Wide open spaces

Hello!
I'm still in Minot, ND.

Most of you know we've picked up a new member of the team - Alex. We met up
with Alex in Fargo. We quickly learned that the people of Fargo definitely
have a love-hate relationship with the movie of the same name, after the
first 3 people we talked to all brought up the movie in their first sentence
and asked if we thought they were really like that. My favorite Fargo story
is the following. I called 3 hotels in fargo checking their prices. I had
their addresses but i needed to know where they were located. I had the
same conversation with the women from the first two hotels and finally
changed my ways with the third.
Me: "Oh, and one more thing, what is your cross street?"
Woman from Hotel: "The what?"
Me: "The cross street?"
WFH: "The cross street?"
ME: "Yes, the cross street."
WFH: pause, then "301 third avenue."
Me: "Yes, and what would the cross street be?"
WFH: long pause as I could hear her brain churning and drops of sweat from
her forhead hit the phone receiver, then a "I'm sorry?"

Finally I explained to her what i was looking for. I didn't realize that it
wasn't a nationally accepted term.

I'm not sure how many of you have ever been to North Dakota, I never had.
It's very hard to imagine if you grew up west of Illinois. I mean, we'll
bike for 30 miles of farm land to hit the first town of 80 people where
we'll bike down Main Street which consists of a few closed buildings, a
diner/bar and maybe a post office. Main Street really looks like the Main
Streets of old westerns where there is nothing around, no houses except this
one short street with about 4 buildings on it. Then after lunch we'll bike
another 30 miles to get to the big town of 130 people in it which has the
same services and maybe a city park. We don't see many gas stations or
anything else, especially no advertising. It is very cool. Since we can't
stop for as many breaks, we usually go into the diners (they call them
drive-ins) to sit down for lunch. For the past ten days I've had 8
cheeseburgers, one mooseburger, and one club sandwich. They don't have a
lot of variety on the drive-in menus, but let me tell you the pies are
fantastic. I had the best pie I've ever eaten two days ago - called fruit
of the forest which had every fruit in it that you can find in the forest.
Oh, was it good. It's been nice having Alex around because he provides a
lot of perspective to the way of life we have adopted over the past 2.5
months. Like when he told us, "wow, i've never heard anyone talk so long
about the flavors of gatorade." But you see, when you are on the bike long
stories are good and the more tangents the better to pass the time. Melissa
and I were long winded before, I'm really afraid of entering conversations
with people on either coast now.

Last saturday we ended up in the little town of Page, ND. page had the same
services as the other towns, with one added bonus - a movie theater. It was
an old one screener that showed only on saturday night at 7:30. We jammed
dinner down so that we could make the showing of Legally Blonde. there were
so many reasons why I loved that night let me start listing them.
1. B/c admission cost $4.25
2. b/c my pack of m&m's cost $.75 (i mean yeah the ticket price was cheap
but when was the last time refreshments cost under $3?)
3. b/c the sign on the door had only three rules of the theater listed as
follows:
A. No feet on the seats
B. No talking
C. No Running (i couldn't stop laughing at the no running rule. how funny
is that?)
4. b/c half way through the movie we heard little ten year old feet running
around the theater
5. b/c the movie broke down about 25 times from the start of the previews
til the credits
6. b/c the previews were for movies that came out July 4th or earlier.
7. b/c the movie was not adjusted to fit the screen so Reese Witherspoon's
chin never made it on the screen in close ups and all cars were scrunched in
so that they appeared to have shot them in England.
8. b/c they had a raffle with our ticket stubs at one of the points when
the movie broke down proving that they were anticipating the breakdown, b/c
were they going to do the raffle at the end of the movie? that wouldn't
make sense.
9. b/c the audience was mostly made up of 8-10 year old girls all who had
their bikes parked outside next to ours.
10. b/c I hadn't seen a movie in a long time and i would take whatever i
could get.

The next day we stopped into Hope, ND for a late breakfast early lunch.
Well, all 75 people of Hope were in the drive-in for a little after church
breakfast. It took us 1.5 hours to get our eggs, but it was worth it
sitting there talking to all of the farmers and their families. We got
invited to go home with one of them and help with the combining. I've
picked up that it is the season to combine (accent on the first syllable).
This particular farmer was extremely proud of his high school age son who
had a date the night before and took her to the movie in page. Very funny,
but we didn't see him there and he didn't mention that he saw us, so we're
thinking that they didn't end up at the movie, but we held our tongues and
didn't blow his cover. It was also amusing to see all of the old men come
over to the young guy and ask how football practice was going and how the
team was going to do them proud this year. I wanted to ask him a ton of
questions, like how can you field a team with a TOWN of 75 people. But, i
never got the chance.

We've seen more cross country bikers in the past week than the rest of the
trip combined (accent on the second syllable again). My favorites were two
guys we met outside of Fargo heading eastward - actually all those we met
are heading eastward, very smart. We asked them where they started and they
replied with, "Actually we're on our way back. We started in Mass. Headed
down to Virginia, then over to oregon, and now heading back." At least we
took solace in the fact that they looked really ragged and tired and said
they just wanted to get home to see their girlfriends.
Later tonight we'll drop Melissa off at the train station. It should be
pretty sad, but I'm psyched that I can continue on. We'll probably stop
for one more ice cream at the Dairy Queen for old times sake.

Enjoy the weekend! I'm sure that you all will be renting lots of Kevin
Smith movies in preparation for the release of Jay and Silent Bob Strikes
Back which opens on Wednesday. It better be showing in Montana or that
might be the one negative thing that happens on this trip.

Ok, i really am getting kicked off now, so hope everyone is doing well.
cheers!
leigh