June 11th, 2009

Milaca, MN to St. Joseph, MN (34 mi)

We had a mishap and tried to publish our day but it disappeared into cyber space.

This was an amazing day. Serendipity is usually something I think that much about but this day it seems very appropriate.

We left Milaca around 11 am after check out and headed down Hwy 23. There had been detour signs for some time, but we weren’t worried about that since bikes can go just about any where.

We make it about a mile before it is clear that there isn’t a real way around the “road closed” signs.

Nathan walked up to the bridge going over another section of the Rum River and determines we should try and find a different way. We utilize the iPhone to use some roads around the detour. We started heading south on a main road and are looking for 130th St.

We make it down to the very busy, non-bike highway without having found any crossroads where the map said that they were. We look again for 130th and find it. It is no longer a road but is a grass covered nothing. So we start biking back into town.

We make it back to a residential neighborhood and pass a guy who says: didn’t I just see you pass here? Then we had a conversation about how to get around the detour and finally rested upon going through the cemetery and crossing over the foot bridge. Woo hoo! A plan after an hour of detours.

We follow the plan and Nathan picks up the bikes and we push them over the bridge. We start talking to this guy about traveling and life and he accompanies us all the way back to Hwy 23. We say goodbyes and head off and are almost our if Milaca by 1:30.

About 20 minutes after being on 23 we see another bike tourist passing in the opposite direction. He cones over to our side of the road and we tell him about how to get around 23 and he tells us what to follow on our map. Mike has been on the road since February and has logged over 6,000 miles with the goal of 10,000. Wow!

We took off and followed the directions of the map and decided to look again to see if it was saving us miles or not. We concluded not and headed south the reconnect with Hwy 23. We had only gone about 5 miles out of the way.

We kept on biking and pulled over to take a break at a church. We were having a snack and a woman came up to us and started talking about biking. She had done some touring in Alaska and in Minnesota. She had this bandage on her leg and I asked her what happened? She said that she had just gotten her first tattoo an hour before. We asked about biking into St. Cloud and she called over her friends to ask them.

Her name is Tracy and we were introduced to Kramer and Stevie. Stevie had grown up in the local area and gave us a great route into the city so that we wouldn’t have to bike on 23 at rush hour. Tracy invites us over for dinner and to hang out for the evening and we quickly accept.

We get Tracy’s number and head on our way. Her group of friends just had a good feel about them, very free and accepting and fun to be around.

We continued biking for a few miles and came to a MacDonald’s and wiped out their dollar menu. Stevie’s directions were fantastic and brought us right into downtown St. Cloud. We again crossed the Mississippi River.

I call Tracy for more specific directions and we get there quickly and lock up our bikes and head up to a really cool apartment.

Tracy was getting ready to cook for every one. She loves to cook and is a great chef. She offers some refreshments and a place to chill out. We loved our time. I hung out drinking Poweraide and wine and picked Tracy’s brain about a variety of topics. She is a professor at UM St. Cloud and teaches in the sociology department. Both of us would have loved to take a class from her in college and she reminded me of some of my professors, two of which gave me recommendations for grad school. Tracy teaches about the politics of food, gender and racial inequality, and intro to sociology.

Nathan was hanging out on the porch with Stevie, Kramer, and Amanda, who are roommates and live in St. Paul. All I can say is that we had a great time and amazing food. They are warm and generous people.

A bit after dinner Amanda and Tracy helped us load up our bikes and stuff and took us the 7 miles to our campsite at St. Joseph’s. It was a bit of an adventure once we got there because it was dark and all we saw was the baseball fields and no camping. Tracy chased down a couple of bikers and asked them about it and it turns out that we just needed to go one drive way further. I had resigned myself to sleeping on the baseball field, but its good that that didn’t happen because the sprinklers came on pretty early in the morning.

Nathan and I had a conversation earlier in the day about how we came to meet the people that we had met today. There were a lot of wrong turns and turn arounds, but I know that all of those “mistakes” led to meeting new and cool people and a gourmet meal. I think that that is one of the things that I’ll take from this trip: wrong turns aren’t always wrong, sometimes its just a different path with different people to meet. Cool.

We’re just outside of Fergus Falls, MN for tonight, Fargo tomorrow. We know we’re behind on posts and look forward to updating everyone soon! Passports are back in FL, still working out where to have them sent to (hopefully an actual person’s house this time). Thanks for the love!

