The Great Plains
I spent nearly 10 days in this region. Through the entire portion of this journey, I traveled on a single road: Highway 200. This highway goes from Missoula to eastern Minnesota. It seerves mostly small towns of less than 500. It was common to go more than 10 minutes between cars. This highway works on a very personal level for a bicyclist and I shall miss it.
Each town, no matter how small, has its own, pretty park. Bicyclists are encouraged to stay at these parks and they are often free. I took advantage of this, since there a virtually no state parks or other cmapgrounds in this region. As a side benefit, I also got to meet a number of very nice townsfolk.
It is interesting to travel through a Time Zone. At 100 miles per day, I could see a noticeable difference with the sun rising and setting earlier each day. With a new Time Zone, everything would be set back one hour and the sun would then set much later again. This process will repat itself three times as I cross three times zones during my journey.
During my crossing, I saw the amber waves of grain waving in the wind. But mostly I saw hay fields, for that is the predomianant crop.
The terrain finally did get flat (as a table top) as I got into eastern North Dakota and Minnesota. This is the basin of the Red River of the North and it has to be some of the flattest country in the world. It was boring, but made for some easy bike riding.
The biggest disappointment has been the adverse winds. Except for just a single afternoon, they have consistently blown out of the east, against me. This has been very frustrating and has definitely slowed up my progress. Now that I am further east, the winds have started blowing out of the west, behind me (FINALLY).
That's all for now. I'm doing well along Lake Superior in Wisconsin.
Pete
