US#2 This has been a good road. It apparently has been greatly improved since the description in “Blue Highways” (copyright 1982) by William Least Heat Moon. He states: “Montanans call U.S. 2, paralleling the Canadian border all the way to Lake Huron, the High-line. The most desolate of the great east-west routes, it was two lanes of patched, broken, rutted, mind-numbing pavement running from horizon to horizon over the land of god-awful distance.” The road is now in good condition, smooth and straight. It is still a long road that stretches to the horizon. In [View Full Entry]

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Obfuscator writes: We woke up comfortably on our hillside perch in TRNP - North. Snug as a bug and so forth. As usual, we needed to dry some of our gear. This is partly just an issue of morning dew, and partly an issue of condensation from our own breath on the interior. The moral of that story is basically that Gortex keeps moisture off you quite well, but it also retains some on the inside as well. Anyway, while we did that, we had some delicious shakes from the MRE’s, and then set off to explore some of the surrounding [View Full Entry]

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Awoke to chilly temperatures in the upper 30s, but blue skies all around. I can deal with cold just not rain especially on a bike going 70 mph. Cruised down US HWY 2. Everything now is real flat, and just gets flatter. Crossed the Red River into Grand Forks, ND, home of the Fighting Sioux. Was amazed at the largest building I had seen on the plains and in North Dakota. It was the Ralph Englestad Arena, home of the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux Hockey Team. I think they clearly love Hockey in North Dakota. Then continued West checking [View Full Entry]

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Posted by: Onaxthiel: The morning came suddenly, as if god had suddenly turned the lights on outside the bags. We crawled out, still shivering, to witness an odd set of sights. A lone buffalo grazed on our butte. The valleys around us were filled with morning mist. On the southern horizon, a host of hot air balloons rose slowly into the sky. The Medora balloon launch was underway. We snapped photos of all this while waiting for our bags to dry off from the morning dew. BOB (Obfuscator adds: BOB stands for big orange ball, a gigantic nuclear furnace, a de-rangers [View Full Entry]

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Posted by: Onaxthiel: We waited for the morning drizzle to pass before we went back to the south unit of Teddy Roosevelt national park. Instead of the cute, helpful ranger we had the first day, we had a young lady who projected an antipathy one step short of hostility towards us when we asked for a backcountry camping permit. I am not sure if this was because she didn’t think we were capable of hiking our planned route after a hard rain or if she just had a bad morning. Once she had our paperwork, we were off on the drive [View Full Entry]

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Obfuscator writes: Shadehill State Park in South Dakota wasn’t too bad. It had a nice lake that we were right next to, and some good sunset and morning views. It wasn’t too special though, so we didn’t stay long in the morning. Since we were in the north-western part of South Dakota, we decided to make a little detour to see the site of the Battle of Slim Buttes (approx.), which is near Reva, South Dakota. On the way we got sidetracked into stopping in Bison, SD, which advertised itself as having a Sod House and Museum. We were unable to [View Full Entry]

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Obfuscator writes: We left Lake Sakakawea State Park promptly in the morning, except for once again spending some time trying to dry our stuff out. That had to be cut a bit short though, as we were running in front of what we thought was a storm front. We drove into the nearest town, which was very small, and called Pick City. There we found the “Best dam bar by a dam site,” which we declined to visit. It was 9:00 AM, which is a little early to start, even for me. We drove along the Missouri, and along the way, [View Full Entry]

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Obfuscator writes: We departed Graham’s Island after drying our stuff out for a bit again. On our way out of the park, we stopped to look at a strange bird. The next time we saw such a bird, things would be very different indeed. Our first destination was Maddock, ND, a small (and I mean very small) town not too far from Devil’s Lake. At Maddock, following our Uncle’s directions, we found the grave of our Great Great Grandfather (on our mother’s side) (approx. 47° 56.896N, 099° 31.946W). His North Dakota wife lived to be 97, which I found rather surprising. [View Full Entry]

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Day 10 - Obfuscator writes: Maybe I’m allergic to North Dakota. Waking up even near North Dakota (in our campsite in East Grand Forks, MN) my eyes were puffy and itchy, and that just sort of spread more as the day went on. Honestly, at this point (Day 11) I’m hoping that it’s just allergies and not something more awful. (Onaxthiel adds: I’ve got him on allergy meds. We’ll see if they help.) It rained on us again last night, which wasn’t too much fun, but again, we were fairly lucky. The rains, though longer than the night before, were still [View Full Entry]

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On my way to the International Peace Garden this morning, I stopped off at Dunseith, ND which is the nearest town to the Garden. Passed by a really big turtle. A really, big turtle. According to the Dakota Day Trips book, the turtle is about 18 feet high and forty feet long. It is made of over 2,000 tire rims. At Christmas time, it dons a Santa hat :) according to the book which would be quite a sight. The artist created the turtle after collecting tire rims for about 20 years. It's apparently the world's largest turtle although Guiness has [View Full Entry]

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