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Cambridge, MN to Milaca, MN (33 mi)

The wind, the wind, the wind and up hill.

Originally we planned to make it all the way to St. Joe today, where we had a nice little coffee shop awaiting us, and a tip from a super helpful couchsurfer as to a place to camp for free.

Before we left Cambridge, we stopped at a bike shop (Outdoor Edge) for a map reality check. As usual, the bike shop folk pulled through beautifully, and wisely led us away from highway 95 up to Dalbo and Milaca, which were the first two towns on our Adventure Cycling maps for this section of the trip.

We didn’t want to follow the Adventure Cycling maps beyond that, though, since that would mean missing out on 130 miles of paved bile trail, which we vastly prefer to riding on the roads. So we had a plan and some cut out bits of map marked up by the bike shop lady to get to St. Joe by means of Milaca. A bit out of the way, but much safer.

Headwind and hills can drain you pretty quick. We had to take a lot of breaks and swap leading often, and still we were worn out and in need of food and a break 13 miles in, in Dalbo. Luckily the Dusty Eagle was waiting for us, and we tore through an early lunch.

Another 13 miles to Milaca – no problem! But I had read the mileage on the map wrong and it was really more like 20. That’s not a fun mistake to make on a headwind day.

I forgot to mention this earlier, but it becomes important now. I got a horrible night’s sleep in Cambridge at the fairgrounds. It was windy and the persistent noise of the fountain reflected off of the tent rain fly and into my ears in all sorts of spacially distorted variety, disorienting me and making it very hard to fall asleep. In retrospect, I should have gotten up and rummaged around for earplugs, but do you know how had it is to get up after laying down at the end of a strenuous day?

Anyway, by the time we reached the Hardee’s in Milaca to reward ourselves with an orange milkshake and onion rings, I was done. I proposed to Amy that we just call it a day and get a room at the Super 8, which we did after some discussion, augmenting our dehydrated dinner with a bottle of wine.

Exhausted, we vegged out in front of the tv and fell asleep, setting an alarm for 10 so we’d be able to check out on time.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Mahtomedi, MN to Cambridge, MN (51 miles)

Last night, looking at the weather forecast, we agreed to wake up at 6 and check the radar, hour by hour, etc ( and see whether it was raining outside

This morning, it looked pretty bad, “on paper” at least. That is, there was a large mass of rain producing clouds headed east from the Dakotas, rain was forecast basically all day and night, with the possibility of severe thunderstorms. So, we decided to go back to sleep and leave tomorrow. Bummer to delay again, but the conditions weren’t looking good at all.

I’m no good at falling back asleep.

I made some coffee, ate breakfast, checked email, and watched the weather. All I can say is, I no longer have any faith in the weather channel’s “hour by hour”. The predictions moved all over the place. I watched the mass of rain move over and past the twin cities area, and the rain never hit Mahtomedi. Things were clearing up both outside and on the radar, so I got Amy up at about 10, and we left around 11:45, bidding farewell to inventor and host extraordinaire, Mark.

It was a beautiful day for riding. Sun, tailwind, and a bunch of paved bike trails for most of the way. There were a couple of areas with more traffic and narrower shoulders than we would have liked, but on the whole it was quite lovely.

Hit up Tasty Asia Take-Out in Wyoming, MN if you get the chance. Excellent fresh food, generous portions, and great prices.

Tonight we used our new cook pot cozy for the first time and it worked great! Instead of simmering the stew for 15 minutes, we took it off the heat after boiling and stuck it in the cozy for 15 minutes. Voilà! Thanks again Theresa.

Our first meal from the new brand of dehydrated camp food we’re trying out was ok. It tasted good but was way too salty (chicken stew).

There’s a lot of ambient noise where we’re camping tonight, making it hard to fall asleep. Hence me writing this at 10:30, when I would normally be asleep

July 4-8

July 4th, Saturday

We decided as a group that we wanted a relaxed 4th of July. Oh yeah! Naomi made an awesome breakfast of amazing omelets. Did I mention that I love vegging out in front of the TV.

There is an amazing show on the science channel called Man Tracker. The premise: a Canadian tracker with a beard and cowboy hat, on a horse attempts to catch two contestants in the Canadian wilderness before 36 hours is up. He doesn’t have a compass, but he does have a local guide. The contestants get to choose what they want with them, but they have to go on foot. The course is different every time and it usually is about 40 km. Very, very, very entertaining.

