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Good people, badlands

7/27/2014

1 Comment

 
Cory Smetana
We left Fargo after our last rest day eleven days ago in the early afternoon.  It didn’t take long to get out of the city and into flat, ubiquitous farmland.  The vast forests of the lake covered Midwest had disappeared and vegetation was only found alongside rivers and creeks now.  After a flat and fairly uneventful day we stopped at a campsite down in the first river valley west of Fargo named “Little Yellowstone Park.”  This was a great halfway point to Gackle, where we knew of a couple that offered hospitality to bicycle tourists, similar to Donn and his “Bicycle Bunkhouse.”  This abode in particular was named the “Honey Hub.”  A young couple and their few kids offered up their basement to traveling cyclists; the husband is a beekeeper, hence the name.  The evening we arrived we found seven other cyclists staying the night, either camped outside or on a mattress in the basement, one of which we were able to secure with our early arrival.
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Riding across the rolling hills
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North Dakota is the largest beekeeping state in the US
The next three days we set out for Richardton, another cyclist’s secret I’ll get to in a minute.  It was nearly 200 miles from Gackle.  The first of the three days was tough, full of howling headwinds.  The second day, however, the winds were in our favor.  We cruised into Bismarck for an early lunch, and crossed the Missouri River as we left town.  After Bismarck the terrain drastically changed.  It went from the flat fields and farmland to tall, rolling hills with occasional buttes surfacing.  When we reached New Salem, most renowned for its giant cow statue, we decided we had the energy to keep going to Hazelton, putting in another 100+ mile day.
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The hay bales watched us as we rode
Because of our big day, the next day into Richardton would be a short one.  We arrived early afternoon and ate at the local café; unfortunately for them, they still had their breakfast buffet available.  Unbeknownst to us, we had just crossed into Mountain Time.  With the extra hour in our pocket and pancake crumbs in our beards we set off to the other side of town, to our target, Assumption Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery that was built just over a hundred years ago.  We were told that the monks, who all live in the monastery, are very hospitable and have taken in bicycle tourists before.  We entered the church, where we met a monk who told us to wait for Brother Odo, the one that deals with our kind.  We walked around the premises for a while, taking in the beautiful escarpment that sank into the distant hills and reservoirs behind the church.  You could see for miles.  When Odo finished his Sunday afternoon walk, he was delighted to meet us and show us around the robust monastery with a picturesque sanctuary, which was refurnished about a decade ago.
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Assumption Abbey
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The ornate interior
The property includes the church, a maintenance building, and a two story building containing college dorms, no longer in use (aside from a few random visitors like us).  There is also a ranch, a reservoir and more land behind the church.  The monks strive to be self-sufficient, and live a very routine life.  We were invited to dinner and a silent breakfast the next morning.  Brother Odo noted that the silent breakfast would be an easy task for me, but joked it would have Kellen biting his tongue between bites for the meal.  After the early, hearty breakfast we packed up and continued west.
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Writing on the edge of the escarpment
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Silent breakfast with the monks
It was smooth sailing in the morning and early afternoon of this mid-July Monday. We passed through the growing, industrial city of Dickinson.  As we left the city, we started to see countless oil rigs, which we had only heard of until this point.  We learned from one of the monks that North Dakota had just risen above Texas as the highest producer of oil in all fifty states.  The gigantic oil boom has brought a surplus of money and has provided the state with enough jobs to give it the lowest unemployment rate in the country.  Although these positive effects are shadowed by some negative, including a housing shortage requiring construction camps, increases in violent crime, and inefficient methods of production and capture.  It also puts a lot of strain on the states roads, water supply and sewage systems causing many residents to take this up rise in economic activity with a grain of salt.
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We started seeing oil wells off the road
Only ten miles from the majestic city of Medora, some dark clouds stormed in from the southwest.  We were fortunate to pull off at the next exit for a fantastic view of the Painted Canyon, part of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  As soon as we took our first couple pictures of the gorgeous landscape it started to downpour and we hustled to the visitor’s center a hundred feet from the lookout to keep dry during the short, but mighty storm.
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A wicked storm blew in from the southwest
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Fortunately we were able to hide out at the visitors center
We were now in the thick of North Dakota canyon country and the badlands.  We made it to Medora and planned the rest of our day during lunch.  We were interested in hiking through some of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, seeing the Medora Musical (a theatrical tribute to Theodore Roosevelt and the state of North Dakota), and setting up camp afterward.  Soon enough we were hiking on the first few miles of the Maah Daah Hey bike trail, an extensive bike trail starting just south of Medora and continuing 120 miles to the northern part of T.R. National Park.  It was nice to get off the bike and get some off road views of this dry, gorgeous terrain formed by deposition and erosion.
