Day 12 – The Paul Bunyan “Bone Rattling, Ball Breaking” State Bike Trail

Date: Friday, 22 July 2016

Time on Bike: 4:56:28

Total Travel Time: 7:47:22

Miles Covered Today: 63.31

Total Trip Miles: 723.7

Average Speed: 12.8, Maximum Speed: 19.1

From: Crow Wing State Park, MN

To: Hackensack, MN

(Uploaded from Fargo, ND on 25 Jul 2016)

Another day, another adventure!

You just never know how far you are going to get or what will happen during the day that will impact your travels when you are touring on a bike. A 10-minute detour in a car can be an hour or more ride on a bike. A headwind that you don’t even know you have in a car can break your spirit - and your knees- on a bike!

But almost everyday starts off beautifully. How can it not? You are on your bike cruising the backroads of America. Slowing meandering your way cross country.

Glad you are along for the trip!

Today’s blog could also have also easily been titled “Coulda Woulda Shoulda make it to Walker today.” But I didn’t. And in retrospect, that is a good thing maybe.

Even though I didn’t have a restful night’s sleep, at least I had a good breakfast at the Super8. They have one of those waffle machines. I had two waffles with syrup and yogurt!

It was a quick ride to Crow Wing State Park and the Paul Bunyan State Bike Trail.

This is a 120 (!!!) mile trail. Similar to the Cap2Cap that I trained on in Richmond, but almost ~2.5 times as long!!

The morning was just beautiful as I winded my way thru the trail. I saw a few other cyclists on the trail.

The closest I came to seeing a bear...

was bear scat (poop) on the trail!!

I caught some glimpses of the Mississippi River but realized I would be saying goodbye today. My map shows that I am leaving the river and will be heading in a more westward direction.

I had a lot of shade as the trail was lined by trees.

There must have been some severe storms recently as I saw numerous trees had fallen on to the trail and had been cut up and removed.

I had to make one pit stop as the trail meandered through Brainerd, MN (just north of Baxter, where we had spent the previous night). Micky D’s are always good for Wi-Fi (when it is working) and bathroom stops!

Is this the new McDonal's design? Old is new?

This was a BR stop! I always try to take care of business before I hit the road in the morning, by it doesn’t always work out that way. TMI??

Bunny had a found a great rest stop at a Lions Club park in Merrifield, MN.

Many towns have these Lions Club maintained parks. Very nice!

It was a cool morning and Woz was playing with his toys.

There was a gentleman there cleaning the park. I struck up a conversation with him. Explained what I was doing and told him about Woz. There was a sign over the shelter that said “No Pets”.

I thanked him for the Lions Club support of the Guide Dog schools in the USA. He was not very talkative.

Bunny & I have found out that by and large (not counting our friends Keith & Sue or Patty & Mark), people in the Midwest are not very friendly or warm. Maybe since we both grew up in the South, this lack of hospitality has been glaringly obvious to us. In fact it happens so often that it has become a source of amusement to both of us.

The Paul Bunyan State Bike Trail must be very popular as every town I rolled thru had a bike shop with bike rentals right off the trail. The old rail stations were tourist visitor centers. I had a lot of company on the trail, but mostly day cyclists.

The towns were cute. I saw my first Babe the Blue Ox in Nisswa, MN.

I had forgotten my Paul Bunyan story I guess… Hard to do around these parts!

Different landscape today. Hardly any agriculture bordering the trail. Mostly forest and lakes. You know they call Minnesota the Land of 10,000 lakes. I think I saw a lot of them today!

Some parts of the trail were not in great shape. Those ruts/cracks/bumps were taking their toil on my butt and shoulders, and other parts. And to be honest, most of the road shoulders in Minnesota are very similar to this section of trail. Not nice!

Highway 371 was being expanded and they built new sections of the trail to accommodate cyclists. Damn they are nice to cyclists in MN!!! This detour section is better than some bike trails in some states!

And I only had to stop once for the construction work! Obviously had to carry my bike over that temporary dirt road.

My next rendezvous with Bunny & Woz was at Pine River. I had them hang back at the Lions Club park in Merrifield as it was perfect. As I approached Pine River, I saw on Find Friends that they had just crossed the Rum River that I had crossed a while ago. I stood on the trail and waited to see our red Prius “sag wagon” drive by. I mistakenly recorded the video in time lapse, so it lasts all of 3 seconds. Ya gotta be quick for this one!! But this is the first time I got to the rest spot first!

Bunny & Woz was at Pine River

The woman at the Pine River tourist information desk was totally worthless. We needed help finding accommodation up the road in Walker, MN. She didn’t even know where Walker was!! And she didn’t know where the tourist info section on Walker was in her office. Woz could have done better!

We ultimately spent the better part of 1+ hours looking for accommodations in Walker & any of the surrounding areas. No luck. Not only was this a big vacation area, but it was a Friday!

So… we came up with a plan to drive the 2.5 hours to Fargo, ND the next “big city”. We knew we would not have a problem finding a place to stay in Fargo. It was also in the right direction as I would be cycling into Fargo in a few days.

Consequently we planned that I would only cycle the short additional 17.5 miles to Hackensack, MN as we knew we had a 2.5 hour drive ahead of us. So I wouldn’t be making it to Walker today by bike.

It was another hot day. Temperatures were in the 90’s, but humidity wasn’t too bad. I feel if I keep moving on the bike it isn’t too bad. The trail was shaded and that also helped. Needed to stop once in Backus, MN before arriving at our final destination for the day.

I will give Minnesota Department of Natural Resources credit. They may not have cleared all the downed trees from recent storms, but they do a good job marking/identifying problems on the trail.

As Murphy’s Law would have it, less than a mile from where I was to meet Bunny & Woz, a tree was down blocking the trail. I backtracked to the main road and found them waiting in a park next to a bike lake. Did I say there are a lot of lakes in MN????

Final destination for the day reached, Hackensack. And yes, we would have to backtrack and drive the ~2.5 hours to start from this point in the future.

It was a loooooong drive to Fargo, ND. And Fargo is flat. I mean really flat. Like as far as the eye can see… flat!

We stopped at a Noodles & Company for dinner. We have one close by us in Richmond, and knew exactly what we wanted to order. As Bunny’s mom used to say “same crap everywhere in America.” Sometimes that can be a good thing!

I had planned on taking Sunday as a rest day, but since we saw that there was a 60% chance of thunderstorms on Saturday, we decided to take our rest day on Shabbat, the Sabbath!

My biggest disappointment so far is the almost total lack of cyclists traveling the Northern Tier. All that I have seen are traveling west to east, so our encounters are brief – as we pass each other on the road!

More pictures from the day.