Guacamole, chips, watermelon, and snacks all day long.

Later, Naomi made real mac ‘n’ cheese, not in the casserole, but lots of nice creamy goodness. Man Tracker and mac ‘n’ cheese.

That night we headed over for a wine and cheese 4th of July night at Naomi’s friends’ house. Joel (another Joel) and Kevin are a blast to hang out with. Good cheese, good wine, good times. Sheri and her husband came over and hung out too. I first met Sheri when I visited Naomi, Brianna, and Sheri’s apartment in the spring of 2001 on my 1st college spring break. Then the three of them came down to Gainesville on their way through to Ft. Myers.

By midnight we were all pretty sleepy and headed home. Happy birthday USA!

July 5th, Sunday

We went to brunch at the Happy Gnome and had coffee and beer and wonderful goodness. Naomi’s parents live close to the bike shop where we need to take Nate’s bike. We head out to their house and air out our tent and sleeping bags. Of course we forgot the poles in Naomi’s apartment, thankfully the Reeves are well-stocked on anything that you could possibly need ever (important later).

I start to visit and catch up with Theresa and Nathan is with Mark in the resource-rich basement trying to come up with some prototypes for the back of our bikes that will work better than strapping things down with bungees. Naomi quickly reminds us that we need to head to the bike shop and find out what to do with Nate’s bike.

The bike shop guys at Gateway Cycle are really nice and knowledgeable. The problem they surmise is with cheap spokes. So, the wheel either needs to have all the spokes replaced, a handle built wheel with specific spokes, or a machine built wheel with specific spokes. We go for replacing all of the spokes. The guy says that it can be done by Tuesday. But of course we’re planning on leaving Tuesday morning. He looks again and asks if we need all of the spokes to be matching? We say of course not and so the bike was to be finished by Monday afternoon.

We run many errands around the town. Naomi is doing an awesome job of being a happy chauffeur. She takes us by my old neighborhood and house by the state fair and we stop at the old coffee shop and reminisce. We headed in the direction of Grace Church Roseville and wave and head to the REI located near by. They have some of what we need, but Naomi says we should go to Midwest Mountaineering in Minneapolis. She calls her mom to ask if that’s where they had gotten some really good camp food and Teresa calls the store to make sure that it was in. It was a really cool store.

We head back to the Reeves’ house and Theresa had put our laundry in the dryer and had even laid it all out after it was dry. People are really good to us.

The three of us then head to a small Italian place, Donatellis, with tacky decorations, but great food. We ordered this Sprite with lime flavoring in it, called Green Rivers. Yum! We were stuffed and headed home.

Naomi and Joel headed to bed early because they had to work the next day and we soon followed.

July 6th, Monday

We wake up about 10ish and head downstairs to Nina’s Cafe where we have gotten coffee every morning. It is just above Common Good Books, which is owned by Garrison Keillor who we love.

We are being pretty lazy because all we have to do is go pick up our passports from the main post office and hopefully meet up with Matt Peiken, the reporter who followed me during school up through my senior year of high school.

We headed out to the post office after lunch about 2 pm. We ride through downtown St. Paul passed the Xcel Energy Center where the Wild play hockey and passed the Science Museum where I went many times as a kid. I wait outside with the bikes and Nathan heads in to pick up our general delivery mail.

He comes out 10 minutes later empty handed. Not there.

With general delivery, there is only 1 post office per city that does this and you can’t address it to that post office, you just write your name, general delivery, the city, state, and zip code. You can’t call to see if it is in, you just have to go and personally pick it up with your ID, not even your spouse’s.

So we head back to go meet up with Matt Peiken. I am very frustrated. We are supposed to leave the next morning and are supposed to be sleeping at Naomi’s parents house. I call and leave Naomi a message to tell her of our dilemma and we head to Minneapolis by bike. Along the way we pass my brother Joel’s old high school and other familiar places.

When I was growing up, Minneapolis seemed very far away. It isn’t. It is just across the Mississippi River.

We make it to Matt’s by about 4:20 and he’s left to go walk his dog. We ride our bikes to the river in search of him and quickly find him and his chocolate lab, Wellstone. I loved talking with Matt growing up. We would have very intense political discussions and challenge one another. Those were very formative for my growing up years and did a lot to challenge my perceptions of the world. So of course we dive in to some more fun political conversation and laughing for the next few hours.