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Beautiful views over Painted Canyon at Theodore Roosevelt N.P.
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Pausing for a pic at the edge
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Out for a hike in the park
We left the hike and hustled back into town to grab a quick sandwich, all the while partaking in our usual activity of searching for a free camp spot (hard to come by in a tourist town like Medora).  This caused us to be late for the musical, rushing uphill just out of town to the musical venue while taking bites of our sandwiches.  When we arrived, we finished eating and were calmed by the fact we could do this and watch the musical itself from a high railing outside of the seating area.  We missed the beginning of the play and decided to continue watching the duration of it from the “nosebleeds”, while talking to some friendly bus drivers who had hauled in groups of tourists.  Watching the play for free and finding a cemetery with surrounding green space halfway down that steep hill to camp can be attributed to our ongoing money saving prowess, or maybe just our unruly timing.  Either way things were working out.
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Catching the Medora Musical from the nosebleeds
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No view for us in the morning
We left our campsite which had a breathtaking overlook of Medora which we enjoyed at night, but not on this particularly foggy morning.  It wasn’t long after we left when we entered the enormous state of Montana.  The days grew hotter, creeping well into the 90s; the sun was barreling down on us and the rocky asphalt that is Interstate 94.  We made it to Glendive, the first substantial city in eastern Montana.  We hustled to this town, not only to stay out of the heat, but to pay a visit to the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum, “the largest dinosaur and fossil museum set in the context of biblical history.”  They actually had some very interesting information about local dig operations and the process of casting and making durable skeletal replicas for the museum.  We also spent some time exploring other “interesting” exhibits in the two-story museum, complete with diagrams condemning evolution, charts proving dinosaurs and men coexisted, and skeletons promoting biblical stories and their linkage to fossils found around the world.  We were moving quietly through the exhibits until a trio of fellows, well-educated in creationism and biology came up to ask Kellen a few questions.  This led to a friendly two-hour debate about evolution, genetic code, plate tectonics, and the history of planet earth.  The conversation went an hour past the closing time of the museum.  We were eventually nudged to leave by the employees.
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What riding through eastern Montana is like
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Dinosaurs!
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Doing his best Tyrannosaurus impression
After Glendive, we departed from the “Northern Tier” and were forced to map our own route on our detour to Yellowstone and Teton before we return north to Glacier National Park.  With the spreading distance of towns and blunt absence of inhabitants in eastern Montana, we didn’t have many options besides I-94.  We travelled on the shoulder for the countless miles, stopping at rest stops for water and a place to set up camp.  One night we even camped in the grass circle of a freeway exit ramp, hidden between some bales of hay.  In this more remote part of the country, we decided to finally whip out the stove to start cooking our own food: rice and beans, ham, pasta, and steamed vegetables for good measure.
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Some serious stealth camping
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Cooking up some beans and rice
I-94, the familiar highway for us Michiganders, starts in Port Huron, Michigan and ends at the junction with I-90 just before Billings, Montana, the destination for our much anticipated rest day.  Billings is the biggest city of the state and is home to many outdoorsy, friendly, good-spirited people.  On the way in town we stopped at a restaurant called Burger Dive.  It is renowned for winning the Food Network national best-burger contest last year; needless to say both Kellen and I housed the award-winning Blackened Sabbath burger.  The friendliness of people in town was evidenced when our host, Mike, said his arm would nearly go numb on drives around town from the number of waves he had to dish out.  Mike, son Tanner, and dog, Zeus, were our gracious hosts in Billings.  Not familiar with the city and what to do in the area, our rest day itinerary was made easy when Mike, a former rafting guide in California and Utah, invited us down to the river with the family on Saturday.  We had a wonderful day rafting, kayaking, and swimming in the Yellowstone River, the same river we’ve traced and stared at with our eyes stinging of sweat, all the way from Glendive.  They provided incredible hospitality and some amazing meals as well for our stay in Billings.  Learning about the area and exploring the Yellowstone River with an outdoor expert was a blast and no doubt a time well spent.  I definitely feel like we’re out west now, and am anxious to embark on our National Park binge in the near future.
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Enjoying the "best burger in the nation"
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Just a Saturday afternoon on the Yellowstone
Finally, photos of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota have been added, check them out on the Photos page.
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Two Brothers

