Day 48 – July 20, 2015 – Alexandria MN to Bowlus – 67 miles

Day 48 – July 30, 2015 – Alexandria MN to Bowlus MN – 67 miles

Today was a good day for a number of reasons. We passed the 2000 mile mark! Still can’t believe it!? We also spend the whole day on some great back paths (rails to trails conversions) – the Central Lakes Trail and the Lake Wobegon Trail. That’s right all you Prairie Home Companion fans, we were on the Lake Wobegon Trail for most of the day. So all in all we did about 104 miles on bike paths. It was great especially because of the quietness and the ride grade, all railroad grade.

I got noticed early in the day that the last of our map packages that Oliver sent us had been delivered to the Bowlus Post Office. I looked online and read that the Post Office would be open until 4pm. So we pushed ourselves to average over 10 mph to make in there on time.
It was pretty easy since had the wind at our back again. We stopped quickly to get some more water but that’s it, powered through for 37 miles. We got there with 20 mins to spare.
We found the Post Office quickly in this 2 street town but something did not look right. The flag was down. Oh no! could it be closed? We went in and sure enough – “Window Service from 7:15am – 11:15 am”. The website was wrong. This is a consequence of budget cut backs. The sign on building still said 7am-4pm but there was a paper posted on the door with new hours. Bummer, it was just 3:30pm we could easily do another 10-20 miles. Now we have to wait here. Well, I noticed that at the very bottom of the paper notice there was a number listed as “Emergency Contact”. Ok, I would give it a shot. Coming from the profession that I come from, we don’t really take “no” for an answer. I called and someone answered. I explained my dilemma, having read the hours on the website and that we had just pedaled 70 miles to get here to pick up the package. The nice gentleman on the other end asked if I was sure that the package was there. Yep, based on the tracking number that Oliver sent me earlier, the package was there. Alright, he said, sit tight, he could be there by 5pm. I hung up the phone and couldn’t believe it. I convinced a federal Post Office employee to drive, from where ever he lived, to open this tiny post office to give us our package. Unbelievable! Many of you reading this can relate that this is something pretty special. Really don’t think that a Santa Monica postal worker would ever consider doing this? What do you think?

We killed the hour by going to a nice little cafe along the trail called “Jod die’s” that caters to the bicycle crowd coming through this tiny town of 250. We had a cup of soup and where told that we could stay here across the street at the park, or even in their garden. They love the long haul bicyclists, before we even ordered we were asked to sign their guest book. They also told us of Alice’s barn just up the road. Alice opens her barn for the the bicyclist coming through, and about Don’s in Dalbo up about 65 miles from here. I had read about these places, especially Don’s, it’s famous. We are in the land of “bicycle touring angels”!

We called Alice but she did not answer, we left a message. We went to the post office to wait for the kind post master to arrive. 5pm no one, 5:15pm no one. We had already decide to stay since Alice wasn’t home. At about 5:20 a guy on a motorcycle arrived. He was super nice, thanked us for giving him an excuse to ride his motorcycle this afternoon 45 mins for his home. He said that we should never read secondary sites about post office info since none of them are accurate. He gave us our package and wished us luck. Super cool. I will always remember this.

We camped in Bowlus. The park had the cleaniest nicest public bathrooms I have ever experienced. The wind is dying down and the mosquitoes we were warned about are making their appearance. We should have a quiet nice sleep and look forward to our ride to Dalbo.