August 1 - day 37 Monday

August 1 - day 37 MondayStart - 18 miles south of Jamestown, ND
End - Valley City, ND
Miles - 59
start time - 935am
end time - 628pm
miles driven - (about 32 from east of Medina to Jamestown and 18 south of Jamestown) - 50

Our plan today was to start in Jamestown and cycle down US281 South to ND46 East and get as far as we could.  As it turned out the winds were very strong out of the east today so when Marcee got on the bike in Jamestown she was having a very difficult time. That combined with semi truck traffic persuaded us to pack up the bikes and drive to the intersection of ND46 which we had heard was the straighest road in the US. 

The east headwind on ND 46 was easier to deal with than the crosswind mentioned before.  At this point we noticed some new things though.  Frogs and snakes.  At first Marcee tried to save the frogs but when the sight of snakes was too much she said forget the frogs and she rode in the middle of the road.  Marcee would lift her legs off of the pedals when she saw a snake and screamed.

We did use the car to our riding advantage for the first and probably last time.  I knew that cyclists could draft off of each other and save energy by cutting wind resistance.  Obviously a car can do the same thing and even better.  We did this for about 25 miles total.  It helped a lot but was somewhat difficult on the driver (speed up, not that much, slow down, too slow).  Drafting increased our speed from about 7mph into the wind to about 15mph.

By the way the temp was about 82 today but it was really humid, more so than any other day.  There were very few services along ND46 but we did enjoy visiting with Tim Cavett at his convenience store at the intersection of ND1 and ND46.  He told us about Little Yellowstone Park which was 5 miles down the road and about the Sheyenne River Valley Scenic Highway which we drove north to Valley City.  This was a real pretty valley with rolling hills and farmlands.  It reminded me of rural Wisconsin.