Brainerd MN – Swift Current SK
Mon Jun 24, 2024
(~849 miles)

On open ground, I would keep a vigilant eye on my defenses.

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Knowing when to change plans on the fly during a rally can be gained through experience, but yet is always a tough judgement call. Things never seem certain in the heat of the moment, while you try to out-think both the rallymaster’s grand design and the tactics of your opponents on the road. Or better stated, sometimes they DO seem certain but that experience you gain over many rallies can also lead you to not trust those feelings. 😅

I’d gotten three solid hours of shut-eye after my little Winnipeg revelation and re-planning session. In the new light of day, I still wasn’t quite sold on the idea of going to Manitoba, but figured I could re-evaluate things after bagging the big bonus in Fargo this morning. I clocked out of rest bonus ZSLPD at 05:41, just 3 minutes past the six hour mark. Time’s a wastin’!

The first bonus of the day is a daylight-only armored asset located less than a mile from the hotel, literally right around the corner. So within minutes, I pull in to the National Guard Armory lot along a quiet side street in Brainerd. TCTBM is an M-5 Stuart tank worth 15 points, leaving just 10 more armored asset points needed for Fargo.

Taking MN 371 south from the city, I paralleled the rather smallish Mississippi River for some 20 miles or so to Little Falls. Turning west on MN 27, I crossed the Mississippi for the final time in the rally, taking a straight shot for another 20 miles into the small town of Long Prairie. In the downtown sector, I found a small veteran’s park containing two assets to be recommissioned. Though not needed for Fargo, while I’m here I might as well nab the 15 points for another Huey helicopter, bonus RCULM.

My primary focus is claiming TCSLM (10 points) an M-4 Sherman tank to fill the roster for my upcoming battle.

Route 27 continues jogging south and west towards Lake Osakis and I-94 with light traffic, as it was nearing 07:00, but plenty of open space and passing zones. I was feeling good and gave Char a call to say good morning and fill her in on my recent planning session. While on that call, I came up behind a car doing the speed limit. It was open two-lane highway here through farmlands, so not thinking anything of it, just being on autopilot and absorbed by the conversation, I passed in the next passing zone. Apparently, I didn’t slow down fast enough after that small burst of speed to avoid getting lit up by an approaching LEO in the oncoming lane. 🙁

Quickly ending the phone call, I pulled over, killed the engine, and doffed helmet and earplugs. The state trooper was friendly enough, but I was out of sorts, thrown off by finding myself in this situation all of a sudden and still sleepy, having only managed a cup of room coffee this morning. After asking where I was coming from and going, he explained why he’d stopped me and even (I think) tried to give me a way out, asking if I’d just overtaken the other car in my lane. At that moment, I didn’t even remember passing that car since it hadn’t been a big deal, so I didn’t have the wherewithal to latch on to that (correct) explanation and possibly walk away with only a warning. 😖

I can’t fault the officer, but feel the entire incident was pretty silly and could have been avoided. My radar detector could have warned me to delay making that (legal) pass, or at the very least to reduce speed quickly afterward. I felt particularly annoyed because this wasn’t a reflection on how I’d been riding the last several days. I’d been very conscientious about keeping to a reasonable speed for this entire rally so far, and expending considerable mental energy in the process without the detector as a reminder. As I got moving again, I tried (and mostly succeeded) to shake it off, lest I become grumpy again and lose focus. By now, I’m having too good a time to let this ruin my mood for long.

Shortly, I made it to I-94 and shot northwest on the slab for 100 miles to the state line at Fargo, North Dakota. Mission ops had received reports that the aliens were establishing a base in this northern city. Just past I-29, I exited onto 45th Street and spotted the Space Aliens Grill & Bar almost immediately. How can you not, I mean they’re not even trying to blend in! Bonus ASAGB is a big one, worth 7486 points.

The sky had grown darker on my approach to the city. Now I can clearly make out the storm cells to the west with flashes of lightning, coming this way as rain started to patter down. Good time to take care of that meal bonus, both due to the rain and because I’ll be riding across a lot of rural open prairie the rest of the day and who knows what eating establishments I’ll come across?

