Matt and I left Brule, Wisconsin early. We were headed in a Westerly direction hoping to go more than 50 miles.

We chose to ride through the lower part of the town of Superior. This would keep us out of the city as much possible. Google kept rerouting us to the ORV trail. Me stubbornly, kept telling it to go fly a kite, we were taking the shortest route. Well a mile before the weigh station was a no bicyclist or pedestrian traffic sign. Hmm. We could have went for it, but decided to be good citizens and back track to the ORV trail. Phooey!

We plodded our way through the ORV “big rock” trail for a few miles until our hands were numb and arms were stiff. The first paved road we came upon, we took it! I could hear the angels sing and see the light shine down as we transitioned onto the pavement!

We stopped at a fantastic convenience store. New to us, Kwik Trip, was filled with delicious eats and cold coffee for $1.49! Sweetness!! Somehow Matt and I hit the store on the right day of the week. They also had whole chickens for $5.99 with a free 12ct dinner rolls! The best deal of them all was 5oz sirloin steaks $1.49! Limit 5. Matt and I walked out of there with steak for next day dinners and chicken for chicken alfredo! Our Warmshowers host Russell had mentioned what a great store Kwik Stop was and we must concur! It is superb! If you know us and how much we love to cook, your mouth should be watering by the time you finish reading this post!

Google sent us down route 105. Unbeknownst to us this was the truck route with 12″of shoulder (I am being generous). 20-25 Tri axle dump trucks passed us on route 105. While we were pedaling along, scanning what was in front of us, beside us and behind us, I saw an Ipad along the side of the road. I turned back and found it less than 2 feet from the asphalt and its protective case was in the tall grass. It apparently did its job because the Ipad sustained zero damage when it landed on the side of the road. I showed Matt the Ipad before I stowed it away and we decided to buy a charger for it. Maybe we could find the owner if it was charged! On our way into Minnesota, we rolled across the St. Louis River on Oliver Bridge. This was a very narrow 2 lane bridge without any shoulder and a railroad track on top. We decided to wait until visually all traffic had gone, before we took the lane and carefully crossed the river. We did have a very patient and kind dump truck driver happened upon us while we were riding over the bridge to safety. He slowed way down and gave us plenty of room. Once over the bridge, we stopped at a Family Dollar. We bought water, ice and a charger for the Ipad. With our hydroflasks full, we set out for the William Munger Rail Trail.

Matt and I rode to the closest hiking trailhead, passed over the trail on an overpass, then back tracked a bit to find a service road going down to the trail. On the trail, we were singing our praises of Minnesotas’ great paved trails. What a joy it was to be off the road, on a paved trail and in nature once again.

After many miles on the trail we took a break at a bench overlooking the Hemlock Ravine area. While there two cyclists stopped and we had a good conversation about bicycle touring. Then they continued on towards home. Soon the air was cooling down as the sun was slipping below the tops of the trees. We decided to camp at Jay Cooke State Park. The trail led down to the campground in a windy fast downhill. A downhill is great fun at the end of the day until you start thinking about the uphill the next day. 🤦‍♀️

Matt got us an awesome campsite near the bathroom. We grabbed showers and started dinner. On the menu tonight was chicken alfredo!

After dinner and dishes, I began charging the Ipad. There was no electric at the campsite so I used a battery pack. Within minutes the Ipad came on. Voila! Password protected. I tried a few with no success. I turned away for a bit, then a messenger message popped up.

The owner of the Ipad had installed the Facebook app on it. A friend name Nea had sent him a message earlier that morning. I couldn’t access the message but I did find her on FB via my phone. We connected as the day was closing and the night was upon us. She gave the owner of the Ipad, Jeremiah Johnson a call. He was ecstatic about his iPad being found and came to pick it up that night! I was delighted to have reunited the owner with his Ipad and to not have the extra weight in my pannier!

The next morning we packed up and rolled out of Jay Cooke Campground down Highway 210. Surely, the uphill would be less steep than the trail I reasoned. As we climbed 1.4 miles uphill, I realized I was wrong. We made it to the top and turned onto the trail only to find the most fantastic stealth campsite along the St. Louis River. We took in the views from the massive steel bridge then got on our way towards Carlton.

Once in Carlton, Rosie directed us to the nearest coffee shop. She had money burning a hole in her pocket (thank you friends❤🤗☕🦄) and wanted to buy us a coffee. She loves coffee and you can help her resupply her ever dwindling coffee fund on my buy me a coffee link.

