Day 16 - Dickinson to Bismarck

Hi all - wow, short night.  Although we did enjoy the Medora Musical, it certainly made the sleeping time short.  In bed at 11:00 and up at 5:00.  Off to Dickinson to drop off the riders where they left off.  I stayed pretty close ahead - another hot day - keeping the water supply available.
Our PEO B&B hosts, Lynn and Don, were a delight to meet and spend a day with in their lovely home in Bismarck.  Day 17 (Wednesday) was a rest day, so we were able to do laundry, re-pack suit cases and recover from some long hot days on the road. 
Tomorrow (Thursday) we are off to Jamestown and Fargo on Friday!
Traveling Patty

Notes from Tom:  Patty summed it up--it was hot on Tuesday.  Nothing really spectacular to see, but did catch a couple signs along the way--one for me and one Patty's and my grandson, Taylor.  As we entered Bismarck, we crossed the Missouri River again--the first time was just outside of Wolf Point, MT.

After we arrived in Bismarck yesterday, we certainly needed the rest day today, and enjoyed it.  We slept in, relaxed, got haircuts, did some bike maintenance, shopped and repacked.  Tomorrow it's supposed to be not quite as hot as the 98 it was today--I hope the forecast is correct.

Notes from Jerry:  Like Tom said this day was very similar to the prior day - we boogied down the interstate and made good time with no hills and fair winds.  Only downer was the highway engineer who decided that the rumble strips needed to be replaced with drunk bumps, which started out to be a  4ft x 4ft patch of 4 in grooves in the bike path, but grew to 8ft wide by 4ft long rows of grooves.  This left us about 8 inches to ride in unless you wanted to ride the 2 ft clear path to the left of the bumps next to the cars and trucks - not good.  Riding this 1 foot wide strip meant you really had to concentrate, which means no looking around, seeing what gear you are in or bending down to get your water bottle, just doging the rocks, dead critters etc.  Luckily it did not last for the whole ride.  Did I mention that it was so hot that I stepped on the edge of the road and got tar on my heel!  Boy did it get hot!!

Once in Bismark I needed bike maintenance (deraileur was on the verge of dying so it got replaced) and a break from the bike, so we got a lot of errands done and enjoyed meeting lots of nice people in Bismark as we did our shopping.  Boy it was hot - about 97 degrees.  Luckily Tom and I rotated/ replaced tires outside when it was cool this morning.  We've got water bottles up the kazoo ready for tomorrow.  Hope to get on the road before 6:30.  We really enjoyed our B&B hosts and their great home and hospitality.  They invited us to a potluck BBQ for their church which is literally on the block behind their house so we walked out the back gate and enjoyed meeting some of Don and Lynne's friends.