West. Day 20.

June 20, 2016

Glen Ullin to Belfield, North Dakota

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An excerpt from my upcoming book, Facing Sunset:

After the long walk to the outhouse, I notice Bunny hanging at my tent again. Like a favorite stuffed animal, except for the twitching nose, he is motionless as I pass a heartbeat away.

I glance away and he is gone. Did I really see him?

Bunny's first visit. Glen Ullin, ND.

A long business loop west out of Glen Ullin brought me back to I-94. Can it be? A light tailwind? Thanks, Bunny! Little did I know how often Bunny would appear.

I exited at Richardton for a break and met two young men with Australian accents about to mount their loaded touring bikes. Was I still in the USA? The men, riding from Maine to Washington, planned to stop in Dickinson today. They were eager to get going. I didn't detain them.

Info pinned to the wall at the Honey Hub.

My legs told me more about the rising grade than the terrain profile depicted on the Lewis & Clark section of the ACA maps. Long, slow climbs made my mind wander. Thoughts turned to Barry, the recumbent cyclist I met at the Honey Hub in Gackle, and our conversations about touring on recumbent bicycles.

Barry switched from an upright after seeing photos of himself from a ride he did up the west coast.

"In the pictures, the background was so beautiful," he said. "I never saw the beauty surrounding me, I was always looking down."

Truth.

I doubt I will ever tour on an upright bike again. Besides accommodating unrestricted views, recumbents bring no neck or shoulder pain and hands do not fall asleep. Sometimes my rear end can get uncomfortable, like sitting in an easy chair too long, but really, no complaints.

Andy and I promoted recumbents in the bike store we owned years ago. I don't understand why they aren't more popular.

That evening in Belfield, camped in a mowed field behind a hotel with a restaurant, a skinny, missing-a-few-teeth man rode up on a department store mountain bike that looked as beat up as he did.

"I used to cut the grass here," he said. Kevin was his name. "Now the owner has his son do it, he's getting on thirteen."

Kevin was an amicable talker, although I had trouble following his rambling one-sided conversation. He told me he met Barry the other day; he chattered on and on about someone he knew that made under-seat steering recumbents.

It must get lonely in these prairie towns, I thought, but I listened.