Entering North Dakota

Today, I rode from Sidney, Montana to Fort Buford, North Dakota in the morning and then on to Williston, North Dakota in the afternoon. The roads were far more level, so I was able to enjoy the ride a little more than in the past few days. Historic Fort Buford rests on the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, so I took the opportunity to enjoy the "Interpretive Center" there. Today's ride is marked by having now entered my sixth state (CA, OR, WA, ID, MT, and now ND), my third time zone (Pacific, Mountain, and now Central), and a total of 2,200 miles thus far.

Williston is smaller than I thought it was going to be, but I still found a TrueValue hardware store that had the right-sized tires (700x28cc), and I should be able to install them tonight. When I realized that my bike resource was going to be the TrueValue, I was skeptical, because when I asked for 700x28cc tires at the TrueValue in Sidney, they asked "what is that in American?" because the only tires they had were measured in inches. (In the old days, many bikes had 27" tires, but now it's hard to get a nice road bike with anything other than the 700cc tires, which are comparably, but incompatibly, sized.) Anyway, the Williston store had tires of the right size and while they don't sport the fancy anti-puncture features, these basic tires are better than my SuperGlue jury rig that I'm riding now.