DEVIL'S LAKE
We're in Devil's Lake ND now, glad to be out of the road construction and out from under the mounting storm clouds. It's 60 miles from Rugby to this spot, and there's not a lot to say about the ride unless a person wants to talk about wheat. And bad weather. Devil's Lake has some folklore attached to it, involving a war party of Sioux, some Chippewa campers, a lake crossing in a boat weighed down with scalps, bad weather, a forlorn maiden and what might best be described as some "bad feelings". I haven't seen the actual lake yet, I think we cross it by bridge tomorrow. For a long time, the Native Americans would not return to the Lake, or cross it---but they changed their minds with the building of the bridge in the late 1800s.
Meanwhile, we are on the trail of some elusive cyclists! For days, or maybe weeks, we've been hearing about "2 girls" who are riding cross country and are *just* ahead of us. This morning, we were at a rest stop and a motorist pulled in to say that he had left Devils Lake and met the two girls who were on their way out of town. When we arrived here, people told us that the "other" girlz had just hit the road. Will we ever catch them? That remains to be seen! We haven't seen a cyclist in about a week---I saw my first cross country East to West guy just as he was leaving the teepee where he spent the night. I wish I had known about that teepee, it looked like a super cool place to take shelter! I still feel like there are a bunch of cyclists on the route, even though I'm not seeing them in either direction---I'm hearing about them everywhere I stop! I like the feeling of being a thread in this big web of travelers, even though we aren't actually seeing each other, I know we're looking out for each other.
I do know from the cyclists I've met on the road that everybody does this thing differently---we're all on different kinds of bikes, with different packs and itineraries. There are huge differences in gear, in outlook, in goals. Some guys are going over a hundred miles a day, some are going slower. Some people have an incredible amount of high tech gear on board---I met two guys in Havre who had a bunch of intriguing things on their bars, and so I was asking "hey! What's that?" and it was a GPS thing so they would know where they were, or maybe so someone else would know where they were. I use my maps to tell me where I am, and I use the blog to tell everybody else where I am. They also had this gadget that tells them about incline---like when they're going up hill. I kind of use my brain, and it lets me know when I'm going up hill. If it's not working right, I can usually stop pedaling and find out real fast! Like we said growing up in Texas, there's more than one way to skin a cat!!!
We'll start heading south towards Fargo tomorrow--unless the weather is as bad as they are predicting, and then we'll hang out here and cool the jets.
Meanwhile, we are on the trail of some elusive cyclists! For days, or maybe weeks, we've been hearing about "2 girls" who are riding cross country and are *just* ahead of us. This morning, we were at a rest stop and a motorist pulled in to say that he had left Devils Lake and met the two girls who were on their way out of town. When we arrived here, people told us that the "other" girlz had just hit the road. Will we ever catch them? That remains to be seen! We haven't seen a cyclist in about a week---I saw my first cross country East to West guy just as he was leaving the teepee where he spent the night. I wish I had known about that teepee, it looked like a super cool place to take shelter! I still feel like there are a bunch of cyclists on the route, even though I'm not seeing them in either direction---I'm hearing about them everywhere I stop! I like the feeling of being a thread in this big web of travelers, even though we aren't actually seeing each other, I know we're looking out for each other.
I do know from the cyclists I've met on the road that everybody does this thing differently---we're all on different kinds of bikes, with different packs and itineraries. There are huge differences in gear, in outlook, in goals. Some guys are going over a hundred miles a day, some are going slower. Some people have an incredible amount of high tech gear on board---I met two guys in Havre who had a bunch of intriguing things on their bars, and so I was asking "hey! What's that?" and it was a GPS thing so they would know where they were, or maybe so someone else would know where they were. I use my maps to tell me where I am, and I use the blog to tell everybody else where I am. They also had this gadget that tells them about incline---like when they're going up hill. I kind of use my brain, and it lets me know when I'm going up hill. If it's not working right, I can usually stop pedaling and find out real fast! Like we said growing up in Texas, there's more than one way to skin a cat!!!
We'll start heading south towards Fargo tomorrow--unless the weather is as bad as they are predicting, and then we'll hang out here and cool the jets.
posted by Laurel @ 5:16 PM
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