Culbertson to Williston, ND

Miles 55.1
Ride time 3:37
Elevation gain 1364'

Today we crossed the border into North Dakota! We have traveled through Washington, Idaho, and Montana. The crossing into N. Dakota also put us into a new time zone. We are now in Central Standard Time so we lost an hour. Our last in Montana was quite dramatic. We had a thunderstorm move in in the evening. A few of us were sitting outside after dinner commenting on how the predicted thunderstorm was unlikely to to occur when big rain drops started falling on us. We quickly put away the chairs and hurried in. When I sat outside later to call Judy, a wonderful rainbow was all that was left of the quick downpour. Later that night, we had lightening and thunder and the rain just poured. By morning it was all blue skies. We had to ride throughnsome areas that they were repaving, but actually it was great since everyone had to slow down pay attention. We started seeing the oil wells and the "grass hoppers" that pump out the oil from the ground. Apparently, ND has vast oilfields. A new gold rush is going on here.
We got into Williston early. Our rooms were not ready so a few of us rode our bikes back into the downtown area for a look around. The downtown was a little tired, with many storefronts empty. We ended up eating a fast food place. We checked out the bike shop which was quite small. It was part of a auto parts and auto tire dealership. We checked out a couple of bookstores. One had a nice coffee shop in the back. The Amy and Linda wanted to head back to the motel, so Jennifer and I checked out the other bookstore and the bike path that ran along a waterway. It reminded a bit of the Iron Horse trail near home. We headed back to our hotel using side streets to avoid some of the traffic. Tomorrow we have a route change due to the increased truck traffic on our planned route. It increases our milage to about 105 for tomorrow. Should be interesting!