Day 39: In Which Dean Hits a Skunk

Cooperstown, ND to Carrington, ND

Stats!
Miles biked today: 48.8
Total miles biked on trip so far: 1497.5
Max speed: 22.5 mph
# of dragonflies that kamikazed onto our faces: 3
# of skunk bumps: 1

Man oh man was it ever a beautiful day today! I can't say it was an ideal day for biking, since it was a bit windy and that slowed us down, but compared to the past 3 or 4 days, it was wonderful! We loved seeing the sun shine again!

North Dakota is still pretty boring, landscape wise, but we saw a few new species today. There was a pretty bird with a yellow head that we saw a lot. The picture I took is blurry, but I had to zoom to 40x to get it. We couldn't get close to one without it flying away, so I had to zoom, zoom, zoom. They were beautiful, though. We also saw three yellow and black snakes in the tall grasses just off the roadside. We chose not to stop and photograph them .... I'm not sure that they were harmless. There were also TONS of mallards -- I mean hundreds of mallards, on just a 49 mile ride -- and there was also a species of duck we didn't recognize, but recognized enough to know they were ducks. They were yellow. Quack quack!

A little ways down the road, Dean was happily watching the ducks. I saw that there was a very recently dead and quite large skunk in the road, so I veered out of the way. Dean was hypnotized by all the ducks and didn't see the skunk. I soon heard a thunk, followed by "ewwww!" Dean had rolled right over that giant dead skunk. Gross! He thought it was pretty funny. :) It was the size of a medium dog.

We stopped for lunch at the Wicked Step Bar in Glenfield, which was closed. But they let us eat the sandwiches we had bought that morning (anticipating that there may not be a place to eat in Glenfield) at the table in the adjacent convenience store. We had a lengthy talk with the world's most outgoing 10 year old boy and his grandfather. That kid could talk the hind leg off a mule. It was pretty fun, and his grandfather had lived in Virginia Beach awhile and was pretty interested in the trip.

Carrington is bigger than Cooperstown was, but still pretty small. We had the "exploded pig sandwich" for dinner. It was really good! We are staying at the Chieftain Motel tonight. Lots of things around here are Native American themed, and we are very near some Sioux reservations.

Tomorrow we had planned to do a longish day, but we quickly learned that there's a county fair less than 40 miles from here, so we're going to do that. County fair!