G.A.S.P.

(Great Adventures to Scenic Places)

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June 12, 1999

Click on thumbnails to see full photographs	Since I started the day in Hillsboro instead of Mayville, I knew I was going to have trouble making my destination of Carrington the next day. Fortunately, someone told me there was a town park in Glenfield and that I could probably camp there. That’s what I ended up doing – free camping, but no shower. This was my first full day in North Dakota, and I found it to be a good place to visit. The people are friendly – I swear that someone in at least every other vehicle waves at me. It was so extreme that I checked a couple of times to make sure that I had my pants on. I passed through the towns of Hillsboro, Mayville, Finley and Cooperstown and took a few minutes to explore each. They’re towns of 1000 – 2000 people and seem like they would be pleasant places to live. I loved the beautiful farmland of eastern North Dakota. This is a land of big time farms – hundreds of acres at a crack, huge tractors and other machinery, big old farm houses with lots of modern out buildings. Primary crops are wheat, barley, corn, sugar beets and sunflowers. I did have one scary moment when I encountered one of the dreaded North Dakota International Bike Harvesters along the road. Fortunately, he was ahead of me instead of behind, so I lived to tell the story and capture it on a photo.

I saw many birds of a variety I have not previously encountered. They seem to be related to redwing blackbirds in terms of size and habitat, but they are dark brown with gold heads and white marks on the tops of their wings. Maybe Mom will have to get her bird book out to find out what these are.

Just west of Cooperstown, I encountered two touring cyclists – the first I had seen since near Ely, Minnesota. They were going from Glaciers NP to Fargo, ND – this year’s segment of a cross-country journey that will take a couple of weeks for each of about four years. Last year they had gone from Seattle to Glacier.

June 12 is a day to remember. It was sunny and reasonably warm most of the day, which should make for fine riding, but there was a very stiff breeze coming straight out of the west all day. It took me the whole morning to go from Glenfield to Carrington – a distance of only 26 miles. I was nearly exhausted and thought seriously enough of quitting for the day to check the availability of a place to stay. There are two motels in town and both were booked as of 1:00pm. I have to think this is a very unusual occurrence, but it seems there was both a large wedding and a reunion in town this day. The town campground wasn’t anything great, so I sucked it up and opted to head west around 2:30. I planned to stop at either Bowden or Hurdsfield, both of which have town parks. The wind never got better, but at last I reached Hurdsfield (about 25 miles short of where I should have been) at 8:50, just 10 minutes before the Dairy King closed. Large milkshake – great.

Click on thumbnail to see full photograph

On the way into town, there are a number of pleasing small lakes on both sides of the road. In some of them were large white birds, which I sort of assumed to be cranes of some kind. However, two people in town told me they are pelicans. I find this somewhat hard to believe, but admit they do look a lot like pelicans. Need some help here – is there a variety of pelican that spends its summers in North Dakota? More free camping in the town park, another evening without a shower (2 is my limit, so something has to change tomorrow).