Day 6 Friday 8-11-06

Day 6 - Bismarck to Washburn 41 miles

My stats:
Miles: 54.4
Time in the saddle: 4 hours 3 minutes
Average mph: 13.4
Maximum mph: 35.7
Calories burned: 1891

After a great night's sleep, I woke up around 3 am and made a big breakfast. Hard to leave Sam & Rowdy again and I think they were a little confused, but I did and quickly rode in the dark along the trails and across the river on the Memorial Bridge to meet up with the other 'Candiscers' at the turn going north out of town - got there around 5:30 am. It was a very easy ride all morning. I made it to the Double Ditch Indian Village rest stop at sunrise. Beautiful and so very calm. It was a great morning to ride River Road and see the morning sun's reflections and the great looking farms all along the river. The full moon was slowly setting in the west in a perfectly crystal blue sky. We must have had a bit of a tail wind later on in the morning, because it just didn't seem like any work at all to get to Washburn. Just before the Steckel Landing's rest stop I helped a girl from Turtle Lake with a flat tire. The new tube was already in thanks to a gentleman who helped her before I got there, but they didn't have much of a pump so I loaned them my little pump which was a little better. Then I was quickly on my way and rolled into Washburn by 9:30 - the earliest I've ever made it to a campsite. The last couple miles or so were north out of town to the huge 4-H camp with some of the tallest old cottonwoods I've ever seen. I set up my tent not too far from Archie's and got a nice shower in their bunkhouse. Deb & Sheila rolled in and set up their tents next to mine. After they showered, we ate lunch at the camp and then got on a shuttle bus to Ft. Mandan and then into Washburn.

That was the 1st time I'd been at Ft. Mandan after they expanded it for the Lewis and Clark bicentennial; very nice now. What a trip down memory lane when we were uptown Washburn. We got an ice cream cone from one very busy kid who obviously wasn't expecting all the bikers. Took a look in a few stores, and spent a lot of time in the county museum. They've added a ton of stuff since I lived there in 97. I wanted to walk down to Randy's and leave a note, but was just getting too hot and tired so caught the next shuttle back to camp by myself. Those old school buses we rode in were like a sleeping pill and I found it hard to stay awake for even a few miles! I discovered a little lounge spot at the far end of the lunch room with a big deep soft couch and fans blowing and it was quiet. I got out my new geocache book, read about 5 minutes and then proceeded to geocache dreamland for about 45 minutes. I woke up to much more noise as the supper line was forming. I found Deb & Sheila and we ate and then decided to play a bit of bingo. I won a pizza cutter and key chain but then left early as the wasps were starting to bother me and I was getting sleepy again. I went to my tent and talked by phone to a friend who was on the road moving to Wyoming. I really slept very well that night, and yet again heard coyotes sometime in the night. At least I think I wasn't dreaming that part.