Written by Dave

Day 51 – July 18 – 42 Miles, 1,450 feet climbing (Minneapolis to Scandia)

Today we broke free of our lovely Uptown AirBnB. It’s always hard leaving a place once you’ve been there for a few days and figured out where you can get good coffee and good food. Last night for dinner we had Hmong food at a restaurant right around the block from the AirBnB. No, we did not find Hmong food in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming or South Dakota. That’s not say it doesn’t exist, rather it didn’t exist on the path we took through, mostly small towns and open prairie. Dinner was very tasty and worth a photo if I do say so myself.

This morning we hopped on a bike path right outside our place. We were on bike paths for about 3/4ths of the day. Most of the bike paths were on disused railway easements. We’ve heard that people move to Minneapolis simply because they have such great bike infrastructure. The part of the route where we were not on bike paths was on roads with decent shoulders and particularly polite traffic.

We were not on our own while riding the paths. For a mid-day, mid-week ride, there were heaps of folks out riding the paths – all sizes, shapes and ages. We saw the spectrum ranging from roadies on fancy light bikes to grandmas on fat tire e-bikes. One fast looking guy on a new gravel bike passed us going the opposite direction, stopped, turned around and came back to interrogate us about our trip. He wanted to know all about where were going and how we got into touring. He is interested in trying out touring and was full of questions. In the true Minnesotan style, he also kept apologizing for slowing us down and asking so many questions.

While we liked the paths, at times you have no idea where you are. Being old rail corridors they are lined with mature trees. You rarely see towns or more than fleeting glances of homes. When this goes on for miles and miles, it becomes a little disorienting. From memory, the rail trails in Australia have more cafes and/or coffee stops. We kept looking for a opportunity to stop today before ending up at “Kwik Stop” super servo. It served the purpose but now espresso drinks were on offer. You can tell we are getting close to Wisconsin however, they were really pushing the brats.

Photo opportunities are limited on the bike paths. The trees block the views of everything. So today I had to get creative and take photos of little things that caught my eye. Below is a small sampling.

Early on today, we did have one exciting event. As the blog title suggests, today we crossed the mighty Mississippi River. Make that mostly mighty. The river is big but nowhere near as wide here as further downstream. When we crossed it between Missouri and Illinois in 1992, it seemed massive. Today, it sort of felt like the Willamette River in Portland for all we knew. Regardless, we crossed it after riding from the Oregon Coast – that’s worth small whoop in my books.

Other than the servo, we made only one other stop in the small berg of Marine on St Croix. We found a pub there and had a leisurely lunch. The pub we stopped at was in the local news the other day for pushing the boundaries of their outdoor use areas when they had live bands. I happened to read the story sitting in a coffee shop in Uptown then today we stumbled into the scene of the dispute. They had a bunch of signs noting that the local council was messing with their rules and limiting how much space they could use. The signs may have presented only one side of the argument. I know, I know, feels like we’re almost Minnesota locals now.

We eventually made it to our home for the night at William O’Brien State Park. We got here just before they closed the park office for the day and snagged on of their open site. The weekend they are 100% booked out but today, they had 30 sites free. We spent the afternoon getting settled and lounging – and I am happy to report, not swatting mozzies. One of the rangers said they have very few bugs because the park has a lot of frogs and bats. We like frogs and bats!

Tomorrow, we’re off to Wisconsin, state number seven. I, for one, am excited to search out some high quality brats and maybe a cheese or two.