7/16/2014

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Kellen Smetana
After 2,000 miles of tough but beautiful riding, Carrie postmarked the bike, tossed out old cycling clothes, said final goodbyes, and was off to greener pastures.  She will be missed, but two remain to continue the journey.  The Smetana brothers were ready to head west.
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Ready to head west
Before departing, we made sure to catch up with all our friends in Minneapolis: Sheryl, Michael, Shelby, Anisha, and Varun.  It’s always great to share a meal or drink with friends who have sprawled to various corners of the world.  And, as has been evidenced, traveling cyclists always pause for a good meal.
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Dinner with old friends Michael and Sheryl
Back on the road, we crossed the 2,000 mile mark heading out of the city.  Cory and I rode north along the great Mississippi River, trying to meet back up with the ACA Northern Tier in a town called Dalbo.  Though we often simplify our journey down to two words, “Northern Tier,” when we meet other cyclists, Dalbo would actually our first time back on this route since Niagara.  (For a good visual, check out the pink route on the ACA Overview Map).
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Riding along the mighty Mississippi
We targeted Dalbo as our evening destination not for its bustling 80 strong population, but for one resident in particular, Donn.  Donn owns a large farm in Dalbo.  Nine years ago, sitting on his porch looking out on the construction on the state highway, he saw two cyclists pushing their bikes through the sand.  He felt so bad for these sorry souls that he invited them in for a meal and drinks and through conversation learned that his home sat smack dab in the middle of a cross-country cycling route.  The next day, he decided to turn an unused barn into a “Bicycle Bunkhouse,” allowing all passing cyclists an evening of shelter.  Nine years later, he now has cots enough for 18, an outhouse and outdoor shower, and has even converted an old silo to really tall room for two.  We first heard about it from fellow riders in Wisconsin, and since then it seems that anyone with panniers and two wheels knows of the legendary Donn.
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The Bicycle Bunkhouse
Traveling cyclists are still a rare breed, so most nights the Bunkhouse goes empty; this particular night we enjoyed the company of two other riders, Claude and Brad, also heading west.  It was great to share war stories from the road – Claude had some particularly good pepper-spray drenched bouts with aggressive dogs – and also to spend some time with “the Donn” himself.  Upon seeing the silo, Cory and I deduced that the opportunities to sleep inside a 70 foot vertical tube were sparse, so we immediately set up shop.  It proved to be a good snooze until an early morning thunderstorm moved in with vengeance.  The rain showers were amplified to the level of clanging pans inside the hollow metal silo; it was loud but bearable.  When I saw the first lightning strike, however, I woke up Cory and decided we shouldn’t be cooped in the tallest metal structure for miles, so we moved into the Bunkhouse barn for the rest of the night.  Donn had a good laugh at breakfast when he told us he was thinking about us the previous night, chuckling, and wondering if the storm would wake us up in the silo.  It did.
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Fellow cyclist Brad and the legendary Donn himself
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How one of the other cyclists felt about Donn's generosity in the guestbook
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Sleeping inside the silo... we didn't last long when the storm moved in
Claude gets his miles in early, so he was gone before we awoke; Brad, also heading west, opted to join us for the day.  Tired of work, he quit his job as an aerospace engineer to bike across the US, he started in Virginia and has worked his way north.  The three of us pedaling together, it was a nice easy day as we moved through the land of 10,000 lakes – it really is amazing how many small lakes and ponds dot the countryside here.  Glaciers leave a long aftertaste.
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Riding with Brad for the day
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Land 'o' Lakes
After an evening camped out on a restaurant patio in the small town of Bowlus, we parted ways with Brad the next morning.  He continued north to visit his grandparents, we went west toward Fargo.  We may very well cross paths again in the west, but for now we were back to two.  Minnesota has a fantastic rails-to-trails network: from Bowlus we set off on over 110 miles of continuous paved bike trails.  It was quite pleasant not having to worry about traffic.
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Covered bridge on the bike trail
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Beautiful riding (plus dinner on the back of his bike...)
We have often highlighted the benefits of bicycle tourism.  One of those benefits is the development of an incredible connection to the history, economy, and culture of the places we pass through.  As we moved across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, for example, we passed dozens and dozens of abandoned motels, general stores, and service stations, just another example of the far-reaching effects of Detroit’s economic decline.  A vast majority of tourists to that region still come from southeast Michigan, and the well-being of many of the smaller summer destinations has unfortunately moved in tandem with the city over the past two decades.  Also in the UP, we learned that Michigan has resorted to generating small bits of revenue by selling off state land for logging, but has regulations preventing clear-cutting next to the road in order to keep the driving scenery natural.  Interesting stuff.  In the past few weeks we’ve met all sorts of individuals with fascinating stories: FEMA workers who live at the ready to be anywhere in the country in 24 hours for natural disaster cleanup and control… sometimes multi-month projects; a woman who extolled the benefits of artificial insemination in cow reproduction; retirees who haven’t been to a city in decades; and even people who explained how to covertly grow cannabis plants in trash bags suspended in pine trees.  Our two recent city visits on the route have reminded us of the importance of transportation.  Minneapolis / Saint Paul was once the site of a series of large falls on the Mississippi river, the furthest northern navigable point on the great waterway.  Trade from the north coalesced there and built the cities into the bustling metropolis it has evolved into today.  Fargo, our next destination, grew as the meeting of two major trade arteries: the Northern Pacific railroad and the mighty Red River.  Major railroads still run right through the center of the city.