Matt is always doing something interesting. He is no longer at the Pi-Press (St. Paul Pioneer Press) but he is working on a local art scene project call the 3-minute Egg, you can check it out at 3minuteegg.org. He goes all over the Twin Cities to see bands, art shows, dance, and other cool stuff and makes 3 minute videos that you can view for free and can subscribe to. One really cool thing about Matt is that he is always thinking how he can make life good. He challenged us to pursue bigger and better things in our personal lives and careers. I’m not even sure that he realizes that he does this, but it is fun to keep on dreaming about life and choosing not to settle. Matt has energy and you feel energized around him.

He made us dinner that he hoped was edible. Of course it was delicious and it only took him 15 minutes. Somehow we are always hungry. Matt also gave us a copy of his self-help parody Positive MEinforcement: Shout ‘Me First!” and Make Every Day All About You! It is very funny and you should buy a copy. We took a couple of pictures and took off. I’m very glad that Nathan and Matt got to meet and that we all hung out.

Life is good.

We headed back and took Summit Ave for some of the way and went by my old junior high school, Ramsey, and went in to take a picture. A janitor said the school was open for a while more and so we went to explore. I started heading up the stairs that I used to slide down, when an older woman on her way down asked if I needed anything (more in the tone of what are you doing here?). I said I was a former student and wanted to look around; she said she had students upstairs; I said I wouldn’t disturb them and asked to go upstairs; she said that she would prefer if I didn’t. So I didn’t. We headed out and made it back to Naomi’s in just a few minutes.

Naomi and her mom, Theresa, had been brainstorming and had decided that it would be best for Theresa to pick us up in the early afternoon on Tuesday and then head to pick up our bikes so that we would head out early Wednesday morning. Good plan.

Naomi, Joel, Nathan, and I headed to a pub called Moscow on the Hill and had a dessert called Napoleon, which was just delightful and a shot of horseradish vodka and a martini. I don’t really know much about shots, but I did spill half of my martini so that it looked like I had a little accident. Such is my life.

We headed back to the apartment and said our goodbyes; Naomi and Joel headed to bed, we watched more Conan.

July 7th, Tuesday

We got up and headed down to Nina’s and met a really nice lady that made our bagels. She was a free spirit and was really encouraging. I will say that it is tough remembering everyone’s name especially if we don’t write right away. So hopefully this person knows who they are and we thank you for your encouragement and excitement for us on our trip. [Nathan says he thinks her name was Theresa].

I wander around Common Good Books and ask if Garrison comes in at all. The guy says that he is coming on Thursday for something and that occasionally when he is bored he’ll come in and buy a couple hundred dollars worth of books. I’m not going to lie, I was hoping that some how he was there and that we could have hung out for a few hours and have him tell me about Lake Wobegon.

We headed out to pick up our passports. Trip #2 to the post office. I am filled with hope. But the question still looms: Will our passports be there? That is the question. No. Not there. They say maybe tomorrow. No one is really helpful.

We have heard that we might be able to borrow a car the next day to head back again to the post office.

We get all of our stuff packed up, grab some burgers from Costello’s, and wait for Theresa to pick us up.

We loaded all of our stuff into the van and headed out to Mahtomedi.

Theresa made lasagna for later and laid down because she was starting to have a migraine. We borrowed the van and picked up Nate’s bike and headed back.

I had a nice relaxing day of watching TV, while Nathan and Mark created a contraption to better suite our stuff on the back of our bikes.

We enjoyed a nice dinner of lasagna, bread, and salad. We had more good conversation about the state of affairs in our country. There were many differing opinions, but its fun to try and fix our country around the dinner table.

We watched more Conan and headed to bed.

July 8th, Wednesday

Okay, okay it’s going to be the day! Yes! Passports and Canada here we come. (Can you see what’s coming?)

We get up and chill out and Mark and Nathan perfect the back of the bikes. Nathan does some sewing of webbing and rigging.

We get on the road and head downtown and Nathan heads in and 15 minutes later comes back out empty handed.

So it turns out that it was processed in Minneapolis and some how we had the wrong zip code, but still St. Paul on there and the lady said that we should go to the 7th street post office. So I look for a post office and find one nearby and of course that isn’t the correct one. So we ask for more instruction and it turns out that its on W. 7th Street about 2 1/2 miles away, just off 35 E. So we headed out. I am absolutely fuming at this point. It was good that even sailors weren’t around. Some of this information the lady at the first post office, the main post office surely could have shared with us.

