Day 22 - July 21 - Bob & Jim have Iron Butts

In the event there is anyone who has followed this blog closely, and analyses the text closely, that (unlikely) person may have noticed that the second half of Day 21's entry made no express mention of Jim or Bob. In fact we separated after lunch at Duluth Minnesota, with George and me continuing west as described in the blog, but Bob and Jim heading south to Minneapolis, with a view to spending the night somewhere on an Interstate, and the next day starting out at 4:00 a.m. to drive 1,000 miles - or 1620 kms - within 24 hours... the standard which must be met to achieve "Iron Butt" status as a rider.

Well, Day 22 dawned with George and me leaving our comfortable Hampton Inn suite, after a full night sleep, and heading west on Highway 2, eventually passing through 3 states: Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana.

We crossed the Minnesota/North Dakota state line at Grand Forks - another state boundary that is set in the middle of a river, and thus a bridge - and continued west to Devil's Lake. What a great name for a town! Devil's Lake itself (i.e., the lake, not the town) is really b ig, and quite scenic. The town....

While stopped for coffee in Devil's Lake, George and I for some reason were discussing competitive sports, and in that context talked about rugby in terms of the tradition of both teams leaving the conflict on the field, and joining together afterward for a beer.

So in the "how weird is this?" department, it was pretty strange to leave Devil's Lake and see an overhead sign saying the next major town was Rugby, North Dakota. So we set Rugby as our goal for lunch.

When we got closer to Rugby, we saw signs proclaiming that Rugby is the "geographic centre of North America". In due course we found a rock cairn asserting the same fact, and flying flags of Canada, the U.S., and Mexico. Yes, sports fans, we have been to the geographic centre of North America, and have eaten lunch there.

We carried on through sweltering heat (34 degrees) and, as has been said before, the commitment to maintaining Kevlar protection in jacket and pants is a commitment to almost mesmerizing, incapacitating heat. We need to research air conditioning inside Kevlar suits.

And the highways are straight, and flat.

We saw a wonderful billboard which said only, "Be nice", without attributing it to anyone. Hate billboards, but this was pretty cool.

In due course we got to Williston where we expected to spend the night, only to find there were no rooms at the inns (of Williston), so we rode on for another 65 kms to the thriving metropolis of Culbertson Montana. There we gratefuly ended what felt like a long, hot day at the King's Inn motel, and ate at the only option in this very small community, the adjacent casino.

Well, we thought we were having a long, hot day... meanwhile, Bob and Jim had travelled just over 1700 kms in 16 hours and seven minutes (you don't want to do the math about average speed). They spent the night with sore (but iron nonetheless) butts.