August 24th, 2001, 5 am found us on I-90, the car loaded so that the passenger could recline and sleep while the driver kept the Suburu moving. First we finished listening to Atlantis Found by Clive Cussler, then we started Lucifer's Hammer by Niven, the books whiling away the hours. Across Minnesota and most of North Dakota took over 12 hours, and we rolled into the town of Medora in the late afternoon.
Medora is a tourist community - no one really lives there. Well, it does have a permanent population of about 110, but they import more seasonal workers for the summer to man the attractions, the main one being the Medora Musical. We didn't go to the outdoor show, nor did we hit the pitchfork fondue, where they spear steaks on a pitchfork and cook in a vat of boiling oil, nor even visit Theodore Roosevelt National Park just outside town. We met up with IMBA members from all over for the Epic Ride at Maah Daah Hey.
First a social, where we could meet our fellow Epic-ers. We already knew Gnurps and John Alegronte from the IMBA staff, and had met a couple others at State Rep Conferences. We also met Kevin, a photographer from Grand Forks who was new to this off road riding thing, and was wondering why the bikes had so many gears that one didn't use, Wes, who worked at Dakota Bikes, a bike store with shops in both Medora and Bismark, the owners of Dakota Bikes were there, and had put together most of the arrangements for this event., and many others. That night we slept at the Medora Hotel, were we discovered something to pass on to other Medora visitors - bring your own water. There's a lot of chlorine and salt in the water, which made bathing in it almost uncomfortable.
The
next morning we met with the crowd at the Chuckwagon for a cafeteria-style
breakfast and then loaded up to work. We went out to the worksite where the
land managers had piles of aggregate that they wanted on the trail surface.
Not the way we'd do trailwork back home, but it is what the land manager wanted,
so we spent the morning carrying 5-gallon buckets half full of clay and gravel
out to people who were tapping it into the trail. For verisimilitude, I grabbed
a Pulaski and did some backsloping on the bench cuts. Neither of us had remembered
to pack hats, so we bought bucket hats from the local club with the stylized
outline of a turtle on the front. Back in Medora, we sat around the keg and
talked, and some folks went out for a short bike ride. 
My arms were tired from tamping - a heavier tool then a mcloed was used - so we hung out and went to bed early. We packed up and checked out early, and met the crowd loading bikes into trailers.