Just down the street is a Denny’s. After missing the lot entrance the first time, I had a dickens of a time getting back to it with the stoplights and traffic islands! Finally pulled up into a space by the door and got my bonus timer running as the sky continued to unload. Grabbed my laptop and rally pack and headed inside to dry off and figure things out. The restaurant was pretty packed, considering it was just a Monday morning around 09:00. The waitress was super friendly and found me a booth with a view of the bike. As the storms rolled in outside, I ordered the cheapest breakfast meal they offered with some coffee and reviewed my working plan again.

I’d been having second and third thoughts about the whole Winnipeg thing. Now that I looked at things with a fresher mind and was able to compare actual route times spanning the next TWO days, I figured going up to Winnipeg didn’t gain me much, if any, time over my original plan. Avoiding a possible time suck grabbing four bonuses in the big city seems like an easy call, so I decide to revert to my original route and keep heading west. That means I’ll lose the hotel room I’d booked in Saskatoon (too late to cancel) but those are the breaks. I quickly booked another hotel in Swift Current, near a limited-time bonus I needed to acquire on my way to Alberta.

Checking out of the MEALF bonus just before 10:00, the rain had stopped for the moment. The weather radar indicated a definite west-east track that the storms were following, so it looked like I’d be riding out of them the further north I got. For now, cells still seemed to be popping up all around, so it would be hit or miss for a while. I rode north on 45th to Main Street and back over to I-29 to get clear of the city quickly.

At Gardner, I exited west on county and state roads for several miles to the hamlet of Page, and then northwest to the tiny community of Hope. About this time, I realized I should be looking for fuel. An icon appeared on the GPS map off the highway, so I turned around in search of salvation. Hooray for these little Cenex stations in the middle of nowhere! And they even had a higher octane option! I filled up quickly and continued on my merry way.

Merging onto ND 200, I shot straight west for 60 miles across the open plains, carefully watching the storms all around and mostly threading the needle between them, with a shower hitting me here and there along with some stiff downdrafts. I picked up US 281 in Carrington for the last 15 miles up to New Rockford, where my next bonus lies. Rotary-wing RCUNN is another UH-1 “Huey”, giving me the full 25 helo points needed towards my big alien target in Alberta.

A few miles west and I picked up US 52 in Fessenden, which would bring me the remaining 180 miles across North Dakota to the Canadian border, following a northwesterly track. Minot was the only population center of any real size that I passed through on this remote stretch. A couple more cloudbanks and storms were visible along the way, but kept their distance as I finally escaped the prevailing storm path. It became pretty smooth sailing under bright blue skies, except for two long one-lane construction zones controlled by flagmen.

This would be my first time entering Saskatchewan, so I decided to fill up my tanks at the border town of Portal, not knowing what services I would find on my trek through the flat central province. I had my earplugs out and passport card ready to hand over before approaching the border station, which only had a few vehicles in line.

The guard was friendly enough and asked all the normal stuff: where am I coming from, where am I going, is this your motorcycle, etc. I told him I was headed to Swift Current tonight, then up to Edmonton and then back into the states by end of day tomorrow. He seemed a bit incredulous, but accepted my story. After getting through and clearing past the border area, I pulled to the shoulder to put my earplugs and gloves back on. Whoo-hoo, a brand new Canadian province to experience!

On the Canadian side, it’s Highway 39 that leads sharply WNW from North Portal. That’s the only road, so I followed it! I’d heard that this province is mostly flat as a pancake and that’s pretty much what my overall impression became – just wide open flat landscape and big big skies. However, to start with, the land presented some nice rolling terrain in the section between the border and my first major road junction with Highway 18. There were odd, mound-like rock formations set off from the road a bit and a lot more vegetation interspersed with some small creeks and ponds. I later learned that these “ledges” were actually old piles of crushed gravel by-product from the significant amount of coal mining in this area over the years.

After getting around Estevan, there really wasn’t a lot to see riding through the prairie, but it was all new to me and maintained my interest. I beelined northwest alongside a railroad track for miles and miles. The sky alone was distracting in its own right. While the sky certainly looks big in Montana – just drive north a bit further and check this shit out!

I turned west on Highway 1 in Moose Jaw and the clouds continued to be spectacular. One particular formation blocking the sun for a while reminded me of an alien mother ship. I tried to text a photo of it in to the forward ops base at rally HQ as a sitrep, but cellular service is crap out here on the prairie.

Saskatchewan (or most of it) remains on Central Standard Time for the entire year, so I had actually gained an hour of daylight when crossing the border north. That also made it a long lonely ride as I was two hours behind home and Char was already going to bed while I was still blasting across the Canadian countryside in full daylight!

