Days 25 & 26 Grand Forks to Fargo

Days 25 and 26 (28 & 29 Aug 09) Grand Forks, ND to Fargo, ND 85 miles

We cross the Red River of the North, which flows into Canada, and enter East Grand Forks, MN - not quite good-bye to North Dakota. It is a gray day with a north wind pushing us south.

Along the way in Montana and North Dokata, we have been stopping in CenEx gas stations. In the Climax CenEx there are 3 farmers sitting at one of the tables playing cards for quarters. We ask the oldest (80 years old) why he’s not out working the fields instead of wasting time and playing cards for quarters. The old guy with the ”Beta Seeds” baseball hat does not skip a beat. He keeps playing the card game while bantering with us about riding bikes. We tell him we don’t like ND because of the wind but MN is much better for us. He tells us about how his daughter, now living in Florida, observed that Montana “blows” and North Dakota “suck,” all with a straight face. In the meantime, he keeps getting good cards and to the disappointment of his card mates he wins the pot of quarters.

Along the way, a golden retriever greets us coming out of the soybean fields. This is flat, river bottom land with rich soil where farmers grow wheat, soybeans and sugar beets. The towns of about 100 pop are about 10 miles apart. We are worried that the retriever will follow us too far and we throw him a banana peel to try to distract him while we take off on our bikes. He grabs it and runs along side us at 18 to 20 mph. Eventually, he drops the peel when he has to hang out his tongue and switches to running on the grass instead of the gravel shoulder. He gives up in just under a ½ mile, but when he was next to us it was great to see him just fly; amazing what a young dog can do. (His photo is attached.)

This is the land of neat-as-a-pin farms and Lutheran Churches. Moorhead houses the world wide headquarters of the Old Lutheran Church and the Center for Lutheran Pride (but “not too proud;” you‘ve got to love the sign - see photo).

After reaching Climax earlier in the day, we came to Moorhead before entering Fargo (we thought we were in the Pennsylvania Dutch country). Leave no opportunity unexploited.

In Moorhead we cross the river and return to North Dakota where we will take a day off from riding, repair the bikes, and view the local sites.

We stay at the Radisson downtown with “sleep number beds” and nearby fine Italian food. What a change from the hammock-like beds in Rockport, WA and the cardboard pizza in the roughneck smokey bar in Stanley, MT. It may be hard to get back on the bikes on Sunday morning when all good Lutheran‘s should be in church contemplating the farmer‘s credo: “sow your wild oats on Saturday night and pray for crop failure on Sunday morning.”

On Saturday in Fargo we find all the things we need: a great bike shop where Len replaces his worn chain, Jim finds a great pair of Specialized biking tights for those cold New England fall mornings to come and both enjoy gelato - yes, gelato in a bike shop! We make a stop at Happy Harry’s for a bottle of Seghesio Barbera and find Boppa’s Bagel shop serving the best bagels west of NYC. It’s amazing what you can do on a bicycle when you open your mind to the possibilities.

We wrap up the day with a walk across the Red River of the North to Minnesota to visit the Historical & Cultural Society of Clay County featuring the Hjemkomst (Yom-comst) Viking Ship (an incredible 79 foot replica of a 12^th century Viking ship conceived and built by Robert Asp in 1980, a Moorhead school guidance counselor, that sailed to Norway in 1982 - see all the photos in the web album) and the Hopperstad Stave Church Replica. The church is a to scale replica of a church in Vig, Norway. We took the guided tour presented by a very knowledgeable docent and accompanied by a most well behaved miniature poodle and his masters. A great day indeed!