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Published: August 17th 2011
So we blew out of Minneapolis and made it to Grafton, ND. We tried to camp on the side of the road,(see pic of Bryon in the grass.) But the grass was just too high. We tried asking some old man if we could camp on his lawn and he told us "go upta Grafton, they's got free campin' there in the park" So we did and it was a perfect spot with a warm night.
Next day we were set to hop the border to Canada and make a stop in Winnipeg. The border crossing went over okay since we stowed the pellet gun and booze in the camping gear. As we got in to Winnipeg, there was another biker, Rob, that befriended us and led us in to "The Forks" which is a shopping district downtown. We rode around, got some grub and decided to make up some time and head north further to the narrows; crossing lake Manitoba. The countryside up there goes from corn,sunflowers and wheat, to just grass and hay. Miles and miles of rolled up hay everywhere. At the narrows, we thought we had already crossed the lake, but it turned out that was
Leche Hiding Out
Bryon had all his gear splayed out on his bike, leaving Leche no other place to keep warm.just the millions of acres of flooded farmland they have up there. Apparently in the spring, when Minnesota had its floods, so did this part of Canada, and four months later it's still there.
So we're riding throughs these plains, its been plains for the last 600 miles, and all of the sudden, we see a mountain range. Its Riding Mountain National Park, with camping in the mountains so we made camp there around 10pm.(and it was still light!) Now we've got a fire going, making some rice, and relaxing when we see lightning in the distance. A lot of lightning! But for some reason, the storm didn't seem to come...until 3 in the morning when I woke from a nightmare of being trampled by a moose. (there were moose tracks, beds and dung all over the place). It started out kinda of exciting...lightning and rain, but i'm warm and dry. Then the tent starts leaking, then the ground starts flooding. I had to get out of my tent and seek refuge in Bryon's. At this point, Im soaked, my sleeping bags wet. Forget my air mattress, thats now floating in my tent, along with all of my
other stuff. It ended up raining 4 inches in just a few hours. It hadn't rained here in two months! We woke up to a swamp and just as we think the sun coming out, more rain clouds and wind. We reluctantly broke camp and headed back to Dauphin to lick our wounds. I got the bike out of the swamp and down the hill to the highway, one more puddle and hill and i'm out. I got the rear wheel stuck 5 feet away from the highway. ANOTHER HOUR IN THE MUD!!! Back at a hotel now drying out and raising spirits.
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Laura Sparley
non-member comment
Keep your chins up!
Oh my, sounds like quite a night and then morning of mishaps, hope it's all sun from here on out, love reading your tales so far!