Day 8 - Minneapolis to Clearwater

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Route

Minneapolis to Clearwater, MN - 54miles

For details of the route, click here.

Weather

Sky condition:  Overcast to broken
Temperature:  62 - 84
Visibility:  Unlimited
Precipitation:  Scattered thunderstorms
Wind:  Headwind to left quartering headwind; 20 - 35 knots

Significant Events

Rode in a constant headwind

Today's Song

"20th Century Man" by The Kinks
"Lovesick Blues" as performed by Arlo Guthrie

Wildlife Observed

From Saturday: Snake tentatively identified as a Western Fox Snake (python)

No significant animals were seem today. Dead or alive!

Today's Ride

Sunday was a nice relaxing day in Minneapolis. Our hotel suite was on the top floor and had spectacular views of the city.

Minneapolis is a pretty nice city, and the Mississippi runs right through it.

The "Lars Anderson Suite"

View to the north

View to the southwest at dusk

Today, we tried to get an early start again. However there was a very large storm system moving eastward across the state. We decided to wait for it to pass and finally got on the road around 10am.

Minneapolis has a nice layout of bike trails and bike lanes and we took full advantage of them. A lot of the streets are one-way but we found it easy to navigate. The drivers seem to be accustomed to bicycles.  It's not always like that in Virginia!

The scenery that we had grown accustomed to in Wisconsin and along the Mississippi River into MSP was no longer with us.

The route was relatively flat but we were riding into a constant 20 - 30 knot headwind.  There were fast moving thunderstorms around but fortunately our paths didn't cross.

A nearby thunderstorm

The Mississippi River Trail (MRT) follows the river pretty closely. However, you don't normally see the river, it is usually 1/4 mile away or more. I thought it sounded good following the river, but if you didn't know the river was nearby you wouldn't know the river was nearby...

We made it to Clearwater OK, but tired and hungry. Tomorrow's forecast is good. I hope it holds!

Los Dos Centavos de Ileana

Saturday was a cruel and VERY long day.  I thought the word "BRUTAL" summed up the day pretty well.  After some rest and a WONDERFUL massage, I feel that I can explain what make the day so brutal.

Well, the events that contributed to an already tough 74-mile day to be worse started as follows. Actually, it started the night  before.  Nolan and I were enjoing the wonderful dessert (best pecan pie ever!) that he posted a picture of and the owner of the place asked Nolan and I if we had "ear plugs".

Naturally, we asked why? He stated that the train was very loud at night and we probably would not be able to sleep.  We assured him that "we are so tired, that the train will not bother us.". We proceeded to devour the pie.

Unfortunately, he was RIGHT!  We did not have a good night sleep!  Stockholm is right on a road crossing, so every single train (and there were many) blew its whistle! It was like it was in the bedroom with us (I kid you not!)

Then, of course we were up before 5am (because of a train) and planned to leave by 6am.  However, there was a very powerful storm coming our way.  We decided to wait (it was l so bad that the power AND water went out in the town!) and this put us leaving at a later time which is the hottest part of the day!

Followed by hill after hill and pretty challenging (for me of course, becuase Nolan claimed that he "didn't even sweat"!) and to make it even worse it was very windy! Needless to say that the windy conditions made the ride go much more slowly  (again only for me becuase Nolan didn't even notice that it was windy!) It was a very tough day.

Para los que hablan Español: el sabado cuando yo puse la  palabra "Brutal". No quise decir que fue brutal por que fue una experiencia facil y rica. Al contrario, es el dia mas largo y cruel hasta el momento!