West. Day 11.

June 19, 2016

Dalbo to Bowlus, Minnesota

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Original Facebook post:

POSTCARD FROM THE ROAD 6/19/16

Today the south wind was SO strong! How strong was it? It was so strong I saw a bird alight from the ditch and it flew backwards! It was so strong my tires are sure to be more worn on the left side due to my listing. It was so strong that when I got off my bike for a moment to chat with a cyclist riding the other direction (he left Montana on May 27 and is heading to the east coast), the wind caught my fairing and almost tossed my bike into the ditch. It was so strong that when I took yet another break and rested my bike against a tree, it started taking off without me. (I took the fairing off then and rolled it around my sleeping bag.)

Today the wind was so gusting-ly strong I could only laugh at riding a slight downgrade in my granny gear!

But, just shy of 70 miles in the bag, in spite of the wind.

In 1976, our "Tomodachis" group formed five teams of three to alternate cooking and cleaning up chores. Tomodachis is the name Yuigi gave us--Japanese for "friends." On the day a team cooked, they grocery shopped before reaching camp, buying that night's dinner and the next day's breakfast and lunch. The next team in rotation cleaned up after dinner and whatever mess was left the next morning.

I teamed up with Big Dave and Brad. Between us, we took turns picking dinner. After Bob called home for his mom's delicious beef stroganoff recipe, dinner became a contest everyone enjoyed.

From my B'76 journal:

6/5/76

Last night was my turn to cook. We didn't get to camp until 6:30 and so we bummed a ride into town to get food. I cooked 3# of spaghetti (can you imagine). We didn't eat until 10:00 but it went over very well. I was glad.

The ride yesterday was long but with a beautiful downhill! Today we go to Baker for our first scheduled Bike Inn (ha!)

Anyway--

Tepee Bike Inn. 1976.

"Bike inns" could be anything. A church or school. A bed and breakfast or a barn. Even tepees! As a designated camping group, we were scheduled to stay in B'76 bike inns every ten or eleven days.

One morning after a nice sleep in tepees, an animated Yuigi gestured and babbled on in his native tongue, frustrated we could not understand. An impromptu game of charades finally got his message through--a skunk strolled through the tepee in which Yuigi slept! Lucky for all of us it left without leaving a calling card.