New Town, ND July 6

New Town, ND -- Tuesday, July 6
Today's 75 mile ride will be primarily be remembered for two things: trucks and Lund's Landing. It was perhaps one of the most demanding sharing the road with truck experiences that I have ever had. When this journey started - we were primarily concerned with the sharing the road with the logging trucks of OR and WA. That experience pales in comparison to our experience today on our ENTIRE route.
The devil for today's ride is the petroleum boom in northwestern MT. There is 'black gold' in this hills and oil wells are being everywhere. We were told by one of the locals that by the time a virgin site is developed into a producing well an over of 500 trucks carring equipment, earth moving equipment, rock, etc will enter the site. This does not include the daily/weekly maintenance that a producing well may need. Prior to staring our journey from Williston, we w told that we should avoid the once peaceful route that we were taking. We explored other options, but all of the alternatives took us far off course. By the time our pedaling ended for the day, our nerves were a little frazzled. If one took away the trucks, it would be a gorgeous route.
One of the pleasant surprises today was lunching a Lund's Landing about 25 miles east of Williston on Hwy 1804. This was a surprise find, as we did not expect, nor did we find, any other services during our entire trek.
Lund's Landing is a lodge/marina/cafe on the Missouri River. The husband and wife owner built the place with their own hands beginning 22 years ago.
It has received recognition in many national magazines. It was a great homey place to stop. We meet the owners and learned its origin and history. It is perhaps best known for its 'June Berry' pies. It claims that it is the only restaurant to serve June berry pies year round.
Contrary to past form we each had a different type of June berry pie, ale mode of course. We learned that this was going to be a costly mistake when a passersby stopped to buy a whole June berry pie and was quoted a price of $28. All of us gulped when we heard that price.
With that said we did receive one benefit as to owner gave us specific direct ons along our route where we could pick fresh June berries to eat.
Twenty miles later we were 50' off the road well into the ditch, escaping from the truck torture eating June berries. What a treat.
Our camping location tonight is on the lower end of our past camping experience. It is at a marina. The owner has placed us near the top of a hill where the wind blows with gail force. Making the evening meal was a fright to watch especially as bikes were blowing over, burners were being blown out and the contents on top of the picnic table strewn across the camp site as a front with high gusting winds moved through the area. The water if you could find it was not drinkable. To top it off, this experience cost us $20!
Two other notable points for the day include meeting the two young dudes ( the 12 flat tire guy) attempting to average 80 miles a day and learning that the first 19 miles of our route tomorrow will be worse than today.
Regarding the young dudes, if they are seeing us, they are not meeting their goal. In fact, they are likely somewhat disappointed to see us - after all, they can barely keep pace with an 'Old Guy' and a 'young woman' on a bicycle. The experiences and problems that they have had would make a good comedy series; including the day that they pedaled over 120 miles but only after they had pedaled to 1:00 AM. As for the first 19 miles of our route tomorrow, we learned that two bicyclist were killed last year somewhere in this stretch by one of the trucks associated with the oil boom. This has us all a little worried.