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| It was a beatiful 66-degree day today, and so we fired up the bikes and took a quick ride. Tom and Fran coincidentially called to see if we wanted to go on a ride today too, so we all went together. This ride could definitely be called a Wildlife Ride, because of the myriad of animals (some of them stupider than others) that we saw. As we rode along one section, we were suddenly inundated with squirrels. Squirrels everywhere, a good number of them unsure as to how to get away from our bikes. At least once rammed into Tom & Fran's wheel, and Rebecca reported riding over one that was "playing" in between her wheels. I suspect that squirrel is either pretty sore, or not long for this world. Shortly thereafter, a large toad galloped across the path. missing our wheels by a mere foot or so. At first I thought it was a very brown, very ugly, very slow shrew. Until we got closer to it. Our final wildlife experience was a deer that we saw standing by a pond (and also standing somewhat near a busy street). I guess the urban setting is a good place to hide on the opening day of gun deer season. It stood there and watched us, letting Tom take a picture (of course, I didn't bring my camera ... what would we ever see on this ride that we haven't seen tens of times before?), and then wandered off into the high grasses. The rest of the ride was uneventful. Add another 19 miles to our total, and now the bikes get winterized. Until next season! |
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| October delivered a nice 70-degree day for us, and we took advantage of it by going on a ride. The leaves weren't fully turned yet, but we saw some nice colors by the lakes. Our route was disturbed a bit by construction of a bridge that goes over 694. Construction as in: Bridge is gone! So we had to detour 4 or 5 miles, over to 35E and back. At least we got through, when all was said and done. Doesn't look like we'll hit 400 miles this year. At least we beat 300! |
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| Yes, we took the Coon Rapids route all by ourselves this time. And we made it in one piece. Although it turned out to be hotter this day than we originally thought it would be. All our water was gone by the time we got home. Maybe it's time I buy a Camelback too ... |
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| We embarked on the 40-some mile ride up to Coon Rapids dam and back again. Not very eventful, but another nice ride. The Subway we have lunch at has been making good sammiches. Can't complain. And hopefully we know the route now, so we can do it on our own! | ||||
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| We were invited on a biking trip with Tom and Fran today, and since we had already been talking about going on one ourselves, we jumped at the chance. This trip started and ended like the Rice Creek Recess Route, but it had a 25 mile detour to Coon Rapids in it. 9:30 hit, and Tom and Fran were right on time. It was amazing! We saddled up, and headed out for our adventure. Traveling over the Camden Bridge, we somehow made our way north and west, stopping for lunch at Subway at about 11:20, somewhere around 169 in Anoka County. After a filling meal, and lots to drink, we continued to the Coon Rapids Dam. In short order, we were there. We took advantage of the facilities (because of the aforementioned "lots to drink") and took a couple of pictures by the dam. Not wanting to dawdle, we then started our trip home. After some tooling around, we found ourselves at the Rice Creek River Trail. This is where we took the lead, since we know the way through there better than Tom and Fran. About 10 miles later, and we arrived home. This time we didn't even have to go up the hill on 33rd, opting instead to take Old Highway 8 all the way to 29th, avoiding all that up-hilled-ness. And we more than doubly earned Dairy Queen tonight! |
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| We decided it was time to do the St. Paul Lakes route, and visit Snail Lake, Sucker Lake, all that good stuff. But woe was us - County Road C was under construction, and the bike path was closed! Through some intense map analysis, we found a route that would get us where we needed to go. Rebecca's Zen-knowledge of the route got us through in one piece, and in the end, we found ourselves coming home a different way as well. Shadowing 280 and coming up St. Anthony Parkway, as though we were coming from my mom's house. | ||||
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| Here's one thing that's for sure: the Mesabi Trail isn't all flat and easy, like the stuff in Preston. Only parts of this bike path were along railroad right-of-ways. The rest are surprisingly steep hills (few that were really long, but they were fairly frequent). Our journey began a bit before lunch on Saturday. We bike out of the campground, make our way across the highway, and connected with the trail. We'd gone about 7 miles when it became clear that we should stop in the closest town for lunch (the next town up was about 14 miles). Our trek led us into town, and we found a couple of bakeries and some restaurants. Eventually we found our way to the Sunshine Cafe, where we had our big meal. Tom and Fran both had pancakes that were easily big enough to wrap around my entire head. While we were there, the owners partook of Rebecca's color and art knowledge, and got her opinion on colors for their planned renovations. Once the place is re-done, and named "Rosey O's", remember that it looks so nice because of Rebecca. We departed from the eatery and ran across the street. Unfortunately, the bakery that we had intended to get a tasty treat at was closed! We settled for going to a different one, where Tom and Fran had gotten some odd rolled-up delicacy. Fran proceeded to talk to the shop owner for 10 or 15 minutes, until we bodily removed her in order to continue our ride. Then we continued along, zipping by as we do on our bikes. We passed (and declined entry to) the Greyhound Bus Museum. Would it have been worth $7? We may never know. But we did pay our $3 to use the Mesabi Trail. We're no freeloaders! Our final destination was Rust Hull Mine, of which one can see pictures in the album. After our enjoyment of that, it was a "quick" trip back to the campsite. |
