Minot

Ming and I biked the Bike the Border ride last weekend.  140 miles - 38 the first day, 68 the second day, 32 the last day.  The ride went from Glenburn, ND, to Berthold, to Mohall, and back to Glenburn, in a big circle north of Minot.  The 9 hour drive each way was definitely a pain in the a**, but good company, so there was lots to talk about.

I apologize in advance for the quality of the pictures.  My camera white compensation has died and in any lighting, it now takes pictures with a greenish tint.  Replacing it is a goal for the week.  I'm not sure if it's related to loaning it to three eight year olds, but I have my suspicions based on the timing of the issue.

Me in Glenburn, imitating a hula tree art project.  They didn't put this together just for us.  The guy had several pieces of art in his yard of a similar sort, many involving beer bottles.  There were only about 68 people on the ride - 150 was the limit for the ride - because of the weather and flooding.  There was water everywhere.  The fields were saturated. The roads and parking lots were buckling.  The hills were sliding loose.  Ducks were EVERYWHERE because everywhere was comprised of giant lakes of water in fields that wouldn't go away because the ground was already saturated.  What I remember about the area when I was a kid was how dry it was - not this year.  Because of the water in the fields and the mosquitoes, they let us sleep in the local schools each night.  Ming and I never so much as cracked a tent pole or sank a stake.  There was even air conditioning.  The only impediments to a good night's sleep were wooden basketball floors and Neil the Canadian PM snoring after drinking too much.


Ming took this picture in Mohall.  It's Chiveworthy.  I may have to ask him if I can submit it.  Mohall was weird.  Their school had cages for the lockers and equipment.  Not like lockers.  More like prison cages with locks on them that sealed off areas.  And there were no stall walls.  Which sucks if you need to relieve yourself.

The best thing about the second day was that it was beautiful out.  70s and sunny the whole 68 miles.  A definite difference from the previous day where the last 6+ miles were uphill into the wind while it was raining.  Of course, that made the 38 challenging, so there you go.  The nice thing about ending up in Berthold after the first day was the principal at the Berthold school was super nice.  She actually drove people around in the bus to avoid the rain, and did a smores cook out on the front lawn.  I was happy to spend money in her town, even if, as we heard, the local restaurant shut down an hour early because the owner couldn't handle the (68) bicyclists coming in for dinner.  Ming seemed to like the second day fine until we got to the hill at about the 63 mile mark.  Big hill.  Very big hill.  I think between the hill and running out of water, he was ready to be done.  But he still wasn't ready to enter Dad's Back Door.

We ate at the Paragon Cafe in Mohall.  I strongly recommend against it.  It wasn't bad.  But the waitress was brusque.  Exceedingly so.  I thought it was just Ming and me, but later, in the gym, we heard the story making the rounds about how crabby she seemed to be toward everyone.  For dinner we ate at the burger joint instead.  They looked overwhelmed by the cyclists, but put in the effort to make sure food was moving and still be pleasant.


This is from Minot, after the ride, at the bookstore.  Ming looked for a book to read throughout the ride.  Several Cenexes and three towns, and he couldn't find so much as a good magazine.  He borrowed my copy of Zombie, Ohio, and enjoyed it.  Maybe people are afraid to go in the bookstores because they're furry porn shops?


Charlie's, where we ate breakfast after the ride.  Apparently a favorite of anyone over about 70 in Minot.  That's a good sign if you're a breakfast person.


Ming and the ape.  Two women brought the ape along as they travel with it everywhere.  We met the ape, some local teachers, two women who were married to guys working at Minot Air Force Base, a guy who works at the base, Erin the teenager and her dad (I pointed this out to Eryn, insinuating she should go on a ride with me), Neil the Canadian PM, Archie the old guy (who laughs when he pees - sorry if you're reading this Archie, but it's true), the organizers of the ride, and a variety of other folks including a postmaster from closer to Williston and Bob from Minot.  We met a group of women aged late 30s to early 40s as well.  I joked that Ming should take his ring off, at which point he admitted it was already off because his wife didn't want him to lose it on the ride.  Maybe she'll rethink that next time.


The pump at Donnybrook.  I used to pump water here into large cans to haul up to the farm for Grandpa Harry.


Me at the Donnybrook sign.  Ming said I was disrespectful because I farted in the field.  I pointed out I was just leaving a bit of myself in Donnybrook.


