Written by Dave

Day 48 – July 15 – 64 Miles, 994 feet climbing (Hutchinson to Minneapolis)

Today started with last night and a big set of severe thunderstorms rolling through Minnesota. The National Weather Service had put out a warning that covered Hutchinson and the surrounding area. We didn’t hear much in our hotel room but on the local news this morning we heard that there had been wind gusts to 70 MPH, an inch of rain and 1.5 inch hail stones. Sure glad that we were not in the tent.

This morning we planned on leaving around 8AM after sufficiently smashing the hotel brekkie buffet but delayed first until 9AM, then until 9:30AM when it finally stopped raining. The severe thunderstorm warning ended officially at 8:30AM as well. All the extra time let us sufficiently stuff ourselves at the buffet so it wasn’t a complete waste of time. We weren’t too stressed as check-in in Minneapolis was not until 4PM.

Right at the hotel we hopped on our first cycleway of the day, The Luce Trail. During the day we were on a few roads but mostly cycleways all the way into the city. The early paths were all sealed so we only had to deal with a few puddles and a little wet pathway. Later in the day some of the paths were crushed limestone giving us more mud and dirt than we wanted on our nice clean bikes. We came across one completely flooded underpass that we could route around. On the Luce path we came across a tree that had clearly blown down in the storm overnight. It took some teamwork and grunting but we were able to lift the bikes over and through it without too much trouble. Early on in the wetter parts of the day, the biggest drama was the number of mozzies that swarmed us whenever we stopped. Late in the day the drama became constructions projects and lots of detours. It seems like much of the city is in a re-building phase. Construction and detour = stop and get out the phone to double check everything. Navigation in a big city is not quite the same as the open prairie where you stay on the same highway day after day.

And speaking of stopping, today there was quite a bit for route checking and navigation. Both Nancy and I have handlebar mounted GPS devices into which we had pre-loaded our route. Even with this, there were a good number of places we had to stop and look at our phones to make sure that we were taking the right road or trail fork.

Chris has the route loaded on his phone but it is kept in his handlebar pouch all day. His contributions to routing amounted to him occasionally asking Nancy or I which way do we go or if we were on the right track, and reading the trailside signboard maps when we found one. At one signboard Chris suggested we continue onwards to the end of the map we were looking at. That would have taken us back towards South Dakota but I straightened him out. I’ve threatened to put him in charge of getting us out of town on Thursday but he fully admits that navigation is not his strength so we may just be stuck following Nancy and mine’s GPSs.

We found our Airbnb pretty easy, after getting through one last local construction project. We are staying in the South Uptown area. Lake Street, the main street in Uptown had extensive damage during the summer of 2020 when George Floyd was killed and the protests broke out. We didn’t know about this when we booked our Airbnb but by being here as tourists, we can hopefully help contribute to the economic recovery in the area. Of course, everything is cleaned up now and the biggest issue is having Lake Street torn up for what looks like a new light rail project. It is possible that running the light rail through is part of the city’s attempt to improve things as well.

We had to wash all of our bags, our bikes and get showers before we could relax today. It was 5PM before we got everything done and were able to head out to dinner. We found a recommended Thai restaurant for dinner and it wasn’t long before nerves were settled and calm returned. For tomorrow, we’ve identified a few coffee shops and now have two days off to check them out. We’re ready for a proper two day weekend. More on Minneapolis later…