Day Two - Lodi, Wi to Bismarck, ND

Presently (in body, but not in mind): Bismarck, North Dakota
Miles traveled today: 685 (holy crap!)


SORRY FOLKS, I'm too wiped out to load photos tonight. They'll have to wait until tomorrow!


Where do I begin? To start with, my watch says 11:30pm but it's only really 10:30pm here. Yikes, it's still light out!

Waiting for the Bismarck fireworks to start, I can't miss that, no matter how tired I am!



What a day! It was filled with contradictions:

First, the weather - started off quite warm in Lodi at 6:40am when I left the hotel, but two hours later the rains came. Then no sooner did I hit St. Paul (and the worst of the rain just before that) and the sun came out, just as happy as you can be!

Second, my attitude - After getting rained on for most of the morning, I wasn't a very happy camper. I started the day with a great conversation with Kane, the overnight clerk at the hotel in Lodi. I was feeling good. The contradiction? About 2 hours later I was in no mood to talk to anyone. I just wanted my fuel, my Monsters and water and dryness! Luckily, I perked up and lost my grumpy Gus attitude once the sun came out and I was back to spreading the word about the CCFA and my mission.

Then, my fuel consumption - I panicked (so what else is new) when I started sputtering around 104 miles. I figured I had left a full tank in the sun too long and evaporation had done it's thing. Then on the next fuel load, I sputtered at 94 miles. Something HAD to be wrong! How could I be going through that much fuel? I should get at least 120 miles before needing to hit reserve! The contradiction? I called good ol' Matt and he talked me down from the ledge. he reminded me that I was dealing with lots of headwind and cross wind and I was traveling at higher than normal speeds for long periods (I was doing around 80 most of the day, probably averaging 77mph (hey, I was keeping up with traffic!). That, plus he reminded me that I was carrying essentially another person when you take into account all my gear.
So the contradiction was me in full fledged panic and Matt, ever the voice of reason. Hmm, seems to be a recurring theme here. I'm always the unreasonable one and someone else always seems to be the reasonable one.
Thanks Matt, you're a life saver -- and a trip saver! I probably would have seriously considered re-routing without your calming words.

Another contradiction - Midwest features and North Dakota. I'm not about to disparage the state that I'm currently in, but I gotta tell you: whoever started the joke about Kansas being boring had never been to North Dakota. Mile after mile of NOTHING. The next time you offer to get someone something and ask what they need, and they answer "nothing", send them to North Dakota. They will have more NOTHING than they can handle. The contradiction here is Bismarck itself. You come up over a small hill of nothing and BAM! There's Bismarck it all it's trailer park glory (the first buildings you see are in the form of a huge trailer park on the east edge of town.

Met some really nice folks in North Dakota, and they can't be blamed for the lack of scenery. Heck, even the Hardees next door to my hotel let me in the door at 4 minutes til closing so I could grab some grub. I got it 'to go'.

I'll fill you in on the rest of today later. I am just beat.
Got the bike cleaned up and while I was doing so, I was talking to two good bikers that had parked next to me in the hotel parking lot. We started jawing and it turns out that Murray (a Canadien) and Gary had traveled much the same route I had. They left from Janesville, Wisconsin the night before. It was also their second day of their journey to Edmonton. Guess where they are from? C'mon, guess!
You aren't going to believe this - Kokomo, Indiana! I travel 1,035 miles to park next to two guys from about 90 minutes from Fort Wayne!

Pictures tomorrow, I promise!