Chapter 9: Badlands, Good People

 Chapter 9: Badlands, Good People

Memorial Day Weekend in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Unit

 May 24, Saturday ~30 miles, in the park (2525)

An amazing pre-dawn ride to the end of the park road started the day.

I followed a dozen buffalo for miles as they pounded along through the grassland beside the road.

I had that spectacular beauty entirely to myself for several precious hours; no one else was up that early.

Maybe it's just the change of scenery, or the feeling that I surmounted the challenge of crossing the Great Plains, but I feel a shift. "Riding this morning, so alone in this vast countryside, I suddenly realized that I possess myself in a whole new way - I am somehow a different person than when I rode out of base camp 7 1/2 weeks ago."

 

"Back in camp, the word is out about me! 'There's a guy here who's going to Alaska by bike!' I'm famous. People approach me and ask what I'm going to do in Alaska, and I've never even seen them before. It feels good - not because it's an ego trip, but because it feels like people are rooting for me." One couple heard I was low on food (I hadn't planned well before I arrived, and there is no town or store anywhere for miles) and they gave me some non-perishables and all kinds of homemade goodies too!

 

Midday I rode back up to the first overlook to get away from the bugs so I could write a letter to Laura, catch up on my journal, and just gaze out at the colorful striped canyon walls.

 

 I met a church group from Williston N.D., (at least half a dozen adults and about 15 kids!) and they happily shared their "picnic supper" with me. I spent the rest of the evening with them, including a  'wildlife cruise' on the park road in the back of their pickup trucks, and I'll camp next to them tonight.

 

May 25, Sunday

  Another early ride up to the rim, and then I helped cook breakfast for the whole church crew, listened to the sermon on the radio, and went on a hike with them. We saw a rattlesnake right next to the trail. 

This afternoon the bugs were too bad to write or take a nap, so I just washed my hair and some of my clothes, and then helped with supper prep. After supper, I joined one of the moms from the church group, Debbie Lindvig, on a park service nature walk with some of the kids, and then to the evening program on snakes. Following Tess Bailey's advice about falling in love as often as possible, I promptly got a crush on Chris, the woman giving the talk, but it turned out she was engaged to be married. Well... that's what she told me, anyway.

 

May 26, Monday (2651.2)

 "Early ride to the rim, with Curt Lindvig this time. Then after breakfast, a bunch of us climbed the little butte across from the campground entrance."

 

 Nearly everyone left soon after that. It's amazing how attached I got to them in just a couple of days... I felt so, so lonely when they were gone. I would have left too, but my next mail pickup was less than a day's ride away, in Fairview, and today is Memorial day. 

 

So I wandered around camp listless and mournful, eating my sad little dinner of crackers and Spam-spread that the campers gave me Saturday, and generally bewailing my orphanhood.

To make matters worse, this evening I met a guy who is also biking to Alaska, on the same route I'm planning, but going much faster - 100 miles a day, not stopping to meet people or write letters or a journal, the things that I spend so much time on. So I'll be old news now, everywhere I go!

 

May 27, Tuesday: 114.4 miles (2765.6)

"Got up before 6:00 for a final ride to the rim."

 

On the way back down, I ran into a well-known park resident, Lonesome George the buffalo - almost literally ran into him - he was standing in the middle of the road, halfway down the steep hill! I braked so hard my rear wheel came off the ground, and stopped barely 20 feet from him. I stood motionless, afraid to try to back away. I could hear his breath as I studied his inscrutable black buffalo eyes for any hint of his intentions. They yielded none, but eventually he shuffled off the road, before turning to study me some more. I braved a photo then, figuring I had the downhill in my favor now.

 The Lindvigs had invited me to visit them in Williston, which meant that now my mail stop in Fairview was a 40 mile detour, but I figured I could still make it in one long day. I said goodbye to Chris, the nature-walk woman, and the super-friendly ranger John Heiser, who gave me some food for the road.

 

"I ran into 6 miles of construction, with the worst conditions yet; sand and loose dry gravel, heavy traffic, and hot weather. I had to walk my bike for the first time on this trip - about 100 yards. At the end of the work zone, I stopped to talk with 2 women on a survey crew. They were my age, very pretty, clearly intelligent, and so pleasant - a combination of qualities that made me linger a little even after we ran out of the usual trivia to chat about. Again I felt the frustration of all my contacts with people being so brief."

 

When I got to Fairview, I had 6 letters waiting for me, including one from Laura and a sweet one from Jo McLellan. Worth the detour, and I did make it to the Lindvigs', though it meant pushing pretty hard and riding until dark.

 

 May 28, Wednesday: 2 miles (2767.6)

 

A rest day at the Lundvigs': writing, doing laundry, doing an interview with the Williston Daily Herald... and having Debbie give me a haircut!

No, Biker says "I'm nothing special." "After meeting that other [biker also heading to Alaska,] I guess I realize that I'm just one little guy - there are a lot of people doing it."

 I'll leave it there for now... Montana next... Have a good weekend! Oh, and I figured out where the email sign-up gadget is hidden when viewing this on a phone: it's in a little menu at the very top of the page. On my phone the menu icon is 3 horizontal bars, and when I click on it, the email sign-up appears.