August 2 - day 38

August 2 – day 38 Tuesday
Start – Sibley, ND
End – Fargo, ND
Miles – 65 (Larry 34.3, Marcee 30.8)
Start time – 9am
End time – 535pm
Miles driven (not ridden) – 29

Good day of riding.  We started in Sibley, ND on Lake Astabula about 23 miles north of Jamestown.  Traffic for the most part was light as we were on county roads.  Once we made it to Page, ND we found ourselves back on the Adventure Cycling route for the Northern Tier.  We had lunch in Page, bought some food at the M&M grocery store and chatted with Madge and Jenna.  Madge told us that they get cyclists through Page which was nice to hear.  Page is a small town but very nice and most of the business seemed to be in business.  A curious thing in Page,  as they park in the middle of the street as well as on the side of the street.  Madge said that it is a custom as the roads are wide.  Along the way we stopped in Galesburg for a rest room stop at the bank where Stacey was kind enough to explain how the silos work.  Harvest season varies by crop but should be getting going fairly soon.

We stopped and spoke to a farmer on the side of the road who was pumping water out of his field into a ditch.  He (Rodney) rents the land for his crops which include soybeans and sugar beets.  He said that they needed cool and dry weather and then for the weather to warm up.  There was concern about root rot with some of the crops in the standing water.  He explained that the ditches need to be dug up also because they get filled with silt and then do not drain the water.  He also said that there needs to be an underground drainage system under the fields.  I forgot what he called it but it involved installing pipes about 4 feet deep in the fields which would capture the excess water.

We were treated to an evening of dinner and a bed at Virgil and Marian Hilborn’s house in Fargo.  It was so nice.  Thank you Diane for setting that up and giving me permission to read your Trixie Belden books ( I did read a page or two).    We also got our business cards which we ordered through vistaprint.com in Bozeman.