Ming reading Zombie, Ohio.  This was our regular sleeping quarters.


Mohall was home of the bombers.  I thought this was amusing because there's that saying "build schools not bombers".  I bet they don't use that saying in Mohall.


All the bikes in a hallway.  No one wants a wet seat.  No one wants wet feet either, which is why I bought shoe covers.  Then put on a brand new pair of sneakers, not realizing they were much bigger than the sneakers I used to try the rain covers.  Doh.


From our trip up and back.  A Nazi Native American.


Ming in Glenburn, readying his bike.


Jamestown, home of the giant buffalo.  I took Ming there just to check it out.  I learned the other day that Audrey, from work, is from Jamestown.


In Jamestown, the slippery slope has slidden.  Ducks and alligators openly kiss.


The last day was short, but windy.  Erin's dad told us the wind would pick up later in the morning until it was at 10-20 mph, and earlier was better.  So most riders set out about 5:30 a.m.  It was a good choice, because the last three miles were some serious pedaling for not much speed.

I mentioned it was wet.  This is what many of the hills looked like.

Another picture of hills:

And Audrey sent me this picture of Canada.  This is the same river that flows through Minot.  When we were in Minot, it looked just like the picture on the left.  I can't imagine it looking like the picture on the right.

And finally, a nice video of our drive into Minot.  We had Pooteewheet's new car.  Hope she doesn't mind that we drove it through a river.

Zombie, Ohio and Mieville's Kraken

I took Scott Kenemore's book (yes, book, not eBook) Zombie, Ohio, along on the Bike the Border ride Ming and I went on last weekend around Minot, ND.  Ming grabbed it to read as I was also reading China Mieville's Kraken and he hadn't brought anything.  Which turned out to be a wise decision as nowhere within 30 miles of Minot, ND, was there a book to be purchased.  Most of the towns we were in a.) didn't have a bookstore, b.) didn't have a gas station that had books, unless they were Christian, and c.) didn't have a gas station that had a magazine.  Seriously, several Cenex's and not a magazine between them.  Everyone in North Dakota obviously uses an eReader and purchases their books in digital format or has them delivered directly to the front door via Amazon.com.  I strongly recommend Zombie, Ohio.  A very solid book in the Zombie genre.  At times it's like The Road.  At other times it's like The Postman.  And in places it's sort of a mystery novel and love story.  Without ruining it, the plot revolves around a zombie who finds that he's not your average dumb, slow zombie, but a one in a million/billion smart zombie who can talk, reason, plan, and emote.  You can do the math from there.  What does he do about his penchant for eating brains?  Is he a good zombie, a bad zombie, or both?  Definitely a clever twist.

Which is more than I could say about Kraken.  I really liked Perdido Street Station, The Scar, and even Iron Council, which was a bit more ponderous than the other two.  King Rat, which was sort of same genre of urban magic, although sans giant squid, was thoroughly enjoyable, particularly if you'd read any Gaiman or Emma Bull (you can read my lengthy post about King Rat and War for the Oaks here).  Kraken was not. It sort of hopped all over the place.  And at times, Mieville came back to the thread of the story with references to things that had happened that he hadn't covered in text.  Which was damn strange given Kraken was over 500 pages.  He could have written the same story, with just as much depth, in 200-300 pages.  The last 40 or so had the most interesting aspects of the story and I shouldn't have had to breathe deep and utter, "Finally."  I'll channel one of the folks on Amazon who sums it up well, although I'd push the % down to about 30%, "The characters are flat. 75% of the way through the novel I realized I really did not care what happened to these characters and I only finished to see how the mystery was resolved."

Bike Repairs

Back when Ming and I went to Minot, North Dakota, to ride around the flooded plains, I took my bike in for a tune up before taking it out for 150 miles of riding in the middle of nowhere. I took it to Erik's in Eagan because that's where I've been going since I had the argument with a Penn Cycle employee about whether he "wouldn't" sell me a new chain unless I also replaced my cogs. Before that, I had taken my bike to Erik's in Richfield until they gave me back my bike with the front wheel on backwards and my odometer in a non-functional state. Erik's in Eagan didn't fare much better, as I got my bike home, popped it off the rack, and discovered the front wheel wouldn't turn. I mucked around with it for a while and adjusted the brakes, then rolled down the street. Back and forth and up and down as well as straight ahead. Seems an expensive bicycle tune up doesn't include actually truing the back wheel, which was so out of true that my wife recognized it, and it rubbed against the brakes. I trued it up just enough to make due (I'm not very good at it, although I can get a wheel in passable shape if I spend an hour at it), and went on my trip the next day. Ming can attest that I was very grumpy, although not grumpy enough to take Erik's to task when I got back - the idea of having to deal with someone who's either a.) incompetent or b.) doesn't care about their job or the people who pay for their service, feels like a waste of time.

