Sat., May 28 - Greetings from Princeton University (for me at least) - weekend of annual reunions - well over 20,000 alumni come back to campus - everyone except Jim!! At least I have my priorities in order and I am here representing the Gregoire family.
I talked to Jim briefly at 10:15 as I was walking to my first event on campus - he was thrilled that I was there! He was up at 5:30am and on the road by 7 with a high probability of rain anticipated. We talked once more in the afternoon during the festivities and he was still doing well, other than the terrible wind. We had a longer conversation when I got to my hotel at 5pm. When he left this morning, he was headed to the diner about a mile out of town - he heard they had great french toast. Sad to report, they were closed on Saturdays. Fortunately about 1/10 of a mile further was a Subway shop so he was able to get a breakfast sandwich. He left there about 7:45 with all of his rain gear on - skies were looking worse & worse. He walked about 7 miles on a gravel road to the town of Zap, ND - nothing there - he was able to rest a while on a bench. He encountered a few sprinkles, then some light rain. At that point he was back on Rt. 200 (much of the hike is on this paved route). The traffic was light today, but the wind was brutally strong. At times, he could barely move forward - he hasn't felt wind like this since the mountains in NH and ME. He arrived at his planned destination of the Saddle Sore Saloon in Golden Valley at 1:30 - really looking forward to a beer after a tough day - and they were closed! He set up his tent in the town park up the hill from the Saloon - quite a nice park, with picnic table, a water pump and two port-a-potties. Hiking today was incredibly slow - not his favorite day at all. I was able to check e-mails and told Jim that I had received two e-mails from people along his route - Ron the bartender in Beulah and Joanne, a ranger at Knife River National Historic Site. They are now following Jim's adventures.
Miles Today - 17.....Total Cumulative Miles - 127
Sun., May 29 - We talked at 9am and things went better last night after we last spoke. He decided to walk down the hill and sure enough, Saddle Sore was open. As it turned out, it had opened about a half hour after Jim was first there, but no sign indicated hours. He spent a while there and had a nice conversation with a man at the bar and filled his water bottles. Next door was a steak restaurant that was now open so he had a wonderful steak dinner last night. As he was walking out, a couple nearby asked him to sit down so they chatted for a while and he gave them the blog address. So last night he decided to call the two places on his schedule for Sunday - a restaurant and a bar (unfortunately no church in Golden Valley). The bar person said she thought that the restaurant was going to be closed, but they were open now so call and check. She said if they were going to be closed, just ask the restaurant woman to send some food over and she would warm it up for Jim - can you imagine! Actually, it was going to open, but only until 2pm so that meant he had to head out early today.He was up at 5am and out by 6:30. So far today there has been very little traffic - his feet are doing very well.
We talked again at 3:30 and Jim was at his destination of Halliday, ND - his legs are very sore from yesterday's brutal walk in the wind. Fortunately it was not windy at all today, but the forecast is for high winds and much rain tomorrow. Jim may not make it as far as planned for our meeting spot - I may just have to drive a few more miles than planned. When he got there he found the nicest park you can imagine - did not show up in all of his research - a great surprise! There were numerous covered picnic tables and real restrooms. He did make it to Jodeo's restaurant in plenty of time for a great lunch. At one point, a woman (Loucinda) at a nearby table asked Jim to sit down at said "what's your story?" Of course, Jim was quite happy to tell her his tale of hiking. She and her friend now have the blog address! Back at his tent site, a man wandered over and it turns out it was Duane, the cafe owner. He said he lives a block away and has a camper. He told Jim that if it got nasty out tonight to come over and he could sleep in his camper - people sure are amazing! Then he gave Jim his cell # and said if he had any problems further along on his route, just give him a call and he would help him out. Jim told him that was a comforting thought, especially as he goes through the Badlands (I've blocked that part out of my mind). He is planning to meet Duane later on at the bar - sure hope Jim buys him a drink!
We talked again briefly at 5pm after I received an e-mail from Joanne at Knife River. She was concerned about the North Dakota flooding and hoped that I would be OK driving tomorrow to meet Jim (wasn't that nice of her). Jim seems to think that I will be on high enough ground - sure hope he is right. When we talked it was raining, but he was fine since he was sitting at a covered picnic table. He was watching a tree stump that had a bird's nest on it - couldn't tell if it was eggs or baby birds, but the mom and dad kept taking turns on the nest. He is quite chilly, so he will head to the bar to warm up. I heard from Jim at 8:30pm via text message (no cell reception, but the texts came through). To quote "no reception, in tent, raining, yuk". Packing up his tent tomorrow should be unpleasant - at least he has a covered picnic table.
We were able to talk a little after 9pm and it was still raining. Jim had a nice couple of hours at the bar with a man named Zach - no food though. He came back to his tent and had snacks and a slice of spam (UGH). I am sure he'll re ready for some good food when we are together in Dickinson (no spam for me, thank you!).
I will fly out of Philadelphia (here now at an airport hotel) tomorrow morning, heading to Bismarck (thru Minneapolis).
Miles Today - 16.5.....Total Cumulative Miles - 143.5
Monday., May 30 - HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY! Well, how do I begin today's adventures? I guess this day will start with a "Jane Journal", because an adventure it was!! My day began with a cell phone call at 4:45am (in my Philly hotel) and Jim says "can you hear the deluge outside my tent". Well, I certainly NEVER heard such a sound of water. If it stays like this, there is no way that Jim can walk from Halliday to our meeting spot in Killdeer. The visibility would be too poor and definitely unsafe walking conditions. We arranged a Plan B for me to meet him in Halliday. My 8:20 plane was delayed until 9am for a part replacement (always an encouraging start). I was apprehensive about making my connection in Minneapolis, but the pilot really made up time well and we seemed to have plenty of time as we were approaching Minneapolis. But.... then we were forced to circle for an incredibly long time due to thunderstorms. We finally arrived with about 15 minutes for me to get to the next gate for my 11:15am flight - of course at the other end of the terminal! The sight of me running through the airport was not pretty and I arrived at the gate 2 minutes after they closed the door - UGH!!!