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| That's right, it's Rebecca's mom's birthday today. Happy birthday! We set out after dinner for a quick trip, and boy was it eventful! Getting through the Minneapolis paths was fairly straightforward, but once we got up around Fridley it got interesting, hoo baby! We saw not one, not two, but 3 woodchucks! The last one actually came down the path and charged us, fiercely moving its pudgy body in a deadly attack. Our highly-attuned biking skills saved our lives in that situation. As we came up to the giant hill right before Medtronic, I noticed some kids coming down the hill. I think the girl that was in the lead had (a) not ridden a bike much, and (b) never been down that hill, because she came down, didn't take the turn at the bottom, and launched over her handlebars into the mud. She's lucky it was mud, and lucky that she landed on her arm and not her head (not wearing a helmet, of course). We stuck around until 3 of her friends caught up, ascertained her condition, and said they didn't need to call anyone (I offered our phone if they needed it). The rest of the ride was as they always are. Well, except for the local circus we had to make our way through. No really, like with rides and food. Haven't seen that before. This may be our last ride before camping, during which we'll ride in an entirely new area. Stay tuned. |
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| Luckily, not the gastrointestinal type of pain. Today, for our second trip, we drove out to Melissa and Matt's house, parked in their driveway, and rode the Gateway Trail! We were accompanied by Paul, who recently bought a new bike. Contrary to our expectations, Paul wasn't sitting on his bike up at the road waiting to race us back to the house. But no, he was waiting patiently for us. The first part of the trip went quite well. It's a bit over 3 miles from the house to the trail, and it was all downhill (more on this later). We decided to head to the St. Paul side first (which ends right around 35E), because going to the Stillwater side let us refill our water bottles when it was more likely they'd be empty. We zipped along, Paul zipped ahead of us (but not so much that we thought he was showing off ... too much). We've decided to name Paul "Blue Falcon" after his favorite video game character. And his jersey and helmet are blue. Continuing on, we turned around to head out to Stillwater. Everything was fine and dandy - not much wind, shade on a lot of the trail, just like it should be. Crossing Highway 96 wasn't too difficult, and it'll be really nice when the bike bridge over the highway is done. In 2 years. Or whatever they're projecting. From there, it was only about 5 miles to the end of the trail. And finally, it was there! Water and bathrooms! We rested for a bit, drank some water, refilled, and had some goodies. Then we mounted up, and all groaned as our increasingly sore hinders were reacquainted with our seats. Within 5 miles, it would all change! When we got to 96 again, Rebecca wasn't feeling good. Not good at all. So we stopped to rest, drink more water, and rest more. It was at this point that the queasies took over. We whipped out Rebecca's phone and called Melissa. The original plan was to let Rebecca rest and wait, while Paul and I rode back and then drove to get her. That would have taken about an hour. But with Melissa home, and the big-ass truck ready to come to the rescue, we waited around and saw Rebecca off safe and sound. Then Paul and I struck out for home again. Hinders protested, but we were unrelenting. Well, except for when I told Paul we should wait 5 minutes, then call Melissa and tell her that we were tired too. On the last 10 miles to home, we passed some exciting wildlife (a turtle on the trail, and two basking in a pond). Then we encountered the wrath of Hadley! That nice route tot the paths, that had been all downhill just a few hours before, was suddenly horribly uphill! Plus, towards the end, the wind picked up. It must have been howling at up to 5 miles per hour! The very elements wanted to defeat us! But in the end, we were victorious. 40-plus miles was probably a bit overzealous for the second ride of the season. I think my hinder will be resting for the majority of this week. |
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| For those of you playing along at home, this route was called "The Post Dinner Route" last year. But this time out, we were joined by Tom and Fran. Fran continually pointed out all the playgrounds along this route, and so we have renamed it thusly. The ride itself was mostly uneventful. No snapping turtles crossing our path, no rednecks trying to make right turns in front of us, no kids yelling, "sidewalk!" at us. Just biking. All in all, we're less tired than anticipated for the first outing of the year. But now we need to go buy popsicles. 'Cause those would taste good. |
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