July 8 Day 38 Surrey ND 67 miles 5:17
My birthday. We celebrated with a bike ride. We paused outside Minot to consult the map. A couple stopped to advise us. Since I was hoping to buy a replacement rear tire, they called the bike shop (closed on Sunday) and the sporting goods store (no suitable tire) for us. There is no bike shop between Minot and Fargo, about 300 miles away. I'll try to nurse this tire along.
The yellow fields we pass are canola flowers; the blue are flax.
Light rain in the afternoon. It cleared before we reached Surrey. We camped in the city park. No showers or running water. Clean part-a-potty and otherwise pretty well maintained. We begged water from a neighbor. The only commercial activity in Surrey on Sunday afternoon was the gas station/convenience store. The store has a part-time grill service. We hung out at the store for a while in expectation of eating there. The grill soon convinced us to buy a box of pasta, a bottle of spaghetti sauce, and a package of kielbasas. We boiled up the pasta and served it with sauce and sliced sausages. A Hostess-type apple turnover for a birthday cake. What could be finer?

In answer to some questions posed in comments, we probably are ahead of schedule in some sense. Since we don't have any particular arrival date in mind, one can't say that we should be at some particular point on this day to make our arrival date. To arrive in Boston at the start of September, we would have to do about 50 miles per day with one rest day per week. We are averaging more than that. When the spacing of the towns has forced us to choose between going 30 miles or 60 miles, we have almost always chosen 60. We intend to slow the ride down some and to take more rest days to explore towns as we get into areas where the towns are less widely spaced. Yes, Michele is still riding her hard leather Brooks saddle while Roy and I are now riding more padded saddles. I was using a gel cover for the saddle as well for a time. If I had it to do over again, I would have lowered the seat height and tried the gel cover on the Brooks saddle.