When the going gets tough

When the going gets tough, the smart stop for coffee.

When I left New Salem, North Dakota it had warmed up to 49 degrees. Good news. No snow. Just rain. Lots of rain. And a headwind.

As I was having breakfast in New Salem I noticed that the waitress was wearing a sweatshirt honoring the "world's largest cow." Anne and I had stopped to see that cow in 1994. You might think it unusual that a cow could be around that long, but this one will be around for many more years. It is made of fiberglass. As far as I can tell, the cow's only purpose is to draw tourists to New Salem.

Riding east on I-94 in the heavy rain between Bismarck and Fargo I was passed by a rider on a cruiser. No rain gear. No helmet. I knew he had to be frozen. If he hadn't been frozen the raindrops hitting his face would have hurt.

When I stopped for gas a few miles later in Jamestown I noticed the bike that had passed me in the next row of pumps. After filling the tank I went inside the station for a cup of coffee. The rider who had passed me was inside thawing out.

Brady Kensred explained that he was riding to meet friends in Fargo and they were bringing his rain gear. At my age I might have opted to stay in and drink coffee until the rain passed, but Brady pressed on. He is from Duluth, Minnesota, but is living in Bismarck while studying physical therapy.

While Brady and I were talking about rain and rotator cuff injuries we were joined by Casey Freidig of Hensler, North Dakota. Casey was riding a Honda cruiser and was headed to Valley City,N.D. for the holiday weekend to see his girlfriend.

Casey had a road story that could be a product of South Carolina's governor Mark Sanford. Sandford wanted to display his unhappiness with his party's state budget so he brought piglets to the Statehouse. As almost anyone knows, piglets aren't generally housebroken. Sure enough, the piglets produced one of the two things that pigs are famous for, and it wasn't the other white meat. Casey described passing a livestock hauler in the rain. The hauler was full of pigs doing what pigs do, and the pig waste was washing out of the truck on to poor Casey. He was fortunate, he said, to have several more miles in the rain after the pigs for his rain gear to get pressure washed.

When the rain slacked,I layered up and headed back out on the road. The gas station where I stopped this trip made a more favorable impression than the place I had stopped on an earlier trip to Jamestown. During my Prudhoe Bay run I was attempting to ride 1500 miles in 36 hours. I had started in Atlanta, and Jamestown by way of Fargo was by my calculations 1500 miles. I hit the first Jamestown exit in search of a gas station so I could make a purchase and get a receipt. The section of town where I stopped did have a gas station, but not much else to recommend. My feelings about Jamestown improved with a warm, dry place to have a good cup of coffee.

Looking at my atlas I figured I would exit I-94 in West Fargo to get on U.S. 2. If there was a sign for that exit, I missed it. When the Minnesota welcome center appeared, I turned in to get some local knowledge. The man at the information counter explained that I had been lucky to miss the exit because I would still be stuck at a traffic light in Fargo.

Heading for the bike I was stopped by Rennie Calder of Winnepeg who wanted to know about the bike. Rennie is a long haul truck driver running a route from Winnepeg to Green Bay, Wisconsin to Chicago and back to Winnepeg. I was happy to answer questions about the bike and bike touring as Rennie kicked the tires and said he wanted to get on the road on a bike when he retired in a couple of years. Sounds to me like you can't get tired of rolling down the open road.

I was struck by how quickly the landscape had changed from the high plains of North Dakota to the wooded hills of Minnesota. What few trees I had seen in North Dakota were evergreen while those in Minnesota were hardwood.

Taking backroads was a pleasant change from the Interstate. It was helpful that the trees blocked some of the headwind I had been fighting all day. The wind must have been 30 miles an hour, and it cut my mileage from 40 m.p.g. to about 35 even though I had slowed.

When I crossed the Mississippi River for the first time on this trip at Baton Rouge it was for sure "The Big Muddy." When I crossed it near its headwaters in Minnesota it wasn't as wide as the Saluda River at Columbia.

The regular appearance of deer warning signs and a dead deer beside the road reminded me that it would be a good thing to find a place for the night. I knew Minnesota and Wisconsin had a reputation for more relaxed attitudes about recreational drug usage, but I was surprised to cross a bridge from Minnesota to Wisconson named after drug paraphanalia. I am confident that the Bong Bridge must be named for a person and not an item, but it was good for a chuckle.

I found a vintage motel near the shores of Lake Superior and called it a day. Since it was Friday night, I had a martini. If I'm going to include recipies for asparagus, I might as well include a recipie for a martini. Some people think you can make a martini from vodka or other liquor. No. A martini is made of gin and vermouth. If you don't add vermouth, you're just drinking gin and who is willing to admit that? Some people think that it is sufficient to wash the inside of the glass with vermouth and then pour the vermouth out before pouring the gin in. I disagree, but ratios are matters of personal choice. I favor four or five parts gin to one part vermouth. I like mine shaken, but stirred will do. A drop of bitters adds nuance. Olives are important, too. Anne likes hers stuffed with anchovies while I like mine stuffed with jalapanos. Anne likes olive juice poured into her martini to make a "dirty martini." Not my choice. My years of research indicate that martinis are good served up or on the rocks. Again, a matter of choice.

My friend and colleague Erik Collins has been known to mix martinis with such a zest that his guests might discover ancient wisdom: one martini, two martini, three martini, floor.