My wife Julie was reviewing her route on the road atlas from Dickinson, North Dakota to Bozeman, Montana and beyond for the 50th time. We were sitting in a booth in the Country Kitchen cafe in Dickinson eating breakfast.

Watching her trace the lines on the map with her fingers caused my stomach to tingle a bit. Adrenaline was pumping into my tummy and mixing with the eggs Benedict I’d just eaten. It was almost go time, and my head was full of “what ifs” and I could tell Julie was having her doubts about driving all day to get home by herself. She was heading west and I was going east.

We drove from the restaurant back to the motel we stayed at the night before, packed up, said our goodbyes and I was pedaling down the road on my loaded bike on my way, hopefully all the way to Bar Harbor, Maine.

The Northern Tier route put together by the Adventure Cycling Association basically heads east along less used roads and highways through North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc. I figure from Dickinson to Bar Harbor, Maine is roughly 2,100 miles. I’m starting there because that’s where I left off last year after riding from Sandpoint, Idaho to Dickinson. The year before that, I rode from Anacortes, Washington to Sandpoint.

The first few days have been endless fields of corn, sunflowers, hay and cows. Often the cows acted like they were in a staring contest, giving me vacant eyes until I disappeared.

So far, the most interesting experiences have been brushes with people. North Dakotans are nice folk. There was the sweet woman who made me an awesome pulled pork sandwich back behind the meat section of the tiny grocery store in Glen Ullin, North Dakota and said, “Tell her up front to charge you $3.”

When I rode into New Salem, North Dakota, I planned to sleep in the city campground adjacent to the high school football field. When I arrived, two camper trailers were set up and a third was pulling in. A few people sitting in front of the trailers told me it was homecoming football night and most of the town would show up.

“It probably will get noisy around here,” one middle-aged fellow said from his camper chair. “We’re using this as an excuse to set up the campers one last time for the season.” The man said they lived nearby but set up the campers for the big party.

“We’ll be partying during the pregame, halftime and aftergame.”

New Salem (population 946) had reason to celebrate. The mighty Holsteins defeated the Grant County co-op team 38 to 28. They’re undefeated so far. The homecoming court, consisting of the proverbial farmers’ daughters, was introduced during halftime. It sounded like some of them plan to go to college, become nurses or pursue rodeo dreams.

One small highlight was passing through the big towns of Mandan and Bismark, North Dakota. Mandan is on the west side of the Missouri River and Bismark is on the east. Fortunately, bike paths make the city bicycling a breeze. I couldn’t help but recall from the journals of Lewis and Clark how they spent a winter with the Mandan Indians here more than 200 years ago. What would they think of the place now?

On my nightly calls home to my sweetheart, I tell Julie I’m ready for some scenery other than cornfields. I’ve been hitting roughly about 70 to 75 miles each day.

“It’s what you signed up for,” she said. “You knew that’s what North Dakota is all about.”

Perhaps in another week or so, I’ll be talking about the endless forests of Minnesota and Wisconsin.