There were three more flights to Bismarck - 1:10, 3:05 and 5:25. The first two were sold out so I got a confirmed seat on the 5:25. That didn't make me happy since I knew I had a little over two hours to drive to Jim once I got to Bismarck. I did get on the standby list for the 1:10 flight and sure enough got one of the last two seats on the plane - yea! However.... after a bit of a delay on the plane, they announced mechanical difficulties - they tried to correct, but were not successful, so we had to deplane. We were told just to hang out at the gate and wait for news. All of these planes were small 50 passenger ones. They told us they were trying to locate a larger plane that could accommodate all three flights (cancelling the 3:05). Finally about 4, they announced they had done this. Getting new boarding passes was a bit of a nightmare, but all was well when we got on the plane. One last glitch was that they boarded us before our pilot and co-pilot were there because they knew they were due in shortly from San Francisco. Because of this, we didn't actually leave until about 6pm. I arrived about 7:15 and rented my car and was on my way by 7:45 - finally picking up Jim about 10pm.
Now back to Jim's day... I was able to talk to Jim several times, so at least he knew of my delays. He said he had torrential rains overnight, but he did stay dry in his new "Big Agnes" tent. Although he thought he might have to stay all day in Halliday, the rain did stop and he headed out about 9am. The wind was from the east, giving him a tailwind. After a mile he got to Hwy 200 and he had a great morning with the strong tailwind pushing him westward. There wasn't much traffic early, but that changed as the day progressed. By mid-day the traffic was getting pretty heavy, with much of it being oil tankers carrying a load of crude from the wellhead to refinery or pipeline. These tankers would roar past him at something in excess of the posted 65 mph. By early afternoon the weather began to deteriorate - first a fine mist, then a light rain. No problem, his rain gear can handle that fine, But now the passing oilers were showering him with a blast of dirty water! He said he felt like he was in a car wash (except not clean water) with each passing tanker. His face and clothes soon became soggy and gritty. At 3:15, having walked 21 miles, he got to the major intersection of Rte. 200 & Hwy 22. He headed north on 22 toward Killdeer, hoping to find someplace to spend the several hours he knew he needed to wait for me to arrive much later than originally planned. Within 1/4 mile he came to a bar & grill, the unusually named "2 7/8 Steakhouse". The bar was pretty busy but the steakhouse was a cook-your-own place. He sat at the bar and immediately started talking with a group of three: Tim, his 91-yr-old father and Karen. They were real interested in his trip, so he gave them the blog address. When they left, he moved to a table and ate some bar food. After he was there for 6.5 hours, I finally got there to pick him up and walked over and said "this sure is a long way to come for a date"!! He certainly was real happy to see me! He very graciously offered to drive the 35 miles south to Dickinson to our hotel. Needless to say, the shower was the first thing to capture his attention! Jim said that today's hike brought him to the edge of the booming oil and gas section of ND. There are no economic problems here - the unemployment rate is only 1% and people are streaming in to get jobs. All this is great economically for the state, but there are obvious negative impacts as well. Tourism is being hurt as there are no available hotel rooms from Killdeer north. And the roads are clogged with hundreds of oil tankers. For the next three days Jim will be risking his life by walking on Rte. 200 to Watford City. The truck traffic will be fierce and there is no decent shoulder to walk on. So he and the trucks will just have to share the road. With the only alternative route to northeast Montana closed due to flooding, he really has no choice but to take this route and hope and pray for the best. He says that his feet and legs are faring well and the two days of rest here in Dickinson will help even more.
Jim's biggest near-term challenge may be finding enough water. The forecast for Thurs. and Fri. is for temps in the high 70's and sunny. He saw no lakes or flowing streams in his map research. He may have to carry an extra liter of water to stay adequately hydrated, clean & fed. Zach (the man at the bar in Halliday) did say he will be driving a tanker on Jim's route and he offered to bring him a gallon of water - he will probably need it - thanks, Zach!
Miles Today - 21..... Total Cumulative Miles - 164.5
Tues. & Wed., May 31 & June 1 - Two days of rest for Jim with me in Dickinson, ND (2 hours west of Bismarck). We woke up on Tuesday to fierce winds - you could actually see even the grass blowing from the hotel window. When we went out to breakfast, it really felt brutal - quite chilly all day. Jim said he was sure glad he wasn't hiking today! The main thing you notice here is how absolutely filthy all of the vehicles (mainly pickups) are. They are just coated with dried mud - really disgusting - brown is the most common vehicle color (no matter what the original color was)!!! Tuesday we just pretty much hung out for Jim to relax, read the NYTimes online, write his journal, read the hike blog, etc. We were also able to go to a WalMart to replace Jim's torn waterproof pants - very handy that they were here and had his size. Today (Wed.) we walked around the local mall and then went to the Dakota Dinosaur Museum here in Dickinson - quite interesting actually. The weather today is quite different from Mon. & Tues. - much warmer and sunny with quite a bit less wind - feels quite pleasant outside. We ended our visit with a fantastic meal at Brickhouse Grille - we highly recommend it if you are ever in Dickinson, ND!!!
Jim says he is ready to get back on the road, feeling very refreshed - this was a great break for him.
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