Speaking of Route 2...

Julia, Kyle, and me entering "legendary" North Dakota

My favorite picture of ND- awesome colors

Sunrise in Devil's Lake, ND

...we've now been traveling on the same road for a week through Minnesota and North Dakota! It's flat with few towns amongst it, but the traffic unfortunately hasn't thinned much even though we are heading to less populated areas. I guess because Route 2 is the only major road out here, everyone is heading west on it- including us. So because of our limited route options our cue sheets, which give us our directions for the day, have been very simple: get on Route 2, ride all day, get off Route 2. On Saturday we completed our longest ride of the summer: 116 miles into North Dakota, 114 of those miles were on the same road!

That long ride entering North Dakota has been my favorite ride of the summer, and the picture on the left sums up why. North Dakota is (surprisingly) beautiful! It has gorgeous greens in the grass, fields, and trees and then the ND sky is the biggest sky I've seen. Don't be fooled by my ND excitement because it kept me going through many miles on my bike today!

Other highlights from the week included:
- Our day off in Crookston, MN where a group of us played soccer in the morning and woke up to incredibly sore legs the next day..I guess biking and running use more different muscles than I thought.
- While at our lunch stop on Tuesday we met a European couple biking across the country west to east, although tackling the US was only one continent in their 3 year bike trip around the world! They told us we were cheating by having a trailer with our food and clothes (their bikes weighed 80 lbs each with all their gear).
- The North Dakota sky keeps to excite me day after day :)
- Coming into Rugby, ND we passed the marker of the "cornerstone of North America". It meant we were standing at the center longitude and latitude of our continent. Alright Rugby, we'll take it!
- And that we're 3 days away from entering Montana!!!! Finally, the west!

Brad at the cornerstone of North America

 

 

 

 

Today we had a very meaningful build day in Minot, ND where all the flooding occurred a month ago. We split into three groups and each entered houses that were ruined by six feet of water. In order to rebuild on the existing frame, everything but the framing needed to be removed from the house, so we gutted drywall, insulation, and floorboards today. It's so sad to think we were tearing apart a house down to the nails that was a place of so many memories for the homeowner, but I'm glad we had the opportunity to help out the folks of Minot.

That's it from ND, I'll be writing next from Montana! Bye all!

Debris-lined street in the flooded Minot, ND

 

 

 

 

Gutting a house