Day 30 – July 3 – Bismark, ND to Steele, ND – 51 Miles

We took some time to recover today.  We didn’t get on the road until after 10:00.  We didn’t make it out of Bismarck until after 1:00.  We needed to pick up some tire tubes and patches from the bicycle shop at Scheel’s which was the opposite direction of travel from our route.  We had lunch, then had to make our way back around Bismarck to get back on route.

We rode I-94 east from Bismarck and found the traffic heavy and shoulder conditions bad.  We stopped at a rest area after about 20 miles to evaluate options.  A close look at the ND Highway map showed a two lane paved road that parallels I-94 to Steele our destination.  We exited I -94 one mile east, rode south for 1 mile and found the ideal cycling road.  We were back on “Old Highway 10”.  It was lightly travelled, made its way through the countryside passing though the small towns, and it had an excellent surface.

A few mile west of Steele we caught up with two other touring cyclist traveling east.  Jackie and Dave were from Minneapolis, and were on the last leg of their trip home.  Over the last year they had cycled the perimeter of the United States.  Now that is impressive.

There were no restaurants open in Steele, so Joe and I had to settle on a gas station pizza from the local Cenex  station, sometimes you have to take what you can get.