Rest Day #1

Date: Monday, 18 July 2016

Time on Bike: 0!!

Total Travel Time: 0!!

Miles Covered Today: 0!!

Total Trip Miles: 431.0

Average Speed: 0 mph, Maximum Speed: 0 mph

From: Minnetonka MN

To: Minnetonka MN

(Uploaded from Fargo, ND on 23 Jul 2016)

Rest Day! Rest Day. Rest Day???

We will be hanging out with our dear friends Patty & Mark in Minnetonka, MN, for our first Rest Day. And staying in one place with them for a total of three nights.

So I have known Patty since we meet on Kibbutz Dorot after we both when to volunteer in Israel after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. We have stayed in touch over the years and I even visited with her on my 1984 bike trip when she was living in her hometown of Columbus, OH. We haven’t changed a bit!! Wink, wink.

I had a long list of things to take care of and repair. Patty was very gracious in driving me all over town to get whatever I needed.

I started my day with a quick trip to the Jewish Community Center. I had hoped that in their men’s locker room there would be a hot tub so I could soak my aching legs and knees. I was in luck. There was! The day was off to a great start!

I needed to repair our 12-volt cooler, fix my bent handlebars, and return some dog food at PetSmart. And a quick trip to the Dollar Tree to get some supplies to clean my bike. It had gotten filthy from all the limestone dust on the trails I had been riding.

Upon closer inspection, the 12-volt cooler only had a loose wire. Easy fix. My bike handlebars proved to be more difficult.

I used a small diameter piece of pipe I “found” in Patty & Mark’s garage to open up the handlebars just enough so I could put in the scissors jack from the car and crank it open to expand the distance between the drops and the tops. Not as good as new, but it did the trick! I am back in business!

We had planned to cook out that evening but at the last minute decided that Bunny & I would take Patty & Mark out for dinner that day instead. We figured on Tuesday after returning from biking all day it might just be easier to chill and eat dinner at their home.

We all drove around the Minnetonka area. It is just beautiful. And with all the lakes, very picturesque. We also saw several Frank Lloyd Wright homes along the lakefront. Below Lyndale Park with downtown Minneapolis in the background. Woz was very interested in something else...

Bunny & I could not believe the number of people out walking, biking, skating, walking their pups. And it was a Monday… not even a weekend!

We had a wonderful dinner at Cross Roads Deli.

Woz acted like the big boy he is now. He has really matured on this trip.

And I got a call from Sam K. He & his wife Laura stayed with us in Richmond a few months back when I picked them up on the Cap2Cap trail. See my blog post “From Doubt to Belief” if you need to have your memory refreshed. I forget what town I am waking up in!

Sam also told me these winds from the west that have been in my face all week were an anomaly and that they would soon die down and the normal wind pattern from the south would return. (PS - He was right!!) We also talked about possibly seeing each other further down the trail.

It was a rest day in the fact that I was not on the bike. So it was physically restful, but we had a very active & busy day. Will need to try to relax more on future rest days.

(I write that as I am frantically trying to catch the blog up from being a week behind on my second rest day!!!!)