Me and My Big Mouth

P-Rock - Swallowing a foot one toe at a time

Day 24 - Medicine Hat, AB to Watford City, ND






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First and foremost - to Mrs Rock. We have crappy beyond crappy internet and no phone service at all. I could hear everything you said to me, but obviously you could not hear me. Well, we're working with stolen local museum wifi anyway, so what do you expect.

Next, to my daughter Karin. We think as of now we will be in Rock Island on Monday, probably around noon where we'll have lunch with you. Then on to Marengo. Almost certain we won't be staying the night as we've overstayed our vacation on both AP and APT counts.

After that, to Mom. The current plan is to be there later on Monday to rest a bit and have some dinner before we set out once again to ride until O-Dark-Thirty or so, giving us a chance to get back into PA at a reasonable date and time. I will call you and Karin when we have cell service. North Dakota might as well be the North Pole as far as ATT is concerned.

Today was a true travel day. Blackie and I were single minded in our endeavour to get as close as possible to Sturgis.

So today Blackie and I started out from my always-wanted-t0-be-there town of Medicine Hat, Alberta - destined for as-close-as-we-can-get-to-Sturgis, North Dakota. The main goal was to get to at least Williston, which we exceeded by about a full hour by making it to Watford City. Along the way, we plotted a route which included Blackie's need-t0-get-there city of Moose Jaw, where we had a nice lunch at Smitty's, of all places. Both Medicine Hat and Moose Jaw surprised us with how big and developed they are.

So we spent a whole lot of time in Saskatchewan today, and guess what that means?

Yep.

Grain Elevators a-plenty. In fact, in many cases you can see the next town (even up to 14 km away by my experiment) just by looking down the road for the grain elevator. Pretty funny stuff.

Well our route took us to this very remote border crossing from Saskatchewan into North Dakota. Early this morning I had said something to Blackie of the effect "Just watch, it will rain today, or we'll get the full search routine at some remote border crossing".

Well gang. It didn't rain.

I am such a dork sometimes.

We had Officer Fife at the border with his sidekick Gomer. I swear to God. Well OK, his name wasn't Fife nor was it Gomer, but damn they fit the part. Officer Fife told us to stand in front of him to present our passports, then proceeded to tell us to open all of the compartments on the bike. Blackie - the lucky stiff - got Gomer, who didn't really care about this whole affair and got a half hearted inspection while I got the full-tilt-where-was-my-strip search on my effects. And he was so nice and pleasant through this entire humiliating experience. Me and my big mouth. Sheesh.

Oh and another note. You know those nice solid yellow lines on roads to indicate No Passing? Entirely optional in North Dakota, whether needed or not. Blind spots? Well you should know they're there! It made for some interesting slow traffic passing late in the day.

Watford City is a very nice place, although I think we may have the worst hotel room in town. That is all thanks to me too. Very friendly people and a decent dinner at the local bar.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. I was wearing my half helmet today and got the sunburn from hell. I look like Rocky Raccoon, Aye? Did I mention that I was a dork?

That is all.

P-Rock, shupping.