Dan was off to work early this morning so we were out and cycling by 0720. Not before being treated to fried eggs and toast courtesy of our host!
Back on Interstate 94 we had a quick start but soon ran into a number of steeper hills than yesterday, rolling 100ft up, 100ft down. This continued all day. Given the continuing mild tailwind we set our sights on Bismarck. We knew it was 1000ft below us but we didn't drop over 300ft below our starting point until around 95 miles in and the final descent into the city.
Despite the hills, the going was steady although not particularly interesting with wheat fields abundant broken by the occasional field of sunflowers or sandstone tower. Sunflowers grew between the cracks in the road like weeds but nicer to look at.
We unexpectedly passed into the Central Time Zone and were dismayed to lose an hour, although it did give us a sense of progress. We had a late lunch at 2pm after 70 miles in New Salem, where "Salem Sue" towered over the landscape, a giant statue of a dairy cow perched on the hill overlooking the town and interstate.
After lunch we reluctantly set out on the rolling hills once more, 100ft up, 100ft down, and repeat until you die a little inside. We contacted another host in Bismarck at lunch, confident we would make the final 30 or so miles. We received a reply just as we were approaching the exits for the city, which is the biggest population centre we have encountered since Seattle. It read "Sorry no can do, but there is camping in the national park" (or words to that effect). We readied ourselves for a night in the tent, but then another message came through "Just kidding!"
We had dinner in town watching a local team play softball in the park while we waited for Kathryn to finish work. We then followed her back to her apartment, an apartment complex where the garage buildings take up more space than the apartment buildings (which is not unusual as far as we can tell - some houses are half garage over here).
Kathryn is from South Carolina which gives her a different accent to what we have been used to hearing, which is novel. She works in retail, but spends a lot of her time as an anti-fracking activist. We have seen many fracking sites alongside the interstate with large derricks pumping away. Kathryn has done work with locals who believe they have been impacted by fracking in Pennsylvania and now here in North Dakota.
It was very nice of her to offer her floor at such short notice. An easier day we feel tomorrow as muscles and joints are beginning to feel the strain of the last 4 days of hills. The long flat sections we were expecting definitely did not materialise!
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