We left Redfield before sunup.

Today’s route was flat. So there were no downhills. So we couldn’t coast. Jeffrey had to pedal, pedal, pedal, for 7 hours.

Tonight we’re in Ellendale (pop. 1125), the seat of Dickey County, North Dakota.

Wally retired from U.S. government service as a law enforcement expert sent to places Jeffrey’s clients fled: Haiti, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Liberia, and others.

Wally knows firsthand the horrors told to Jeffrey by his clients.

The deep poverty of Haiti, where officials and criminals terrorize and steal, and vendors sell patties of clay, salt and vinegar to people who want something in their stomachs and can’t afford food.

The atrocities of Liberia; Wally and Jeffrey agreed that their most shocking stories of persecution come from Liberia.

The despair of Afghan people who helped Americans, then were abandoned by America to face retaliation. Wally wrote letter after letter to save an Afghan woman and her family, who arrived this week in California. It was too late for the woman’s father, who was murdered by the Taliban.

The sight of Bosnian elders brought low, scrambling to grab a bit of airdropped food.

And more.

Wally considers himself “conservative”; we don’t know what that means. We see Wally as a person of common sense and humanity. A student of history, he decries American ignorance of the past and present. He has seen, he knows, how good people are persecuted, and how stingy our government is about helping the victims of some of the messes we’ve helped make.

Wally came to North Dakota with his spouse.

Wally introduced Jeffrey to Professor Rob Michitsch of the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point.

Rob is an expert in soil and waste resources.

Rob is in North Dakota to supervise the experimental composting of millions of turkeys euthanized after contracting avian flu. Composting appears superior to burial or incineration. He and Jeffrey talked science … and of course, refugee rights, which Canada respects more than does the USA.

The Covid pandemic shows that learning how to protect public health through science is half the battle. The other half is convincing people to follow the science.

Promoting human rights is simpler. It’s just about convincing people.

We hope that, today, we convinced a few.