We stayed in the same AirBnB apartment in Bismarck last night. And just like the morning before, we woke up this morning to thick fog:

I call this impressionism photo, "Street Light, Tree, and Grass."

Lailla and I set off in the fog because we had to drive for 1:15 to my starting point, the town of Napolean. The fog cleared and I was able to start as soon as I was geared up. It was cloudy and cool and I thought I might get rained on...but I didn't.

This was my ride today: 20 miles on one road, turn left, 8 miles on a second road, turn right, and 60 miles on a third road. (I ended up with 88.5 miles for the day.)

This was my first interesting encounter of the day. John "Custer" Grenz has a collection of a couple dozen old threshing machines parked along a ridge at the side of the road that he calls "Dinosaurs on the Prairie." It was a quirky, interesting collection. Hats off to Mr. Grenz.

Mid-ride today I went through an area with numerous ponds and small lakes:


I wondered what crop they were trying to grow in the ponds and I finally figured it out later in the day: corndogs:

I also snapped this quick photo of a John Deere mailbox:

Tomorrow I should ride into Fargo, ND, essentially closing out North Dakota. I have been pleasantly surprised by North Dakota. The roads are the best I've ridden so far on this adventure. There's very little trash on the side of the roads. And on the back country roads, it seems like most people wave hello, which is a nice change from some of the harrassment I experienced in Idaho and to a lesser extent, Montana. It's also quite a bit greener than I expected; I thought it would be fairly arid, but it's green and there seems to be plenty of water.

Comments

  1. AnonymousAugust 31, 2025 at 8:59 PM

    Today was also our first recycling bin sighting since Spokane, WA.
    That was exciting. Unfortunately we had given up and purged the car of aluminum cans and plastic bottles somewhere mid-Montana. Seeing all the recycling waste has been very frustrating, disappointing and has made all our efforts feel a bit pointless to me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousSeptember 1, 2025 at 3:08 PM

    Craig! If Edward Jones could sponsor you we would!! All of this is awesome and this is your own special journal for the world to see and for you to one day come back to! Way to be an awesome role model and rad human being!

    ReplyDelete

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