Blackduck, MN

Last summer, I rode a bicycle from Chicago, IL to Devil's Lake, ND. Since I've never written about the adventure, and since it was a long December as far as temperatures went, I thought January might be a good time to talk about summer 2008. January is Bike Month at the Drawing Board.

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Even before we'd gone to bed on Thursday, we knew that Friday was going to be a rough day. Our map showed very little between Ranier and Bemidji, a city that was more than a hundred miles away. We knew we'd have to roll through Big Falls all over again, a corner of uncivilization I'd be happy to never ever see again. So we dreaded Friday, and that was before I woke up with a case of the Backside Blues.*

* Diarrhea.

We packed up our tent and wandered down to a restaurant called Grandma's Pantry for breakfast. Some of the more profane locals called by a similar sounding and far less appetizing name.* We ate wild rice pancakes that could have deliciously substituted as a footprint for our tent. We drank coffee. This amplified my GI problems. Then we rolled out.

* You're going to have to figure that out on your own.

We rolled back through International Falls, said goodbye to Smokey the Bear, and quickly found ourselves, once again, somewhere between a pair of nowheres. Along the way, I discovered proof of a loving God in a bottle of Pepto, and I took a nap on a picnic table in hell. By that I mean, I slept for an hour in Big Falls, Minnesota. We ate a lunch of peanut butter crackers. It was the best we could do.

We rode for the next six hours at a non-stop clip, stopping only for a mid-afternoon gas station snack. We had decided we were ready to be done for the night, and so we asked the gas station attendant where we might find a meal and quit. She recommended the town of Blackduck. They served pizza from the bowling alley and we could probably camp there too. Trouble was, Blackduck was still 25 miles away, but not to worry; she told us it was all downhill.

The gas station lady was a liar. We rode up and up and up, fighting each stroke; although the scenery was improving drastically. We skirted rich farmland on a firm shoulder, and everyone was feeling better about the day. We arrived as scheduled in Blackduck; which is to say we never had a schedule and neither did Blackduck, apparently.

We tracked down the first pedestrian we could find and enjoyed the following exchange.

ME: Is there any good place to eat in Blackduck?

HER: There's a little place right over there. I ate lunch there today.

ME: Is it any good?

HER: Depends who's cooking.

ME: Who's cooking?

HER: Well, there's no where else to go.

And so a one-armed chef, who may or may not have been the preferable purveyor, made us fried chicken while an overwhelmed waitress continuously refilled our shot glasses that were filled with water.

We moved from there to a bar, where we hoped to watch the Olympics. Instead, we were treated to a mediocre beer and a jukebox that was stuck on repeat, and of course, it was stuck on Discovery Channel* by the Bloodhound Gang. After the fifth iteration of the tune, we'd decided to vacate the place.

* "You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals..."

That's when the bartender approached us carrying a cordless phone.

HIM: Phone call for you.

US: That seems unlikely.

HIM: Nope, it's for you.

US: That's actually impossible.

HIM: Are you the guys riding bikes from Canada to New Mexico?

US: Lucky guess.

Our interest was piqued and so Paul took the phone. Some dudes were camped out a softball diamond and wanted us to bring them beer. Even now it doesn't make much sense. Instead, we snuck into a mosquito-infested campground and left early the next morning without paying the required fee. In our defense, we weren't caught.