Road To Nowhere

“I'm feelin' okay this mornin'

And you know

We're on a road to paradise

Here we go, here we go.”

After a hearty breakfast with Anna and Daniel, we walked over to the hole in the ground that soon will be their home. They're camped out in a trailer beside it, but I needed to use their wifi to update the maps in my GPS to help me with routing through the USA portion of my trip. What I thought would take a few minutes ended up taking a couple of hours, as it took forever for the software to download and transfer into my device. It was a good opportunity to sit back and enjoy their company some more, and we certainly did not run out of things to say.

It was past 2:30 pm by the time I got rolling. The roads were quiet for the weekend, which was nice. It turned even more serene as I headed for the border on a small lightly used road, which I took advantage of by sometimes cruising right down the middle. In one stretch I think only two cars passed me in an hour.

The American border guards must have been really bored, as they told me to pull over. One of them asked me to open up my saddlebags so he could inspect the contents, I think more out of curiosity than suspicion. I ended up chatting with him for 15 minutes about my trip and bike touring in general, I was surprised it was the first time he's seen a touring cyclist come through, as it was an ideal point of entry in my opinion.

Coming up to the border, which they purposefully put on a bend

The other side of the border looks the same, but the road construction is different

Made it to the small town of Rolla ND (funny how Manitobans say it like "roh-luh", while North Dakotans pronounce it "rah-la"), found a cheap motel (I've been camping out since Saskatchewan), and marked my crossing into the States with a fine selection of TV dinners heated on the microwave (nothing was open) washed down with a couple of cheap cans of Budweiser (like a spoonful of sugar).

“There's a city in my mind, come along and take that ride
And it's all right, baby it's all right.

And it's very far away, but it's growing day by day

And it's all right, baby it's all right.”