopee ti yi yay, or however you spell it. I’ve heard second hand that it’s actually pretty good, so looking forward to an evening of live entertainment. Hopefully the musical is not too long, since we have to be on the road early tomorrow, with a 90-mile day ahead of us.