Heading out of Fargo on my first day’s cycling in North Dakota and if the first day’s anything to go by it’s going to be flat, straight and long, with a return of the land parcel system marking a giant 1 square mile grid over the countryside. Virtually all turnings are right-angles, with tarmac side-roads only occasionally taking the place of gravel and wheat fields reaching to the horizon. On that horizon, to the SW, a rather intense-looking cloud formation was gathering, with lightening sparking the sky. The wind, coming from the SE, seemed to be blowing it my way and I started to get a little concerned because there was absolutely no shelter, anywhere.
I paused by a row of giant golden hay bails at one of those perpendicular gravel off-roads and – after a quiet moment of empty space - watched a pickup truck drive from the very horizon, past junction after junction, to eventually slow down, turn onto the off-road and stop beside me. I thought, what were the odds of that? Should I be concerned? It all felt a little like that scene in North By Northwest when Cary Grant is watching a crop-duster plane slowly approach the field where he’s waiting, in the moment before he realises that he’s the target… As it turned out, the pickup belonged to a nice young couple who, simply by coincidence, lived in a ranch down the track, and had stopped just to check that I was OK. They told me there was an official storm warning, with possible hail (!) and if caught out I should take shelter in the storm drains that run under each road crossing. I kept thinking: yes, but what about my bike?!
The only town between Fargo and Page, called Arthur, was a little over half way. There was nothing really for it but to plough on and hope to beat the storm. And that, I’m glad to say, is what happened. I got comfy in a friendly little café as the sky darkened and the rain started to pour. The TV was on the weather channel showing threatening T-storm graphics and so I decided to settle in till the all-clear. By chance, the café was part of a small indoor market which had a 2nd hand bookshop. Excellent timing, as I’d just finished the only book I’d brought with me (The Coronation of Haile Selassie by Evelyn Waugh). Trouble was, 95% of all the books were romance novels, and the remaining 4% about war. It took a while to hunt down the elusive 1% “others” and, in the end, selected The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood, which had a cover that made it look like a trashy 70s sexcapade.
Well, the rains moved on and the sun came out and it was all steam ahead to Page, a tiny place at a junction of a highway and two railways. Accommodation in what seemed like the back office of a local real estate business. No window, but nice and clean with a big bed and a good shower. All this being the 2nd (and last) official cyclist’s lodging of the journey. A woman met me at the pub (this was organised by phone in Fargo), let me in and left me to it. I dined at the town’s diner – another nice (if half empty) family place, strolled down to the railway crossing, then off to bed early to got started on my new book.
