Today was actually quite uneventful. We got up early with the hopes of beating some of the wind, but to no avail. It was up before we were. We'd talked about having pancakes in Ryder (121), about ten or eleven miles down the road, but we got there at 6:45 and the café didn't open until 7. By this time we'd ridden four miles into the stiff south breeze and had another sixteen to go, so we kept on pedaling.

This was about as flat a stretch as we'd been on all week, and I was starting to miss the hills. If nothing else, they visibly broke up the route; here the last mile looked the same as this mile looked the same as the next, and the next. I couldn't get a sense that we were actually making any progress!

Emmet was the only rest stop we visited, about ten miles from Garrison (1530). There were a lot of home-baked goodies offered by a mother-daughter team, and as they were describing everything, one common ingredient emerged: zucchini. :-) I asked if they'd made a mistake and planted more than one plant, and wasn't really surprised when they said, "No, just one!" At least they were experienced gardeners. But my chocolate zucchini bar couldn't hide the squash's presence. It wasn't bad, and certainly beat having another granola bar!

We were heading east toward Garrison after leaving Emmet, making a little better progress. We passed some flax fields which were flowering. The blue or almost purplish hue across a waving field is quite pretty.

The last three miles into Fort Stevenson were into the wind, sort of one last "I'm the boss" from Nature. Traffic (vehicle) was fairly steady coming toward us, with bikes on top or behind or within. There were usually some waves too!

And speaking of waves, there were white caps on Lake Sakakawea when we pulled into the campground. There were still quite a few bags on the ground when we found the truck. It was fun to sit back and watch the riders come in while we waited to get picked up. We were helping a cyclist-turned-motorist find her wallet which she'd left on the top of her car as she drove off, when the troops arrived. After packing the car, we headed into Garrison for the final spaghetti feed and a few final good-byes.