Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
many of their cousins—have been unearthed all over the region. The first T. rex ever
discovered (in 1902) was found near Jordan, about an hour (by car) west of here—and
many small towns boast museums (though Circle doesn't). Something called the Dinosaur
Trail, a network of fourteen Montana museums, parks, and other attractions with exhib-
its of these things, was created as a draw for tourists in 2005. Riding a bicycle through
here suddenly feels especially anachronistic.
Speaking of dinosaurs, I'm a print reporter, which is why one last thing about Circle
drew my attention. The local paper,
The Circle Banner,
has an office downtown. The sign
over the door reads:
TODAY'S NEWS—NEXT THURSDAY
. This is evidently the place where
journalists go to relax.
Wednesday, August 24, Medora, North Dakota
You can't make a trip like this without taking excited note of markers. When you cross a
state line, enter a new time zone, register a number on your odometer ending in 00—or
better, 000—the impulse to celebrate, or at least to self-congratulate, is powerful. So yes-
terday when I finally passed into North Dakota from Montana, after fifteen days and
seven hundred plus miles in the same bloody state, I felt as though I'd conquered the
West. The Central Time zone is now within a couple days' ride, I've gone beyond if-
teen hundred miles on my odometer, and on the map I can see a solid third—more than
a third—of the nation behind me. Google Maps tells me I'm within eighteen hundred
miles of my apartment. Almost home. Ha!
Still, the West, as opposed to the Midwest (to which I'd consigned the whole of North
Dakota in my mind), isn't quite through with me. The very sign welcoming travelers
from Montana tried to tell me so, if a little hazily.
NORTH DAKOTA
, it reads.
WELCOME TO
THE WEST REGION.
I assume this means that the western part of North Dakota leans more toward
Montana, topography-wise and culture-wise, than toward Minnesota, about three hun-
dred and fifty miles east of here. I'm presently in Medora, my motel about a quarter mile
from the entrance to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Today was supposed to be a rest
day, a day for sleeping and writing, but at the keyboard this morning I was stuck, the
narrative path east out of Montana entirely murky. Nothing drives me out of the house
and onto a bicycle seat faster than writer's block.
So, taking a busman's holiday, I rode the park's loop road, a thirty-four-mile excursion
through hilly badlands, a river valley dotted with cottonwoods and grassy fields pocked
with the mounds of prairie dogs, dozens of which were cheeping and racing around like
cartoon characters. For some reason, I found the
DO NOT FEED THE PRAIRIE DOGS
signs amus-
ing.