Back on the bike trail we were in for another lesson, this one geological, when we crossed an interesting sign about 5 miles south of Fergus Falls, Minnesota.  It read, “Continental Divide.”  I’ve been out west enough times to remember crossing the continental divide in high passes through the Rockies, and we certainly weren’t there yet.  Fortunately, we ran into another cyclist, Kim, just as we were crossing this point who was able to explain to us that the continent is much more divided than I thought.  It turns out this line divides waters north/south into those heading for Hudson Bay and those heading for the Gulf of Mexico.  Just another day of biking and getting knowledge…
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Crossing the continental divide
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Apparently we had crossed the Laurentian divide
Fergus Falls was the end of the bike trails and we popped back on the roads.  The further west we have moved across the state, the more the terrain has shifted from woodlands and lakes of Michigan and Wisconsin to open rolling farmland.  This means when there is wind, we don’t have anywhere to hide from it.  It was brutal as we left Fergus Falls, but we didn’t go far before taking a long mid-day break for the World Cup final.  We zoned in on a tasty Mexican restaurant and were able to catch most of the game on Univision.
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Nowhere to hide anymore
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Catching the World Cup final
We camped that evening further up the road behind the community center in the town of Cormorant.  There must be some sort of renewed Polar Vortex coming down into the Midwest because that evening it dropped into the 40s – in July!; fortunately, Cory and I were prepared.  Sleeping bundled up in a tent is actually much better than trying to avoid touching sweaty legs to a sticky bag.  We didn’t sleep all that well, however, because we were awaken twice in the night by a loud, large animal huffing just feet from our tent.  Each time it was scared off and passed quickly.  Needless to say, this also had us scared.  We immediately hung the food in the swingset a hundred meters from the tent just in case and hopped on our phones to decipher whether we had just heard a moose, coyote, deer, or bear.  Once we convinced ourselves it was definitely not the latter, we settled back in for a decent rest until morning.
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Ready for 40 degree temperatures
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Hanging up the food away from the tent
The next day brought us to another new state!  North Dakota is the first truly new one for Cory and me so far on the trip.  We used the Warmshowers platform to find two fellow cyclists in Fargo, Ann and Ed, who were willing to host us for our stay.  Ann has done quite a bit of cycling and even biked across the US several years ago.  These wonderful hosts not only took us in and let us stay for two nights, but also cooked fabulous dinner both evenings!  It was great to refill the tanks and hear their stories about the city.  Most of you have probably heard of Fargo, and the reason is 1997.  This was the year of both the eponymous Coen Brothers film and devastating floods in the city that made national headlines for weeks.  Today it’s a really pleasant town with clean shops, lots of bikes, quaint homes, and good business.
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New state: North Dakota!
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Lovely downtown Fargo
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Ann was an amazing host - she even cooked us two fantastic dinners!
Coupling eastern North Dakota with Minnesota, we were in a territory of significant Nordic and Scandinavian immigration for over 150 years.  On our day off we trekked across the Red River back to Fargo’s sister city, Moorhead, Minnesota.  There lies the amazing Hjemkomst Center.  This museum was built around the Hjemkomst boat, a modern replica of an old Viking ship built by a Minnesota family in 1982 and sailed to Norway the next year.  The center documents this homecoming journey, and has expanded to include an incredibly intricate Norwegian replica cathedral and other exhibits highlighting the region (currently it’s involvement in the WWII homefront).
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Hjemkomst boat
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Exploring the Hjemkomst Center and neighboring wooden cathedral
Our great but short stay in Fargo is drawing to a close.  Today we start our journey west, west, west across the state and hope the wind stays calm or is even at our backs.  Tailwinds, interesting enough, may actually be more probable than you may think.  Everyone knows the west-to-east jet stream blowing behind weathermen (and weatherwomen) across the country, but surface winds are actually much more variable and depend more on differences in pressure fronts.  So, take a look at the cool map we recently discovered, and look out – fingers crossed – for those easterly winds across the northern plains.
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The Great North

