Day 31, 32, 33, 34 - Ridin' The Mississippi, Arriving in Minneapolis, 1 of 11,000, Upping Our Game

Day 31 Ridin' The Mississippi

We had some breakfast at the motel in the morning. I made a waffle and had some cereal with it. Before leaving we did our best to dry out our shoes with the hairdryer in the room.

Most of the day was spent riding along the Mississippi River which was beautiful. The day prior was also spent riding along the river but because of the rain I felt as though I wasn't really able to appreciate it as much. I was more concentrated on trying to stay dry and stay safe. But Day 31 was beautiful so I was able to take in more of my surroundings.

Most of the road for the day looked just like that video. Once we made it to Red Wing, MN, we set up camp in a park there and called it a night.

Stats for the day:

Day 32 Arriving in Minneapolis

We departed for Minneapolis a little before 10 AM. We were to be staying with Tom's Uncle's Brother, Dave. Once we got closer to Minneapolis I split up from the guys and went further into the city because I ordered a package to an amazonlocker that I had to pick up. I realized afterwards it was kind of dumb as I could've just ordered the package to Dave's house. But I didn't mind the brain fart as it gave me the opportunity to ride around and explore the city a bit.

Minneapolis reminded me more of Cleveland or Milwaukee than it did Chicago probably because its closer in size to those cities than Chicago. But in all honesty, after a while all the cities start to look the same anyway. Tall buildings, down town area, small parks here and there, a few Chipotles. The only real difference between the cities eventually leads back to the metric I just mentioned, size. The larger the city the more stuff there is inside of it and vice versa. From my perspective, other than that there's nothing too too different I've noticed when traveling between these cities. But maybe that's because I'm really only passing through them and not actually staying long enough to get a better feel for them.

One thing I did notice unique to Minneapolis, that Dave also pointed out to me, was the skyways. Minneapolis has a skyway system that connects 80 full city blocks over 9.5 miles of the downtown area. This allows people to walk around the city during the winters in a climate controlled environment. I thought that was pretty neat. I actually walked through a few when I was in the city. It was interesting being above the streets in these "hallways."

Here's an example picture:

I remember thinking I wouldn't mind if New York City had a few of them. The winters in New York aren't nearly as bad as those in Minneapolis. But it got me thinking like c'mon now, it's the 21st century. I feel like at the minimum I should be able to walk around the city in comfort during the winter months. The architects up in Minneapolis had the right idea. Perhaps the architects down in Manhattan should take some notes from them. I guess I'm an expert at civil engineering now.

After exploring the city a bit and thinking up new skyway infrastructure plans for the buildings in NYC, I met the guys at Dave's house. Dave was very warm and welcoming from the moment I arrived. Immediately I could tell he had a bright personality and was a pretty funny guy. He showed me around his house and we spoke a bit about each of our traveling endeavors. Dave too traveled across the country when he was younger. Except his journey was during the 70s or 80s (I can't remember which). And he did it solo, so I imagine it was a much more difficult feat than we are accomplishing today. I Combine that with the fact that smart phones didn't exist and it seems like an impossible feat. I asked how his family ever knew if he was dead or alive given that cell phones didn't exist. He responded "if you were outta quarters, you were outta luck." I actually forgot pay phones were even an option. But even then, as he said if a call was to be made one had to have change and had to be at a gas station or wherever there was a pay phone. The luxury of calling mom from the tent at the end of the day was nonexistent.

Dave made us an awesome meal that night which we respectfully devoured. Spaghetti and meatballs with some manicotti. Dave's friend Frita joined us for dinner as well. She has been an avid cyclist herself for some years and shared some stories of her own journies as well. We impressed both of them with how much we ate. No food ever goes to waste when the three of us sit down at a dinner table nowadays.

After dinner Dave whipped out some desert, a pretty looking cream-pie-like cake. Here's Owen happily making the first cut:

Owen ate his piece so fast I don't think I even saw it on his plate. I took this picture and looked up afterwards and was like where'd it go?? Rhetorical question.

After desert all of us got a picture together before Frita left.

Worth noting, during the day Dave helped us out with some maintenance tips for our bikes and even gave us some useful tools to use for the future. Thank you very much for the tools and tips and of course for opening your home to us for a night! It is very much appreciated.

Stats for the day:

Day 33 1 of 11,000

Dave got us all breakfast the next morning. That included some really good "state fair" donuts and few other types as well. The state fair donuts were golden brown donuts with a gorgeous sugar coating around them. Those were my favorite. Definitely one of the better breakfasts I've had on this trip. It's up there with Fran's breakfast and the nice lady who cooked us eggs and bacon at the campsite in Pennsylvania.

Once we got moving for the day we were rollin'. Despite the day being one long gradual incline we were able to average almost 16 mph on the bike. A pretty high average when compared to other days. The high speed average was largely because the entire day was spent riding on the well maintained Luce Line State Trail. The smooth trail and a absence of vehicles made it easy to focus on pedaling hard and breathing steadily.

It was our longest day at that point in the trip. We traveled 82.5 miles in under 5 1/2 hours of riding time.

We set up camp right on the beach of a little lake in Cosmos, MN. Sleeping on the sand of the beach was much more comfortable than the regular grassy areas we usually sleep on. All the license plates on the cars in Minnesota say "10,000 lakes" which is where the title for this post comes from. Kind of. I actually asked a nice lady at a state park we were passing through if the state actually has 10,000 lakes and she told me it's more like 11,000.

So with that, here's the view from my tent of 1 of 11,000 lakes at sunset here in Minnesota:

It was gorgeous and all but the bugs were horrible near the lake so we spent most of the evening in our tents, sheltered from the pests. I opened the cloth flaps of my tent so I could see through the mesh lining since it was such a pretty view, especially at night. The glow from the moonlight reflecting off the lake gave the illusion that it was almost never nighttime. I kinda felt like a kid again going to sleep with a nightlight, a natural-moonlit-lake-nightlight.

Stats for the day:

Day 34 Upping Our Game

We woke up around 7 AM for the day because the sunrise woke us up. Here's the campsite at sunrise:

We got rollin' pretty early for the day which was good because we had another record breaking day planned.

Most of the day was spent riding on county roads through more open grass fields and cornfields.

We arrived in Marshall, MN after traveling a whopping 84.5 miles and breaking our single day record that was set the day prior. Other than some phenomenal biking, not too much else happened during the day.

Stats for the day:

Although it doesn't seem like much, averaging nearly 14 mph over nearly 85 miles is no joke. It's not easy but it certainly feels good to be hitting such a nice stride now. It was tough when we first started with all the bumps and delays we kept getting- mechanical issues and whatnot. But we've been on a roll now and it feels good to say and know that.

Will be churning out more multi day posts over the next few days. Thanks again to those who have been keeping up with my very inconsistent posts.

Till the next post.

-mike