It’s 19:30 local time when I finally reach the city of Swift Current along Highway 1. I spot a gas station as I exit onto the somewhat confusing array of two-way access roads and commercial properties that lined both sides of the highway. The bonus and my hotel are both on the other side of the highway, so I decided to fill up first and save the hassle of coming back through what looks like a few sets of traffic lights.

Tanks full, I continue up the access road and across the overpass, picking my way about a mile through a couple town streets and downhill to a community center on the edge of downtown. There’s no traffic at all – all seems pretty quiet, at least on a Monday evening. Limited-time bonus TCSSS is an M-4 Sherman tank (25 points) and only available until 9 PM but I was comfortably ahead of that deadline. This gives me 2/3 of the military force I’ll need to face the next alien.

The Travelodge in Swift Current is an older, rather largish and sprawling motel-style property with individual room doors to the outside. It looks dated and beaten-up, but the lobby interior seemed well-kept and the staff was friendly, if not speedy, for my check-in around 20:00 local time. Realizing I was on a bike, they gave me a ground -floor room, which I appreciated. I rode around back to my accommodation at the rear of the property and unpacked my stuff for the night. Room was clean and acceptable, nothing fancy. Did the usual chores and turned my attention to planning.

While I’m chatting with Char from the road during a rally, she’ll often read me the daily rally reports aloud to keep me apprised of the official rally news and to keep me alert on long highway stretches. Before reaching the Land of No Cell Service today, she’d been reading the Day 4 report and something she read caught my attention, and not because my name was mentioned (ironic!).

“Wait, could you please repeat that part about the Fire Support Cards?”

Dutifully, Char had read back the passage. “Riders again were offered “Call for Fire” cards. This time included an additional card for naval assets. I bet Steve Gallant knows what to do with them this time, right Steve? The tanks, helicopters, and fixed wing were worth 10 hit points each. The Naval Assets card, by itself, was worth 15 hit points in each of all 3 categories.”

Oh…fudge. The cards are only worth 10 points this leg?! I didn’t remember seeing a point value on the card itself. Something in the back of my mind had been vaguely alarmed by this news, but I couldn’t process it fully while riding.

Now in the comfort of my hotel in western Saskatchewan, going back through my bonuses for the leg so far, I realize that when I’d claimed the Fire Support card FXARC yesterday for the big alien bonus in Elmwood, Wisconsin, I’d been depending on it for the full 15 points that I thought it was worth. That means I had actually been short five fixed-wing hitpoints…shit, shit shit! Bonus AWIEL was going to be denied for lack of sufficient military assets, a HUGE mistake worth 6200 points! 😭

That bonus AWIEL had taken me hundreds of miles and several hours of back and forth across Minnesota and Wisconsin to obtain. Most of a full day wasted. And what’s worse (because of course I had to check), if I had READ THE DAMN RALLY BOOK at the checkpoint and seen the reduction in points, I could easily have picked up a six-point fixed-wing bonus near Des Moines before coming north, for the same amount of ride time. I had truly screwed the pooch. I was sad. Insert any standard rally catchphrase you like here, but after my second huge data-processing error of the rally I was certain I had absolutely no shot now at a top podium position. And there’s still three days of riding to get through. 😞

I texted Char to share my horror, but she was already in bed by now. Nancy texted me around this time, requesting I re-submit the last tank bonus in via text as it wasn’t coming through the app over my spotty cell signal. A short message exchange followed where I confessed to her what I’d just realized about my error and what an idiot I am. After first agreeing whole-heartedly 😏, she offered some very kind words of encouragement which helped quite a bit. In fact it spurred me to take a whole new look at my leg plan for the next couple of days, to see if there was any possible way to make up some of those lost points and try to at least minimize the damage.

There’s a cluster of five large alien bonuses in the Nevada/Utah region that I had an eye on from the beginning. Back at the checkpoint, I had tried very hard to find a route to snag at least four of those in addition to the big one up here in Canuckstan, without success. The most I could reasonably squeeze in was three, due to the military assets required. Now, I suddenly spot a pattern I hadn’t seen before that seems, well…just possibly possible (?). Maybe? At this point I need something to motivate me and an aggressive route to tackle would be just the ticket. Even pulling it off may not be a winning route, but if I could somehow mitigate my horrific mistake, I would feel much better about things, regardless of outcome. 😬