Woke up real early and biked to Monte Video, a very wonderful town. Your following the road and turn a corner and go down into this little Italian like city. Freewheel decided to stop being free, had to replace the entire wheel. Though this was made light because of a wonderful little farm stand and a loaf of banana bread and blueberry jelly.
We biked until our limbs were sore and our bodies weary. Trying to outrun the rain. Eventually it overcame us and we were forced to make camp behind a dirt pile.
It rained on and off all morning, packing was hard. Biked hoping to find a diner an hour and a half ride away. Closed.Sundays. Biked some more in the downpour. Found out my rain coat is a wind breaker. Eventually stopped at a bar for fried mushrooms. Not the healthiest but the only vegetarian option. Biked and biked, past threw Watertown, the worst city in the world. No shoulder and no sidewalks. Ate lunch by a river, walked out of town. No sidewalks. Stupid cars.
We biked another 30 miles and stopped in Clark. Made camp in a 4-h fairgrounds. Absolutely beautiful.
Jun 13, 2011
Jun 11, 2011
6/10/11- Highways suck
We ended the bike trail in Wilmer and stopped for food and some other essentials. After that we got a little lost and ended up 2 miles farther in the wrong direction. This wouldnt be that big of a deal if for the one simple fact that the only road we could take was the highway... this took the rest of our day and brought our moods pretty low and are stress high. It was only 18 miles but it took forever. it sucked. Just as we near the end a storm came. With louder thunder then i have ever heard. It shook the surrounding area. We asked the local officials to sleep in the park in clara and they let us. We spend the rest of the day in a little cafe talking with the locals and eating some good food. A good end to a stressful day.
6/9/11- We're OFF!!!.... again...
We spent most of the morning throwing out gear that we didnt need, cutting down on clothes(we are now down to one shirt, one par of pants/rainpants, two shorts, three pairs of socks, one fleece, one rainjacket, and one set of long underware per person. That includes what we are wearing. Plus some girl stuff for the girl. after living a very sizable portion at her grandpas, we can now pick up are bikes with one hand, and even when full with water and food they dont wiegh but 40pounds each including the bike. A great improvement. We didnt leave her grandpas until 2 and only then after a sizable lunch of grilled chesse and other amazing food. We biked all day until again we were blessed with a bike trail and found a little nich where we could set up a tent. Equiped with all functions. Had a wonderful soup with some organic quinoa that we got from a friend. And fell wondefully aching into sleep.
6/8/11-Grandpa
Biked from Leanns house to her grandpas on the other side of saint cloud. Easy day, ran a bunch of errands. Getting ready to leave the known. Also picked up saddle bags/rear panniers for LeAnn and shoes for her. I refucse to get rid of my trusty 10 sandles in exchange for biking shoes.
Jun 8, 2011
6/4/11-6/7/11-Parties and good stuff
6/3/11-Race
I woke up after a restless night picking ticks off me and then fell promtly back to sleep. LeAnn had woken up earlier and went swimming, and pumping water letting me great fully catch a few more moments of sleep. She came back exhausted after pumping for an half an hour to get a few water bottles full. Then since i was still sleeping continued to make me breakfast wary of last nights mishap she did everything to make this the perfect meal for a boy who was so troubled. I woke up to a wonderful smell. And came out just in time to see her putting the Cinnamon, the finishing touch on a wonderful bowl of out meal. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! I yelled and raced toward her. But it was to late, i had put curry powder in the Cinnamon bottle to save on space. I guess recycling isn't always the best option. We biked the rest of the day and hard at that. We realized we could get to LeAnn's house in Foley tonight if we raced, then for some reason 8 pm decided to be are goal. It was 7pm and we were 15 miles out and there was a dirt road ahead of us. But we raced each other home. She won. dang gear (of which i was carrying most i might add).
6/2/11 Of chainsaws and first time cooking(second)
We woke up to the sound of screaming chainsaws and men's voices. We we're surrounded! I leaned out of the tent flap to see what was up.There were four men with chainsaws cutting down trees around us.
No worries though it was just the conservation core doing tree trimming, and though we were quite a bit closer to the trail then i thought last night they didn't seem to care. we packed up our gear and started off down the trail. We stopped for lunch along side of the road and made some tomato soup with noodles in it and i got a few ticks. Though these incidents may seem trivial it was the beginning of a terrible turn of events. We road on for much of the rest of the day, only stopping briefly to smell the flowers.
We eventually got to willow river and decided to make camp at a little designated campsite. This is where it all began. Within the first few min i had picked off 8 ticks and there wasn't even tall grass it was just dirt. LeAnn decided to make spaghetti and i after the tomato soup tasting so good suggested she put some sauce in with the water. I who started freaking out about all the ticks and pulling off each one as they crawled up on me was then quite preoccupied. Until the smell of burning wafted through the air.
LeAnn was over the stove trying to scrape the contents in a stirring motion. She had unwittingly added a double large can to half the normal spaghetti that you would use with a normal sized can. This left little to no room for any water, and instead of boiling and making the spaghetti wonderfully tender it decided to burn and make the spaghetti kinda floppy. We dutifully tried to eat at least some, and dumped the rest for the bears (thousands of feet away from our campsite). We then went to bed and i fell asleep (this whole time constantly picking ticks off, did i mention i really don't like ticks?).
I also forgot to mention that every bridge was under construction on the Munger trail so a large part of the day was hauling the outrageously heavy bikes up and down the sides where the path crossed the road. We also had to do it one at a time since we couldn't make it up with our own bike.
No worries though it was just the conservation core doing tree trimming, and though we were quite a bit closer to the trail then i thought last night they didn't seem to care. we packed up our gear and started off down the trail. We stopped for lunch along side of the road and made some tomato soup with noodles in it and i got a few ticks. Though these incidents may seem trivial it was the beginning of a terrible turn of events. We road on for much of the rest of the day, only stopping briefly to smell the flowers.
We eventually got to willow river and decided to make camp at a little designated campsite. This is where it all began. Within the first few min i had picked off 8 ticks and there wasn't even tall grass it was just dirt. LeAnn decided to make spaghetti and i after the tomato soup tasting so good suggested she put some sauce in with the water. I who started freaking out about all the ticks and pulling off each one as they crawled up on me was then quite preoccupied. Until the smell of burning wafted through the air. LeAnn was over the stove trying to scrape the contents in a stirring motion. She had unwittingly added a double large can to half the normal spaghetti that you would use with a normal sized can. This left little to no room for any water, and instead of boiling and making the spaghetti wonderfully tender it decided to burn and make the spaghetti kinda floppy. We dutifully tried to eat at least some, and dumped the rest for the bears (thousands of feet away from our campsite). We then went to bed and i fell asleep (this whole time constantly picking ticks off, did i mention i really don't like ticks?).
I also forgot to mention that every bridge was under construction on the Munger trail so a large part of the day was hauling the outrageously heavy bikes up and down the sides where the path crossed the road. We also had to do it one at a time since we couldn't make it up with our own bike.
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