7/8/2014

1 Comment

 
Carrie Perdue
We did it! Well, at least I did it…. After cranking out 2000 miles in just 27 days of riding we’ve made it to Minneapolis, my last stop on this wild and crazy journey. My bike box and camping gear has been all packed up and shipped home, and tomorrow morning I fly out. For the curious, my bike and the gear I shipped home weighed in at 65 pounds, and I’m probably still carrying another 5-10 pounds of stuff onto the plane with me… that’s a whole lot of weight to pedal up countless hills.
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Fit the maximum size restrictions!
It’s been an amazing trip and I’ve had a total blast spending time with the Smetana brothers, Brandon, and the cast of absolute characters we’ve met along the way. Travelling by bicycle is an incredibly intimate way to experience a place, and I can’t imagine a better way to see my country, meet my fellow Americans, and get a feel for the interesting diversity of the USA’s people, landscapes, cuisines, accents, and everything else she has to offer.
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Characters like Jim, who has everyone that passes through sign his guestbook
Since we left St. Ignace we have been burning up the road. The first day out we put in just under 90 miles to Manistique, a decent sized city in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. We indulged in the all you can eat spaghetti and meatballs at the local Big Boy restaurant, which inspired one of the quotes of the trip (see below). We woke up to a bad rain storm, but it quickly passed and we were on the road again. We passed through Escanaba late that afternoon, and I was introduced to a little slice of Michigan culinary heaven, the pasty. Not pastry.  Not paste-y. Pasty…. Like pass-tee. It’s basically a beef pot pie calzone if you can picture that… All in all not too shabby.
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Getting ready to ride in the rain
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The delightful pasty
From Escanaba we pressed on another 15 or so miles to Perronville where we happened upon the only game in town, the Perronville Pub aka. Grand Ole’ P.P.’s! This was a pretty small pub with a very “ornery” owner, Kathy. We heard about Kathy’s inhospitable nature from some locals, but since it was our only option we stopped in. She did live up to her ornery reputation at first, but as the night wore on we won her over and before we left the bar we had secured a camping spot in the barn behind the bar.
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Grand "Ole" P.P.s
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We slept in the back
The next few days were spent riding through small towns in the Upper Peninsula and enjoying this little-travelled area. We endured some climbing, unfavorable winds, and rough roads, but in general it was a lovely ride filled with small towns and a lot of beautiful scenery. As we passed into northern Wisconsin, things got even more beautiful and the roads and the grades of the hills improved significantly. The woods became thicker, and there were hundreds of lakes on every side of us.
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Land-O-Lakes
The riding was really incredible… unless you stopped to rest. The second that we stopped our bikes (or unfortunately in my case, also when I was going super slowly up a steep hill), we were immediately swarmed with hundreds of mosquitos! It was awful!! We also were travelling through a fairly unpopulated area, so places to stop and stay were few and far between. The first night in Wisconsin, we stopped at a bar and hotel in the middle of nowhere. We were excited about the hotel, but little did we know that the mosquitos were so bad we would end up killing over 25 in our room! We also had easily the worst meal of the trip if not our lives…. I ordered a chef salad that had about 12 ingredients listed in it on the menu. When it came out it was just lettuce and a really weird ham. I told the waiter it was missing ingredients and he went back to get them and came back out a few minutes later and said, “We’re out of all of that stuff.” Hmmm…. The boys ordered “whisky flavored” pork chops. Cory immediately spit out the first bite after trying them. We later learned that the meat had been soaked for like 3 days in a gallon of whisky. It was literally like taking a pork shot, but apparently hunger and a gallon of A-1 sauce can cover up a multitude of cooking sins.

