Day 81, 7/28/10 - Isle to Cambridge, MN

Just the Basics: 53 miles. The first 24 required pretty focused biking - lots of traffic and not-too-wide shoulders. The rest of the day we were either on a couple of lightly traveled rural roads or on bigger roads with great shoulders. We rode through lots of woodsy-meadowy resort areas and some agricultural areas - cows and corn. We had a good lunch at McBee's Bar at Lake Ann - sat on an outside patio overlooking the lake and watched Canada geese. We also think we saw a pair of sandhill cranes in a meadow! Tonight we're at The Crossroads Inn in Cambridge.

Photos: Nope.

Tomorrow: About 30 miles total. First, about 12 on MN 95 to North Branch, then we hop onto The Sunrise Prairie Trail (off-road & paved) and then about 18 miles on the trail to Forest Lake.

For Those Who Want More:
Rain and Raccoons: We're really glad we spent a second day in Father Hennepin State Park, even though the raccoons got into our food again and ate a banana and tried to get the orange, apples and peanut butter, all of which we had to discard due to evidence of some success getting at them through plastic bags - it would appear they can work zippers!

So - why are we glad? Because in the late afternoon there were HUGE windstorms (68 mph) south of there (right where we would have been headed) and a HUGE rainstorm again and more rain later in the night. We ended up eating pizza at a bar in town instead of cold food in our tent because the storm caught us in town. Our drowned-rat appearance occasioned considerable comment in the bar and we'd only walked a couple of blocks from the store in the rain; imagine how we'd have looked if we'd walked the 1 1/2 miles to camp in that downpour!

Campfire & Necco Skybars: It cleared up while we were eating dinner, so on our way back to our campsite we bought firewood at the ranger station and had a campfire and ate our yummy Skybars, and Riley told Becky a wonderful story about a little bear living near Apgar Village in Glacier and how he learned to ride a bike - might even have been the little bear we ourselves saw there on this trip. More rain and heavy winds during the night.

Wet Stuff: This morning we spent about 1 1/2 hours hand-drying the tent and other stuff, and packing up, then into town for oatmeal & whole wheat toast at a great coffee house where they actually recycle plastic drink cups (iced coffee, smoothies, etc.) - Yay! Tonight there's a bit of a dank smell if you stand near the bikes in our motel room, but we think we've pretty much recovered from our rainy camping times. = ) = )