We rose really early today, 3:45 a.m. We were on the road by 4:45 a.m. It was, of course, still dark. I imagined myself riding off the road or running over something in the dark. Despite some near misses with Ron & Jesse's back tires, we made it until sunrise.

We stayed with Philip until Stanley, where we ate breakfast at a cafe. We were one of the first to leave camp, there were only two other bags by the luggage truck when we got our stuff there. After eating in the cafe, we went outside and apparently the people who camped near us were across the street. The yelled "Don't you guys sleep? When we got up, your tent was gone!" Everyone in CANDISC recognized us and grouped us together.. possibly because of our cool tent.

After we ate, we left Philip behind and each of us went basically our own pace, except Jesse, who slowed down to stay with me.

When we got to the first "porta potty", before Stanley, there was a directional marker pointing to a gravel road. We were really confused! We doubted it was the real route, and even hypothesized the person who delivered the potty, who recently passed us, put it there to throw us off the route... because we left too early Of course, such a ploy was not really true. In fact, it led to the old highway 2, which had less traffic. Later, we got back onto the correct route.

The route was almost straight east, and we had strong SW winds to push us. It also had a thousand hills, on the old highway 2.

Despite our early departure from camp, slow service in the cafe at Stanley placed us right next to the "Colorado People", whose names I still don't know after having ridden next to them for almost a week. As we rode, we conversed about bikes, wind, and other tours.. and the fact that we were early - the rest stops were not set up yet and were needed.

We made it to Berthold and DesLacs fairly quickly. Berthold had nice, freezing cold water. I bought a PowerAde in Des Lacs from the "Lady Lakers"

Ronnie deiced not to go for the Century Option and headed for MSU. Jesse & I rode to Burlington and had a pop, then continued on. When I arrived at MSU, I still needed a mile. We rode to the Dairy Queen and had ice cream. Next, we rode to my dad's house for food and showers.

We returned for the group picture at 7:30 and I found the info van to buy a "Century Patch" We opted to stay at my dad's house, since it was looking like it might storm.

Now there's only 47 miles left -- it's almost over.