#acaNoTier Fargo to Pelican Rapids, 60 Miles | Should We Stay or Should We Go?

Riding Stats #1

Riding Stats #2

Accommodations

Route Tracker

Hummm where to begin…

The morning started with waking up in my sister’s cute little camper, both warm and dry.

We were exceptionally grateful since another wind storm/thunderstorm rolled through the night before in Fargo.

We knew rain and wind was forecasted so we quickly packed up and decided to get coffee and a breakfast sammie on the road.

The big question… should we stay in Fargo or go? We decided to stay – for a minute. And then we went.

Something about the way ACA connects alternate routes and maybe because neither of us are navigation aces (especially me) we set out on a path that led us to backtracking three miles (total of six miles) out of the way.

That wasn’t the funniest part. We stopped for breakfast at a gas station and people kept saying “storm’s coming, be careful” – which we already knew. So when we were taking off we began in the wrong direction… in the rain.

We will pretty much always take that gamble. If it doesn’t work out there is never a blame game. We decide together and if we are all in, we are all in.

Welp… the rain and the head wind came like I’ve never seen it. Tom was ahead of me making progress and slowly pulling away but I had my bike in granny gear pedaling with all my leg strength and only getting 4-5 miles an hour out of it.

Coincidentally I was in my fifth decade of the Sorrowful mysteries (the crucifiction). Talk about a great way to focus on y’alls prayer intentions. I was on total focus while getting beat up by the storm.

I could see Tom stopping ahead. The wind and rain were just pelting both of us.

Just where Tom stopped there was a Catholic Church on the right, St. Cecilia and a C-store on the left.

The church was locked but the store was open. We really needed some shelter and food and relief from that pelting rain.

The clerk said there was a tavern around the corner. We were open to drying out and some food but when we walked out of the C-store the rain had stopped.

What to do? Stay at the tavern for food and to dry out or go and push on to the city of Downer (yep that’s actually the name of the town) about 10 more miles.

Deciding together we opted to bike to Downer where there was another tavern to get food. In these little towns it’s most always a c-store (convenience store) or tavern for food options. That’s it. No Panera bread, no salad bars and definitely no Starbucks for bento boxes.

We straddled that storm front for 10 miles but no more rain. The cross wind however was a nice little foreshadow of how the rest of the day was going to go.

We came out of the Downer tavern to sunny skies and WIND. And it wasn’t a tailwind.

We rode strong cross winds and head winds the rest of the day. It was pretty exhausting for me. Tom was also working hard to power through.

We arrived in Pelican Rapids, a small lake community that earns the title of having the largest pelican in the world. The video looks like the icon is hurling but it was due to an unintentional camera angle.

Other highlights of the day included entering Minnesota, our fifth state. Unfortunately no state line pic was doable because of the storms.

We also saw a herd of bison and a shoe fence that fancied every type of shoe apparel on its fence posts. If you’re not sure why just google it.

We are taking an official rest day on July 4th due to more rain in the morning, headwinds and increased lake traffic in the area.

We did a little route planning in the city park with our C-store purchased coffee on our day off and have figured tomorrow we will reach our half way point. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Since we have cycled the Michigan UP before and the official NT route takes us through Indiana we’ve opted to take the ferry out of Manitowoc to Ludington and then take the Erie Connector to get back on the Northern Tier route.

We are hoping to get an early start on July 5th with no decisions as to whether we should stay or go.

God Bless America 🇺🇸…. and add to it, God Bless the World. 🌏🌍🌎

More tech issues 😫 click here if having trouble viewing video.