Bit of weather

Aug. 24, Cross Ranch-Bismarck, 18 miles, wind, 75/50—The numbers don’t add up: Cross Ranch State Park to Bismarck is about 40 miles, while I rode half of that and still ended up in Bismarck. I hoped to get a ride with a fellow camper and backtrack north to the Knife River villages, but only two others were staying in the park.

Chip, the park naturalist, alerted me mid-morning to a tornado warning, which I waited out in the visitor center. Then came a string of events that marginally made sense at the time, but added up to a bonehead result. I scouted weather radar with Chip, and the forecast called for scattered showers with a nice window of time for me to ride south with a trailing wind. The wind was NW at first, then shifted NE, then E with greater speed. Dark clouds lay to the west, downwind. My target, a truckstop on Interstate 94 near Mandan, was just 20 miles away.

I didn’t make it. On a long downhill to Square Butte Creek, the wind suddenly drove in hard from the west—the opposite direction—and rain followed quickly. I stopped riding, crossed to the other side at a gravel road intersection, and put on my storm gear. I planned to wait it out but the rain got stronger, I saw no cover, and bad thoughts about tornadoes occured to me. I stuck out my thumb for a pickup to take me to the interstate.

Phil pulled over, having come from Stanton, 50 miles to the north, and reported heavy rain and hail and his in-laws’ wheat sideways in the field. He was on his way home to Bismarck, and given the warnings we were hearing on the radio, that was my way, too. I now have a gap in my route. I'll have to ask the bicycle-trip gods whether I have to do the whole thing over.