So this time, when I needed new spokes, I took the wheel back to Penn, violating my rule of never going back to a place that irritates me. One strike! I dropped off the wheel, and that evening I got a call from a mechanic who said that a couple of spokes were in bad shape and perhaps they should swap out the wheel. I commented that it wasn't that old for a wheel, although it was true I'd put some hard miles on it, including towing a tagalong, which is rough on a back wheel. But I approved the order. So I was surprised today when they called again and left a message for me that it was ready to pick up and there were two new spokes. I called back and asked for details, as I'd approved a new wheel, and they said that it had been a newer mechanic who made that call, and they'd determined the wheel could be salvaged. I asked, "Why did it cost me $50 for two spokes when a whole new wheel only costs $70?" They rattled off the spokes, the labor, and the cost of installing a new tube. That surprised me, as I had dropped off a perfectly inflated wheel.

They had popped the tube and were trying to charge me for a new one. SOAB. They apologized for the mistake and took the $20 for installing a new tube (really?) off my bill.

So I don't know where the hell I'm going to go next. Maybe I have to just strap my wheel or defective parts to my back and bike it up to the greenway on my other bicycle.

Well, I Otter...

Eryn and I went to the Otter Encounter at the MN Zoo.  Unlike the Penguin Encounter, which she went to with her mom, you don't get to touch the animals in the Otter Encounter.  I think it has something to do with the otters being five feet long, up to 100 pounds, and having a mouth full of very sharp teeth.  Not something you get with your average zoo penguin, not even the toughs they're harboring from the Minot Zoo.

The nice thing about being at the encounter on a school day was we were the only two individuals present.  So we had the otter, two zookeepers, and two zoo interns all to ourselves.  They answered all sorts of questions about otter distribution, otter impacts from runoff in California (might be cat liter), where otters hide their food (in their armpits), and much more.

You do get to put out food for them while they hang out in the pen next door.  This is a sled covered in ground clam for Capers the Sea Otter.  You can tell how excited Eryn is to touch ground clam.



I also learned that otters can stand on their webbed feet.  Most of the time, Capers slithered all over the place, but the zookeepers assured me he was just being lazy.


Back to putting out the food.  We got to hide it all over the place.  I felt pretty smart lifting up the big block of ice, which I could barely move with one hand, and stuffing a clam popsicle under there were it would be hard to find.


When he found it under the ice, he just put a paw under it and flipped it up.  Effortlessly.  Then he threw the iceberg in the water, slipped in, picked it up in his paws, and slammed it repeatedly against the edge of the cement until pieces broke off.  Just a bit strong than your average penguin.  We were also told that sea otters don't have a layer of blubber, so they spend a lot of time eating.  Up to 25% of their body weight in a day.  The storage area in their arm pits is so they can collect food for a while before lounging on their backs for a varied meal.


Capers liked to throw overly cold food in the water for a while, giving it a chance to thaw while he looked for additional goodies.


We did get to handfeed him through the plexiglass holes.


You get pretty close to those teeth.  But he's more interested in the clam popsicles than in anyone's fingers.


Posing with Capers the Otter.


He wants another clamstick, Eryn!  The zookeeper says post-encounter is big time nap time, they're generally so stuffed with food by that point.


Eryn posing with Capers the Sea Otter.  I made an animated gif out of this photo, but Eryn was moving, so it wasn't as funny as if it had just been the otter flipping his head back and forth.  I could cut the pictures and do it without Eryn, or splice her half of the photo into both halves of Capers' photos to keep her still.  If I get around to that, I'll post it.


This had nothing to do with otters.  But it was how I ended my trip to the zoo for the day.  I think the little bear is trying to look around me.  Eryn thinks he's sniffing my butt.