After that rough night, our expectations were low, but as we continued on we found a great spot to eat and camp the next night at Louie’s Landing by Moose Lake. The view was incredible, the food was delicious, and the owners, Jack and his wife, were incredibly accommodating and nice. We finally reached civilization again by our final day in WI, and stayed in Cumberland, a really cute town set by another beautiful lake. It was July 3rd, and there were tons of vacationers there for the holiday, but we were still able to secure a spot at the local campground and partake in some of the festivities… Namely we could overhear a raging concert with by 90’s cover band that every single person in like a 250 mile radius appeared to be attending.
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Louie's Landing, our host for the evening
We set out on July 4th and Minneapolis was somewhat in our sights. It was a pretty rough riding day with bad headwinds and we were fairly surprised by how little celebration we saw. Spirits were somewhat raised when we reached a Dairy Queen and were definitely lifted when we hit the Minnesota state line. After the obligatory photo shoot, we headed on down to Scandia a two-stoplight town that looked completely abandoned… until Cory found a fairly lively bar and restaurant, literally the only thing in town that was open. We enjoyed a good meal and were invited to camp behind the restaurant. There was even one lonely pyromaniac who was sitting on the patio and shooting bottle rockets out of his hand. Nonstop. For like four hours. At one point his beard caught on fire, but he didn’t seem to notice. We also learned that all of the drunk guys in the bar also sleep out back sometimes so that they don’t get DUIs. We met one of them when he said it was about time for him to head home as stumbled out of an old maintenance truck that was parked about 15 feet from where we were camping as we were packing up to leave at 7:45am. God Bless America.
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Minnesota! Land of great state signs
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Getting patriotic on Independence Day
As we headed out on July 5th we were a mere 45 miles from our friend Bixby’s apartment in Minneapolis and it ended up being a nice ride. The Twin Cities are surprisingly bike friendly and we spend a good part of our ride in on great bike trails or riding in the ample bike lanes. Once we arrived we spent the past few days exploring town, eating great food, catching up on errands, and we even had time to take in a Minnesota Twins game vs. the Yankees.
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Bixby!
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Great American pastime
All in all it’s been an incredible trip, and I’ll sign off with some of the most memorable quotes from the trip so far:

“I think I’m going to throw up. Do you think Big Boy’s will take that as a compliment?” – Cory, after eating 4 plates of all you can eat spaghetti and meatballs

Random Guy on Motorcycle (RGoM): You guys went to Harvard?!? Do they still have that Mexican place right there by Harvard?
Me: Uh… I guess… Border Café maybe?
RGoM: Yeah, yeah… That’s the place with the sizzling fajitas right?!?! Man I loved that place!! Everybody was always in there having a good time… The waitresses were always running around serving up sizzling fajitas…. Man that place was great!

“You know, I almost played football for Northeastern. The weightlifting coach really wanted me to play, but I decided not to.” – The SAME Random Guy on Motorcycle who loved sizzling fajitas. I literally answered this man’s questions about the bike trip for 3 minutes and then he told me his life story.

“Oooo…. I’m going to have to go dab some water on that…” – Kellen, every time he spills something on himself. So like 3-5 times per day.

“You guys biked here from Boston?!?!? Did you ever think of doing the Tour de France?” – Random Guy at Panera

“Did you guys realize that Arsenio Hall has a new show?!?” – Everyone, at least once. Somehow every place we’ve stayed, even if we only have 2 channels, even if we’re in Canada, one is playing Arsenio Hall’s new TV show. And it’s terrible. Then, when we rode into Minneapolis we passed the CW studios and they had an entire wall of their building dedicated to advertising Arsenio’s new show. He’s haunting this trip.

“Sky’s Out. Thighs Out.” – Group motto. You gotta tan up those thighs when you have the chance
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Last pic with the boys pulling into Minneapolis (notice the "thighs out")
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Signing off - it's been a fun ride!
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