Minot, ND 6/someday/2010

Eastern Montana is not used to being wetRiding a dinosaur is harder than riding a bike. This pic was taken in Malta, MT where a museum houses the most complete dinosaur remains ever found (even a large percentage of its flesh was preserved).Fixing spokes in the Fort Peck Indian Reservation before we hauled it to Williston, ND

Rx for sore knees: Ice Cream Sandwich

Us Ward boys found our county in North Dakota today. However, instead of being friendly and hospitable it has given us only hills and 25 mph headwinds.

Sorry for the delay lately in detailed blog updates. We have all been working hard the past couple days and there hasn't been much time/access to update. We rolled into Minot, North Dakota (pronounced My Knot, although I like practicing my french pronuncitation and calling it Mee No) around mid day today after battling 25 mph headwinds for 6 hours this morning. It has been some of the hardest riding of the trip and after that much time we have only gone 55 miles. We made up for our struggles with about 30 buffalo wings per rider and a World Cup game. Hopefully with a little rest in this town we can make it another 20 miles down the road to camp tonight.

The past few days have been eventful. From Havre, MT we rode east to Malta and from there to the very beginnings of the Fort Peck Indian reservation. It was all nice flat riding with a tail wind so we were seriously spoiled. The next day we blasted through the reservation with choice stops along the Missouri River. We also visited a modern day Powow on the reservation that everybody we spoke to recommended. It was certainly a unique experience to see the costumes and dances and hear the music of those ancient tribes. However, I think we all left there with some sadness as we more fully understood the tragedy of that proud people's history.

After the Powow and some quick spoke replacements on Aidan's bike we rode into the night and made it to Williston, ND by 3 AM (losing an hour along the way because we entered central time). It felt good to cross another state line. We slept in the next day as was necesarry and hit the hilly North Dakota road to try and make it as far as we could. At no great pace we made it to Stanley, ND a little after dark and convinced the proprietors of an ice cream stand to serve us much needed milk shakes. They were incredibly nice to help us out so we bought a lot of ice cream (not that we wouldn't have anyway). Slept in the open air in a park in Stanley and hit the road early this morning so we could hit up the bike shop here in Minot. The wind was very strong and pulverizing and the going was slower than we all expected. Nonetheless, we made it here and everyone is relaxing/doing errands in thier own way. I hope the wind dies down so the riding tonight is easy going. Fingers crossed. Peace and Love to our followers.