The Honey Hub

Friday, June 20 (Day 35)

Distance: 60 miles

Average: 10.8 mph

Max: 29.1 mph

Total: 2064 miles

Weather: mostly sunny with a 7-15 mph headwind 

The day started off well with bright blue skies and warm sun. Michael, Duane and I rode 8 miles to a little restaurant where Duane and I had an atrociously greasy breakfast (Michael is vegan and only had coffee). 

We knew we only had to ride 60 miles so we rode pretty leisurely and stopped often to add and remove clothing, take pictures, check mechanical issues, eat snacks and the like.

The road was pretty quiet so we rode three abreast for a lot of the ride and chatted about various things-- work, cycling, school, politics, crazy car drivers with a vendetta for cyclists, and so on. I often fall behind though, I'm not quite as fast as Michael or Duane, both of whom are seasoned cyclists who trained for their tours.

We saw a very interesting herd of white cattle who ran all the way across the field to have a look at us, then turned around and went back without making any noises.

We have ridden through pretty much exclusively flat farmland since crossing the border into North Dakota, which means a few wide loads come through with large and expensive farming equipment.

In the last 20 miles we began to reach hillier terrain, which came along with lots of pretty little ponds and lakes.

There was a lone and nonfunctional oil drill. Most of the drilling is in northern North Dakota, and the Adventure Cycling route used to go that way before it became too dangerous, so they changed it to go through southern North Dakota a few years ago.

We pulled into our destination very early in the day and had lunch, after which we spent quite a while trying to find the Honey Hub, of which we had only heard rumors. Eventually we were able to find it, and it is great! Jason Miller owns the house and works for a honey farm and his father is the owner. They must have a contract with Honey Stinger because there are lots of their products here. 

He keeps his basement unlocked even when he is out of town (which he is, but I called him and talked for a bit) for touring cyclists. He has a warm shower, beds, laundry, electricity, a bathroom, chairs and a couch, food for purchase, and lots of pictures of cyclists who have come through. It's a very neat little place and I only wish we'd been lucky enough to meet the man himself!

Duane and I went to have dinner and ran into a man in a motorized wheelchair on our way. I didn't get his name, but about 25 years ago he was in a car accident and it appeared he had a spinal cord injury. He used to farm and coach football but had to give it up after the accident and now teaches part time. 

At the restaurant/bar the server told us she didn't know how we did it. She said she works all day but what we do is entirely different and there's no way she would be able to do it.

There's one other touring cyclist staying here as well. His name is Marty and he is going in the opposite direction. He is also recently retired and taking a fairly slow pace of 40-70 miles per day. He's a very interesting character from Portland, Oregon, and he's very friendly, in spite of being a little more used to being on his own than with strangers (which he told us).