Day 82 Picnic on July 4th

Day 82 - Saturday, July 4th, 2009
- Start: Ray, ND
- ATW:
- End: Stanley, ND
- Day Miles: 40

From 4:30 to 8:00 we slept the best we could. We tossed the sleeping bag over the swing set and it was dry before we left. We put on all the clothes that we had remaining and huddled together under the soggy tarp. Being July 4th, the grocery store was closed so we ate lunch at the gas station from the previous night. Burgers and fries fueled us to Stanley and an ice cream shop. We’d planned to stick around Stanley for another day figuring we get little sleep on the night of the 4th as fireworks sounded until the wee hours of the morning. We weren’t wrong.

After the ice cream shop we left for the park wondering about dinner. We had some dehydrated food on the bike and a ton of tuna. It’d make us through till tomorrow when the store opened. Riding past a group of people socializing on the sidewalk we heard shouts of “nice bike” and “cool.” Heather shouted back “want to push us up the hill to the park?” Everyone laughed, why didn’t they think she was serious?

Just a few block further we found the park and as Heather looked over her shoulder to see if the road was clear to go around a parked car a cyclist appeared out of no where. We stopped to find that one of the cheering bystanders had jumped on his bike to chase us down. Tim’s mother-in-law had sent him after us. We were invited to eat dinner with them and the crowd of guests at their house. Gladly! We said we catch up with Tim as another cyclist was waving us down. Pat of www.patanddavesbiketrip.blogspot.com, shared with us the info about the park. Hot showers and room to set up tents. Lovely, we’d be back.

We ate and entertained the crowd with our stories. Then made our way back to the park. While we were standing around talking with Pat another two cyclists rode up. Paul and Jeff (www.tinyurl.com/spotme) a couple of young guys riding west to east gave us a few laughs as the pulled out “extraneous” gear. One such item was a sag line for tightrope walking. About ten pounds of webbing and clips that was set up and actually used for the first time on their trip just to say it was used.

We showered and wandered around looking for a good place to sleep. The tracks were right next to the park area but further down in an area just for tents a bar blared music on outside speakers. We opted for the playground/picnic area across the street for the campground. We set up and loaded in earplugs, we could sort of see the fireworks over the tree tops but were too tired to go all the way back through town to watch them up close. Slept well despite the trains and fireworks.