A Blend of the Best, Visiting Favorite Haunts From Our Cross Country Trip
Today was a perfect blend! Much less mileage and a change of format. We had a leisurely breakfast in camp and talked to some fellow campers. A gal in the bathroom asked me if I was the biker in the tent next to them. I said, “yes”. She said, “she was worried about me last night when she heard the bear”! She asked if I heard it, to which I answered “no”. She told me it was making a lot of noise, but I guess we slept through it because of that 80 miles yesterday. That’s the benefit of all of Jon’s skilled preparation. Our food and anything that has an odor is always hung in a bag up in the tree branches, so we can sleep sound.
Anyway, we traveled on the highway and back roads today for about 2/3 off the way. It was a nice break because everything opened up and we could see homes, farming, golf courses, the Mississippi and wildlife. Then as it got hot and humid we rode on the Soo Line rail path, which was such a welcome reprieve from the heat. I told Jon yesterday, the reason I never ran a marathon was because I seemed to get too bored after about 20 miles. Well, today was a break from my marathon… we had ridden two days of nice, traffic free, tree lined trails that went fairly straight for about 110 miles. The morning started with me getting a flat. It wouldn’t seal, so we used a tired plug and were on our way. So that’s the bummer about the highway, the junk on the shoulder. The shoulder felt really safe as it was a full car lane wide and had a rumble strip between us and the trucks.
Lunch, or second breakfast as we call it, was in Little Falls at a tiny corner cafe called Big John’s. The food was good and so was our chatty, kind owner/waitress/cook. She needed to discuss things important like CPAP machines, masks ruining her lungs causing her to not be able to wear her aforementioned device more than two hours now! Always a treat to eat local and chat with people. She said she rode her bike six blocks and then pushed it home and put a For Sale sign on it. Next was Jordy’s Cafe in Bowlus for ice cream. We stayed there last year and met our fellow bike travelers Mark and Steve there.
Excited for our final destination, we headed back down the path to Holdingford for Art in Motion. One of our favorite stops from last year. When we walked in, the owner said welcome back! He even remembered that we were from Idaho. We are staying here tonight. We HIGHLY recommend this place for anyone in the area or touring! We are going to have a great dinner and breakfast tomorrow morning before hitting the trail to Alexandria. They are having trivia night here tonight; I told him we could give him some Idaho trivia to stump all the locals!
A bear ohmy!
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