Today started with a thunderstorm which made our departure rather late. I discovered a small tear in my sleeping mat which had gone flat overnight, the sleeping bag has a zip, of course, so perhaps that did it. I glued it with inner tube patches. It is best if we can carry the tent dry so we let it dry off, the thunderstorm took ages to move away, eventually we decided to cycle while the last of the rain fell. Our first ride was just to the shop and buy a few Miss Debbie honey buns to get the wheels turning. Miss Debbie is a bit like Mr Kipling is in the UK - except less varied and less subtle, with impressive amounts of sugar and fat. I imagine the original Miss Debbie must be 40 stone and embittered... The wind was a northerly and that was a headwind for much of today. So we ploughed along past Moffit, then turned west along Moffit Road for some miles. The scenery is getting hillier and more parched. Then more northerly roads to the edge of Bismarck, now getting quite hilly, with bigger hills in the distance, past the University of Mary (Mary Fieldhouse), along the bike path that connects the University with Bismarck proper, then off to the General Sibley Park where we set up our tent in a wooded oasis of water, ice lollies (coconut) and shade - the sun is pretty hot today once it broke through the cloud. The next camping is some way off and we'd had a delayed start due to thunder. We went to get food from Natural Grocers - an organic focussed supermarket, very impressive and with just the sort of greens we don't get enough of. The short queue at the supermarket cheered when I said I was doing a transam on my bike. That's the mark of a good supermarket! And a Porter beer - Deschuttes Brewery, a beer which we liked on our first visit to America 20 years ago. The south side of Bismarck is subject to big development schemes and we cycled around the new housing development to avoid the road works. Saw two cyclists - one on the pavement though we had seen a 'share the road ' sign, and a boy who had his fishing gear neatly set up in a pull along baby cart - very practical. The Missiouri River isn't far away, we'll cross it tomorrow. We need to find a way around the roadworks. The photo is from the Moffit Road - wild sunflowers growing by the road. We are here.