Bouncing Toward Bismarck

This morning when I woke up in Fargo and checked the weather, it was only 17 in Bismarck. But alas, instead of turning around and fleeing for home (which I guess isn’t really home anymore), I continued west. It is approximately 190 miles of nothingness between these two great meccas, and I decided to amuse myself by counting the number of cars I passed along the way. The speed limit in North Dakota is 75 once you get outside the city limits, so I set the cruise control at 83 and counted cars between the two speed limit signs. Granted it was Sunday morning, approximately 9 AM when I left Fargo, but it was also the final day of the busiest travel weekend of the year. I passed 53 vehicles. I didn’t count the vehicle being hauled on a trailer by another vehicle. I did count the semi I was in the process of passing at the finish line even though I had not yet completed the pass. Frankly, I was surprised that the result was so high, though the highway did seem busier than the last time… like I said, busiest travel weekend of the year. For comparison purposes, when I get back to Howell in a couple weeks, I’m going to see how far I have to drive to pass so much traffic on 96. I’m guessing I can do it before I get halfway to Novi, though it may be hard to keep count and I don’t know if I should subtract one if a car passes me…

Also of interest, I did see a cop that had someone pulled over headed east bound. I wonder exactly how fast you have to drive to get pulled over when the speed limit is already 75.