Nathan goes into the W. 7th Street post office and comes out 15 minutes later empty handed. So it turns out that yes this post office had received our package but because it was marked general delivery and they don’t do general delivery, they did a return to sender. Seriously! So instead of sending it to the correct and only appropriate post office in town, they sent it back to Florida. So all of our waiting in town for extra days is for nothing.

I am still fuming. Who leaves their passports??? Who leaves their passports when traveling internationally? Us.

We head back up to Mahtomedi and stop at the Fleet Farm and pick up some more materials for the back of the bikes.

We hang out at the house, I nap, we brainstorm what to do about the passports, and hang out.

Theresa and Nathan had been thinking about creating a cozy to put our food pot in after putting in the water so that we don’t have to simmer something on the stove.

Mark introduced me to a new iPhone game earlier called Flood-It! I really like it. I don’t need another game to be addicted to, but of course I already am.

We are getting ready for bed right now and can’t really get an early start because of forecasted thunderstorms in the morning. That should bring us up to date and you’re a trooper if you’ve read this far.

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

Otranto, IA to Dodge Center, MN (49 mi / 79 km)

We headed out of the campground and quickly crossed into Minnesota. We are heading up to Austin to go to the bike shop to ask how to get to St. Paul and also to visit the SPAM museum.

Our ride to Austin was a pretty quick and easy ride of 20 miles. We stop at the bike shop and discover that no one does any touring…though to my eye there are plenty of road bikes. So we really got nowhere in terms of directions. One of the cool bike shop guys comes out and looks at our bikes and quickly cleans the chain and lubes them back up with the help of Nathan holding up the back of the bike.

Bike guys are cool and can always do stuff much faster than us, well, I can’t actually do anything, but Nathan can.

We head to the SPAM museum and stop at a cafe across the street. We are quickly offered the regular menu or the SPAM menu. We chose the regular. The SPAM museum didn’t open until 10 am. But by the time we headed over at about 10:20 the parking lot was filling up. For the SPAM museum! Seriously.

It actually was a pretty cool museum. It is really well-done and the people are very proud of it. Hormel sunk a bunch of money into the museum, which opened in the last few years. Tom Brokaw was at the opening of the museum and the dedication to the WWII veterans.

Did you know that… they are actually hiring more workers in their SPAM factories. More SPAM is being consumed now than ever. It is very versatile. Hawaiians have the highest per capita consumption of SPAM in the entire world and every year thousands of Hawaiians make the trip to Austin, MN to go to the SPAM museum. SPAM is sold on every continent except Antarctica, where it is just distributed by those who work there.

Nathan still has yet to try SPAM (he thinks). I personally have had enough to know that it certainly can be used in many ways.

We left the SPAM museum to go to the library. We knew we wouldn’t make it to the Twin Cities that day because it was about 100 miles. But my friend from middle school youth group, Naomi Reeves, offered us a place to stay and said that she could come pick us up. So we looked for a place about half way in between St. Paul and Austin, which was Kenyon.

We came up to the library only to find that it was closed for the 4th of July holiday. So we sat outside and used the outlet to recharge the iPhone. It was pretty interesting telling all of the people that came up that the library was closed and that we would put their books in the book return right above Nathan’s head. He eventually moved so that they could do this themselves.

It is not easy to get from Austin to St. Paul. We found some nice back country roads that actually took us more east instead of north, but they were still pretty nice to ride on. We finally dead ended into 56 and it was not a nice road to bike on. It had a plenty wide shoulder, but was bumpy and in bad shape and busier in parts than we would have wanted. We were on this road forever.

After about 20 more miles, Nathan hears another pop. Yup, another spoke. But this time we have the tools, all of the tools, with us, in the spot in which we are in. So of course, it is going to work, right? No.

We unload near a huge windmill and Nathan tries to undo the freewheel, but he can’t get it undone. He doesn’t have enough torque to even begin to move it. At this point we’re about 5 miles out from Dodge Center and at least 20 miles from Kenyan. I start trying to flag down a truck, but to no avail.  In the movies they make this look really easy. It is not. I thought that I had a good technique: stick out thumb, look pitiful, and smile a very little. I’m pretty sure that people thought that I thought it was a nice day and I was giving them a thumbs up at the good job they were doing driving.