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/therosecra1

Soon after our coffee and cookie stop, Rosie returned to her observation deck and guided us back to the trail.

Her day of fun was just beginning! Matt and I took her to a playground on the trail! She was so excited!!

Rosie was getting tired out and needed a nap. We put her to bed in her feed sack and continued on down the trail.

It was getting late in the afternoon and we were close enough to our 50 mile mark when we started to look for a stealth campsite. We found a bench by a muddy creek. We sat down to look at satellite and maps again. We almost decided to stay put and make do with the bench and muddy creek when we decided to press on. As I was envisioning a picnic table with hammock trees and we came upon a campsite that had just that and more! Keep in mind, that we had not seen any trailside campsites on Google nor had we seen any on the trail thus far. Blessings abound!

Matt went to fetch water to filter and I started dinner prep. On the menu tonight was those awesome steaks from Kwik Trip!

Matt and I cleaned up and got ready for bed. Before we could retire to our hammocks we were visited by a porcupine. I had never seen a porcupine in real-life other than at a zoo. It was quite the sight. It disappeared into the woods and later appeared along the trail near our camp. It saw us and turned to go the other way. Matt chased it down the trail in an attempt to get it to turn around. I don’t know what was funnier Matt chasing the porcupine or the porcupine putting it into high gear and galloping down the trail. The porcupine won the running contest as he darted back into the woods.

As soon as all the excitement was over, we turned in for the night.

The next morning we made coffee and and packed up camp. We headed to a little gas station up the trail 4 miles in the little town of Finlayson. We filled up on ice, water and snacks for the morning.

Soon we were on our way in a Westerly direction towards the town of Isle. We were hoping to do big miles today as we had a great tailwind and sidewind in the forecast.

Matt and I found ourselves at the end of the day in Little Falls, MN. We were wind swept and tired when we decided to get a cheap motel.

Soon the night closed in and I was asleep. Matt finished his blog updates as I fell into a pizza coma.

The next day we crossed over the Mississippi river! For those of you who might not know, Matt had solo canoed from NY to New Orleans on the Allegheny, Ohio and Mississippi rivers in 78 days. This still amazes me! ❤🛶😀

Our next day of riding we had side and headwinds. We were headed to the city of Alexandria. We stopped in Long Praire for lunch at a local country diner. We hadn’t planned on an hour long lunch, but we a few people interested in where we were headed. One gentleman, Scott bought our lunch. More kindness and blessings abounding throughout our day. Thank you Scott. Keep the adventures going with your wife and daughters on the tandem bicycles!!

We began to look for stealth sites around 45 miles when we got onto the Central Lakes trail. We came up dry and found a hotel instead. We blew into the hotel in the late evening. It was a long day in the saddle. Dinner was quick chicken wraps and potato salad. I was able to get a load of laundry ✔ done before 10pm. Soon after I collapsed in bed.

The next day we were both up early for breakfast. We planned on leaving early, say 8am, but managed to leave closer to 10am.

There is something to be said about the time it takes to do routing. If we had the time to float in the general direction at this point we most certainly would. Unfortunately, that is not the case with our deadline to be in Spokane by October 11th.

We left the hotel in search of stronger coffee along the way. It was a misty grey day filled with cool temperatures and breezes. We passed up a gas station across the busy street in hopes of seeing one on our side of the street. No luck! We got on the Central Lakes trail and headed in a Northwestery direction to Evansville. Thankfully there was a gas station on the way. As Matt got Rosie and I a coffee, we were chatting with an older gentleman who toured Europe on a Schwinn when he was a teenager. He was shared with us parts of his tour with excitement as though it were yesterday. He offered us a place to stay, but we declined as we had our hopes set on 70 miles today. After we finished our coffee and chat, we back to the trail. Today’s destination was White Rock Dam Reservstion Area just over the South Dakota, Minnesota state line. We stopped In Elbow Lake at Dollar General for a resupply of water not knowing what the towns along our route in South Dakota had to offer. 8 more pounds of weight to carry, but at least we would not run out of water. We got our bikes and rode another 38 miles to the dam. We arrived at 7pm. We had ridden 72 miles that day. We looked around and found a perfect picnic table under the ramada. Matt set up hammocks while I set out dinner. We were doing a repeat of the previous nights dinner due to time constrictions. Chicken bacon wraps! Yum! I gobbled mine up without taking picture. Matt and I both got into our warm sleeping attire and were soon asleep in our hammocks.