Then there was thunder...

Aug 2: Callaway MN to Fargo ND - 54.1 miles

I wake to a vague sound of machinery in the background. We've been listening to the intermittent rumble of trains and vehicles passing through all night. I don't think much of it.

Storm front ... Bags jammed with our gear, just about to pull stakes and drop tent when I quickly grabbed a couple shots

Heather ducks out to use the toilet.  I hear a little spatter on the tent.  I peek out.  There's a distinct line of clouds very dark clouds moving across over us. I peek back over the top of the tent. It is pitch black with occasional white flashes accompanied by the "machinery" sound I'd heard earlier.  Not machinery. Thunder. Lots of thunder.

I'm furiously piling my gear into stuff sacks when heather pops back in and wordlessly starts doing the same. 

"Lets get the tent down"

Storm front ... Bottom right corner is the tent. We left the bikes here  

Once down, Heather is ready to leave it and is hauling bags to the small picnic shelter.  "I'm not leaving ANYTHING behind"  I cram the tent into a stuff sack, and grab the poles and pegs. Three dry bags in one hand with helmet and pegs and poles in the other, I dash to the shelter as well where I dump it all.  

"I'm going to the convenience store, this is not enough shelter for THAT", Heather says, pointing to the black front approaching us.  "They'd better be open."  We agree to leave the bikes. They're locked to the grandstand next to where the tent was. Heather gathers up her dry bags and helmet and starts speed walking down the road.

I've got to consolidate some more things before I can haul everything that is still here the two blocks to the convenience store.  I'm not convinced that going to the convenience store is going to work out.  At least I've got cover right here, even if it is kind of small.  And a picnic table to keep gear off the ground.

I see a sheriff's patrol car speeding toward me.  The car comes to an abrupt stop on the street in front of me.  A young officer jumps out. "Can I help you load this up?  There's been hail 1-1/2 inches in diameter in the next town, pretty big for Minnesota"  I guess my decision is made for me.  The officer and I pile up the gear into the back seat, he opens the front door for me and soon we are roaring around the corner and up to the convenience store, under the cover over the gas pumps.  Now the rain begins.  The roof over the pumps is really high up and doesn't provide much protection.

Emergency shelter in the local convenience store

"The convenience store is open for you."  The inside is almost completely dark, but sure enough, the door opens and I start piling gear on the floor inside next to heather's.  Then the skies really open up and it pours rain outside.

We converse with the officer for a while. "There's cyclists camped there most nights."  He wasn't sure why this was the case exactly, and we explain that Callaway is on the "Northern Tier" bicycle route across the united states.  Before long, he gets a call and must speed away again in the rain.

Once the store is open we do spend some money: on coffee. Vanilla flavored cappuccino to be exact, and charge up our devices until the rain stops. It doesn't take long before the storm has completely passed and the sun is shining. We abandon the convenience store, we want to get to Fargo today.

Unusual roadkill... A preserved tortoise shell + skin

Farm equipment for sale

Hitterdal convenience store is Closed and for sale... Opportunity to reduce heathers carried weight by devouring all her spare food

Sadly we don't realize that our storm shelter in Callaway is the last convenience store we are going to see before Fargo.  We are starving when we reach a target rest stop town of Hitterdal at about 24 miles, where the convenience store that we were targeting to get lunch from is for sale and out of business. We both check our smartphones repeatedly in hopes that there is SOMEplace here in this town where we can get food.

Thank goodness that Heather never finishes her snack food and is able to magically produce snack-age out of her backpack which we consume on the concrete ground outside the closed convenience store.

We've got long straight roads into a strong headwind to get to Fargo. 

H passes me at 2 miles out of Hitterdal, and it takes me another 9 miles before I can catch her again. Then we work together for most of the way into Fargo.  

Even together, we were only going 12-18 mph (18 only on downhill) until we FINALLY took a left turn to get a tailwind. SWEET.  

Long straight roads through big farms

We cruised into Moorhead, our last town in Minnesota, and adjacent to Fargo. We still have another 4 miles in Moorhead to the Hjumbhost interpretive center, where we're just in time for tour of church and then video of the Nordic square rigged boat that crossed the Atlantic.  This interpretive center was highly recommended by the poet in our Itasca campground as one of the best things in the Fargo area. 

Hjumbhost - an authentic replica of a Viking ship, built right here in Moorhead/Fargo, then sailed across the ocean... note our bikes hanging out near the windows

We were starving even before we got to the Hjumbhost center, and once we've done the church tour and the boat video, we are determined to get food immediately.  

The center is right on the river that marks our next state line crossing - into North Dakota. There's no border crossing sign on the bridge, but immediately after, we find some good "Welcome to Fargo" signage for our obligatory state line crossing photo.

We've already lined up a place to stay tonight, in the backyard of a lovely family's house that befriended us back at the Fritz resort in Walker - the lakes area of Minnesota.  They were there on vacation and had a camping cabin next to our campsite.  Someone else at that campground recommended "Red Pepper" as a good place to eat in Fargo. Red Pepper is 4 miles away, we cruise past a lovely downtown area to find Red Pepper in a strip mall near the university. 

Red Pepper is a step down from our local wrap fast food joint, so we agree that even though we are starving, this is not good enough for our celebratory North Dakota border milestone and Fargo arrival, especially when downtown looked so lovely.  We go straight back to downtown.  

There's a bike store, I must get a lock.  I'm in a sugar low haze and am barely coherent:  "need a lock, and need a recommendation for where to get food".  Lock takes 5 min, food description takes 2 and we are outta there to find that our preferred stop from the list of recommendations is CLOSED for Sunday.  ARGH.  Next door is open, and a large black man with a fat-tire bike recommends it. "best burger in town" ... OK, they MUST do something to cater to non-meat eaters. I peek in. Looks good.

Now the struggle with the bikes.  We rearranging  the front furniture to fit our bikes; the tables there are now pretty close to unusable.  A super friendly staff member comes out to help us. Amazingly, she doesn't give us a hard time about adjusting all of their furniture. "Usually we ask people to park them there", pointing to a distant wood deck without even any permanent fixtures to lock anything to. We shake our heads.  The manager comes out, "please feel free to lock then right here to this pole right in front of the restaurant." NO problem. 

We're straight inside to sit at the bar next to a couple that immediate engage us.  "...is that your Lightspeed out there?  where are you headed? where did you start?"  turns out he's just done part of an endurance bike race on singetrack trails and he and the woman with him are already planning next years attempt.

The beer selection is superb. The burgers are even better, including a black bean quinoa burger variation that I have with a fried egg a spicy cheese and sauce on it.  And it comes out fast, thank goodness.

A couple of beers later, we set off toward our host family's house via a grocery store.  We are expecting a pretty bleak selection of food along tomorrow's route through the backroads of North Dakota, and we need to stock up.

Post-shopping, our host family is there to greet us at their house, and we are made very welcome, with a safe spot to keep our bikes, soft grass for camping, and amazing seclusion for a town yard. The weather is lovely, and we are very grateful.