I call Naomi and tell her that we need her to come further down the road to Dodge Center and to meet us at the Dairy Queen.

Nathan cannot get the freewheel off and so we load every thing back up and head the 5 miles into town hoping that Nate won’t bust too many more spokes.

We finally find the Dairy Queen and order more delicious junk food and wait for Naomi. She makes great time and is there within 20 minutes.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to see her. Naomi was always an open, fun, caring, and non-judgmental person to be around. She still is.

We get on the road and put my bike in her 1 bike rack on top of the car and take Nathan’s wheel off and stuff it in the trunk with the rest of our stuff.

We have a great trip getting filled in on life over the past 8 years since I’ve seen her. A lot has happened in both of our lives.

We head into downtown St. Paul and pass the History Center (I spend a lot of time here in late elementary school and junior high), a whole bunch of big buildings, and the Cathedral. Naomi, Joel (her boyfriend), and Dan (her younger brother) live in an apartment in the thick of a hip, fun, young, working professionals district with lots of great restaurants and pubs.

Naomi had threatened that she was going to feed us so well we wouldn’t know what to do with ourselves. This was very true.

Dan and Joel came down and helped us bring up our stuff and they had already started on dinner. Sadly, I had a bit too much Dairy Queen and should have held off a bit more.

We had an awesome gourmet dinner: mozzarella, tomato, and basil salad, amazing green beans, and Dan grilled perfectly medium rare steaks.

I wanted the title to read: I’m in heaven, but we feared that people might take this the wrong way.

We finished up dinner, I spilled on myself.

Then we headed to an ice cream shop a few blocks away. Ice cream is really a wonderful food.

We headed back down Summit Ave and looked at all of the historic houses and fireworks are going in the background. It was an amazing night.

We were all tired and watched a bit of TV and headed to bed.

I finally brushed my hair, as you can see below, and saved this for Jenna.

I had sweet dreams.

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Clarksville, IA to Otranto, IA (67 mi / 108 km)

We head out of our campsite pretty early and are greeted by the husband of the couple nearby and he brings: COFFEE. A quick friend indeed.

We go to the Casey’s not too far away to fill up on water and it turns out that my water reservoir has fallen out, so Nathan headed back to find it and I headed in to fill up on water.

The ladies at Casey’s were really nice and actually take the bottles back and fill them up for us. Nathan is gone about 15 minutes. My water pack had fallen out at the entrance of the park. =)

We get on the road and continue on our hills and into the wind. Iowa we found was a pretty tough place to ride our bikes. We’re trying to get into a riding groove, but that would prove difficult.

We hear a pop. Guess what?! Nathan breaks another spoke. On the freewheel  side (all of the gears) of his back wheel. We pull over to a power tower with a small gravel driveway and unload all of his stuff.

Nathan gets out the adjustable wrench and guess what?! It isn’t wide enough to get around the freewheel removal tool. He uses the Leatherman and can’t get enough grip. So again, we are stuck.

I decide to start flagging down trucks that look like they have tools. It is a difficult job with people going 60 mph. Finally a truck pulls over and Nathan gets the right sized wrench, with enough leverage (important later) and after about 40 minutes we’re back riding on the road.

We ride up to a small town about 7 miles away and stop for breakfast at about 10:45. We ended up eating lunch because the place stopped serving at 10:30. Yay! After Nate heads to a hardware store and picks up a larger adjustable wrench. We head on our way.

At this point our campsite feels very far away. About 35 miles. We ride, we ride, we ride, up, up, up and into the wind.

We’re getting nearer to Minnesota, but not quite close enough. Our campsite is about 8 miles across the border. We pull into this modern looking farm house and Nathan asks for a refill on our water. We ask if there is a campsite nearer than Minnesota, she says yes! We are thrilled. The truth of this story is that I was really tired and we’d biked about 60 miles and I just wanted the lady to say that we could pitch a tent in her yard.

Thankfully, the campsite that the iPhone didn’t pick up was just about 6 miles away. We left with water and excited about sleep coming soon.

The campsite was really pretty and only 10 bucks. We set up camp and there was another tent not too far away. Pretty soon another guy shows up and then the owners of the tent. We had crashed a family gathering, but that’s okay.

We were eating out of our backpacker meal bag and they were having grilled chicken and potato salad and lots of other things. I’m not going to lie, if they would have invited us to eat with them, I would have. Our beef stroganaff was actually pretty good.

We say good night and head to bed.