Day 50 – Aug 1, 2015 – Milaca MN to Forest Lake Mn – 63 miles

Day 50 – Aug 1, 2015 – Milaca MN to Forest Lake MN – 64 miles

Audrey:

Our 50th day away from home. I miss California, our dogs, our house, our family and friends. It has been a long tour. I don’t know what I really expected? But maybe I thought every day would be so different and so exciting that the time would go by fast. But the days become repetitive. We get up, pack our panniers onto the bikes and off we go. The day’s big motivation is to make miles to try to catch up some of the days we lost in the heat wave and storm delays. We pushed and we pushed, skipping some of our 0 days but we simply can’t make them up.

A big theme today is analyzing what we are doing here on the tour. Why did we do it? That is a good question. Why? I told Gregg today – that we do it to feel alive and to feel how close we are to death. What I meant is that you feel your body in motion, you actually feel the blood moving through your body, you feel your bones, all of your muscles and joints and tendons. Sometimes you feel them hurt and sometimes you feel them pumping with blood and strength.
I am glad I did this. I am glad I did this now. I have beat up my body quit a bit from my 51 yrs of movement. My sports and travel, and even my work have taken a toll. But here I am riding my bike across this big country.

Why? To see the country. As I have talked about in other posts, there is nothing like riding slowly down a county road in America. Yes, it is vast and some of the changes are subtle but, each day, especially those over 50 miles, you definitely see the countryside and vegetation change, you see the changes in ranches, and farms, and towns. We rarely see people, except for the occasional farmer on a tractor, but we see how they live, the houses, the cars, and trucks left behind by their ancestors. We see the history of the country unfold in front of us. The rusted combines of 50 yrs ago sometime left just there on the field where the engine finally gave out. We heard the stories of the contracted hands coming from all over the world like South Africa and Australia, hired by the industrialized farms to do the harvest. The family farm is dead or dying, like the dinosaur combine on the prairie. Hyper effecient seeds, and hyper efficient machines, have replaced the hard family farm work. The children have moved away, the old “four fingered” men are left behind.

In Montana and North Dakota we saw towns dead and alive simply because of their relationship to the railroad. Those ‘whistle stop’ towns of the prairie are hanging on by a very thin thread, as the word has it that the trains will be pulling out some time soon. Oil and coal transport is keeping many alive. But so many people remember the old northern rail line that is long gone. When we left the Duck Lounge in Marion ND I told the proprietor “we will remember Marion”. He came running out the door and said all the towns along this stretch of road, Marion, Kathryn, and Alice etc…where along the rail lines and the Northern rail workers named them after their wives and sisters and daughters. The tracks are gone, the town is slipping away too.

Are we having fun? Gregg asked that question today because people ask him that. Fun is not the right word. I suppose there really isn’t enough time to have fun. There are moments of fun. For me the riding is fun. The nature is a great pleasure too. The observations are fun. The day’s end is fun if we find a nice place to hang out with the locals. But this is not really a vacation, it is something completely different.

So today we pedaled on. Got to Dalbo and Don Olsen’s Adventure Bicyclists Bunkhouse about 20 miles down the road. It was great. No one there but it was a perfect place for bicyclists to hang out and relax. He converted his barn into a cool retreat. I am so sad we did not make it there. From the Guestbook I could see there were 2 people who stayed there last night, so we could have had a nice time chatting. Oh well, next time?!

The rest of the day was uneventful except for 2 things. Lunch in Granby MN at the Brass Rail cafe which had the best fried chicken ever. Yep it can compete with the fried chicken in Philadelphia Mississippi! The other thing is that we decided to change our route.

We took a command decision to ride down the Mississippi river on the Great River Road and then cut across Wisconsin further south. We are not going up into the lake areas of Wisconsin simply because we would like to make up a little more time and thought perhaps the Mississippi road would be nice. We also saw there were a few bike trails in Wisconsin we could take. We would pick up on our old route in Manitowoc WI where we catch the ferry across Lake Michigan. So here we are, we road down towards the Twin Cities but could go much further than a place called Forest Lake because most of the other motels a little further south were booked up. Tomorrow will be another day to get up and pack and get on the road again.

Gregg “Bear” here,

I have learned a few things about this great country of ours during our tour. Let me break this down by state. The following comments are over generalizations about the parts of the states we biked through.

Oregon:

1. Like California but wet and green.
2. Like Breaking Bad, has small towns with meth addicts.
3. Breakfast great, other meals not so much.
4. Some breathtaking bicycle routes.
5. Very friendly people – if under 30 years old, all have nose rings. A nose ring zone.

Washington:

1. Can be hot when it is not supposed to.
2. Eastern Washington, no trees.
3. Intact little towns with nice cafes.
4. Great cafe in Roosevelt on the Columbia river – nothing else for miles around.
5. Long ways between water.
6. Spend most of my waking hours like a sleepy zombie.
7. Good shoulder on highways.
8. Very friendly people – lots of nose rings but not as much as Oregon.

Idaho:

1. A really long ways between drinking water.
2. Really beautiful mountain rivers.
3. Some nice breakfasts – other meals not so much.
4. Nice campgrounds with no showers.
5. Cute mountain towns.
6. Not much shoulder on highways.
7. Very friendly people – nose ring count falling way off.

Montana:

1. Missoula and Bozeman cool. Livingston also cool.
2. One of the best burgers of my life eaten in Missoula.
3. Rocky mountain roads not very busy but poor shoulders.
4. You can ride from one small town with only a saloon open to another saloon open all day long.
5. Creepy crosses just off the shoulders of the roads to make a traffic fatality. There were a lot of them.
6. I’m sure you can find a great deal on a vintage 50s or 60 American car gathering rust in thousands of front yards.
7. Every half decent house has a travel trailer parked next to it. Sometimes two.
8. Very friendly people – Almost no nose rings – lots of T-party types in the rural areas.
9. Lots of American flags flying from full on flag poles in people front yards.

North Dakota:

1. This is basically what we called a Third World Country back in the 70s. It is all about oil and agriculture. No manufacturing unless it is for the oil industry. Not much in the way of service jobs either.
2. Huge (or as Donald Trump would say “ooogue”) farms the formation of which has dried up the population for the small towns that now look more like ghosts live there.
3. Biggest tourist attraction in the state is a town of a couple of hundred people who have a large amphitheater where a high school musical is performed by professional actors.
4. Lots more old cars in front yards. Many travel trailers but not as much as Montana.
5. Even more American flags flying from full fledged flag poles in front yards.
6. The most miles between drinking water, bathrooms, lunch, beer, and chocolate milk.
7. Not flat at all. That is except for the last 100 miles before Fargo where the horizon up the road is a wet mirage shimmering in the heat. From Bozeman Pass on, people kept on telling me it would be flat. It never was. Once, however, it got mostly flat, people kept on telling there were hills coming. After doing Eastern Washington, the Rocky Mountains and most of North Dakota, the hills are no big deal, more like lumps. I hope I didn’t talk to soon.
8. Very green, even lush – not what I expected.
9. Little tiny towns like Montana but not as bad. Still, often the only thing open was a saloon.
10. Very friendly people, who in the rural areas, belong to the T-party. No nose rings.

We will leave Minnesota for another time.