TravelStream™ news feed for member stevevls on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/stevevls en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:32:53 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/stevevls/2/1216594200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/stevevls/2/1216594200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/stevevls/2/1216594200/tpod.html Tue, 16 Sep 2008 11:32:53 -0400 Biking across the US...

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Ottawa Lake, Wisconsin, United States

-- so... it's been over a month since the trip ended, and still i have a little over a quarter of my journey undocumented. i'm hoping that the intervening time somehow makes the narrative more cohesive and interesting, but it could just make it hazy instead. i've been amazed at how much time it takes to write these entries up, and it seems like i bit off more than i could chew with the daily updates. but... i'm doing this more for myself than for you lovely readers, so i'm going to keep powering through it. hopefully by christmas i'll have wrapped everything up! and now, on with the show... --today's route was by far the most complicated to date. we had three pages of typed directions to follow, and we rarely followed a single road for more than two miles at a time. it almost felt more like a scavenger hunt than a bike route. as an added bonus, we had two bridge closures to navigate ourselves around. one of the reasons for the added complexity is that we were biking from one side of madison to the other via the university of wisconsin campus. madison was quite bike friendly--we were mostly on bike trails and almost completely on official bike routes. the campus itself is located on an isthmus between two lakes, and it was quite pretty. the temperature was really pleasant and the scenery so nice, that we really liked the city. i'm sure that during the summer, one could almost forget that the climate is completely inhospitable for a good part of the year.in madison, we picked up a new rider for the next few days because stephanie convinced her friend from school to ride with us. george and maxine's son peter also joined us for the day, but due to a neck problem, he's unable to ride. instead, he was playing secondary support vehicle for the early rising group. it was fun to have a couple of fresh faces to help liven up the group. we've all fallen so deeply into routine by now...after we left madison, we were stuck on a huge highway for a while. oddly enough, it was considered safe for biking according to the state of wisconsin, but to me it more resembled a four lane highway...complete with on-ramps. because we were coming through after rush hour, it wasn't so bad, but that kind of road could get really hairy for cyclists. once we got off that road, though, it was all rural roads as we twisted and turned our way south towards ottawa lake. we're getting really close to the illinois border now, and tomorrow we'll cross over.around ottawa lake, i spotted a lot of wildlife. because the ground is wet and marshy, i saw countless frogs (countless smashed on the road, but a few live ones including a cute little guy in the camp shower), a couple of rabbits, an enormous moth, and a snake in our spaghetti dinner. art had bought a little rubber snake weeks back, and apparently he had been waiting for the right time to scare someone with it. i came late to dinner because i had been on the phone, and as i went to scoop some noodles onto my plate, i had a little start when i saw what i thought was a worm amidst the noodles. i poked at it with the spoon and saw that it was a toy snake, and i chuckled and said, "look at that" to whoever was nearby. michele took one look into the pot and jumped about a foot in the air and started screaming. i think that was more the reaction art was hoping for... at this camp site, i'm beginning to realize that mosquitoes differ from place to place. the variables i've isolated so far are size (small to enormous), color (brown to grey), and which part of the body they prefer to bite. for example, montana mosquitoes were enormous, brown, and preferred legs. north dakota mosquitoes were large, brownish grey, and liked to munch through bike clothes on butts and shoulders. now here at ottawa lake, we have average sized grey mosquitoes that go straight for the face. when we first pulled in, they weren't so bad, but as night fell, i found myself retreating into my tent (with a bunch of welts on my neck and face) to get a little peace. while grateful for the extra sleep, i am relieved that we'll be sleeping in doors for the next few evenings...
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Madison, Wisconsin, United States

today's themes: road closures, rediculous hills, flat tires, and getting lost. we were supposed to have a relatively short day of 65 miles, but we ended up clocking quite a few more between all of our little adventures.in early june, a ton of rain came down in wisconsin, and there was a lot of flooding. in some places, roadways had been damaged by the water levels and were still under repair. in other places, the roads were actually still underwater. one of our diversions happened near devil's lake (apparently a popular name since this is the second one we've encountered) where the road was covered in up to 1 foot of water for a few hundred yards. julie, brad, and i turned around at that closure to go around the long way, but we later discovered that two team members decided to take off their shoes, hike up their pants, and carry their bikes through the nasty water rather than go around. they probably had the right idea because we had to go back up a huge hill and then divert for a few miles on a really poorly maintained and heavily trafficked road. all in all, the diversions probably added close to 8 miles to our route. oh, and just before we hit the water-logged road, brad had his first flat tire of the day.the most surprising part of the day was the ridiculous hills we had to climb. at no point had i thought that wisconsin would have insanely steep hills like we encountered today. we had one hill in particular that seemingly went straight up, and even in my bottom gear, i was standing on my pedals the whole way up and only pushing uphill at 3 or 4 mph. we later ran into a guy who was training for the madison iron man, and he told us that it's notorious for having the most difficult bike route because of all the hills. it's not all bad, though, because we could really get zooming on some of the downhill portions.after 35 miles or so, we got to take a free ferry across the merrimac river. for those of us who have had to travel in the van, we got to have a little snicker at everyone else because they could no longer claim to be part of the efi (every fabulous inch) club. there is a nice little ice cream stand near the ferry entrance, so we all grabbed cones to munch on during the ride across. we took a break on the other side to cool off in the shade and leisurely finish our snacking. once we set off again, it was more of the same hills. the one picture i took for the day was at this part, where i spotted a really nice soybean field. soon thereafter, brad had his second flat of the day, and julie and i went ahead for a while because she was moving slowly with all the hills and, since she was mapless, i accompanied her. we started going through a very pretty area, winding through farmland transitioning into a nature reserve.unfortunately, we never should have arrived at the nature reserve. due to some inaccurate directions from our mapping software, we took a wrong turn, which described a left at what was a T in the road but actually meant to continue straight. we didn't discover it until we wound up at another T (after having our suspicions aroused just before by passing a street we had turned on earlier) and couldn't find ourselves on the map anywhere. fortunately, brad had made the wrong turn as well (as had michele and steph), and we managed to get ourselves set straight (while brad fixed his third flat tire), albeit having gone 5+ miles off route.after turning around and getting going again, we thought we were on the home stretch. the night before, we had made some slight adjustments to our route after george noticed that there was a quicker path from the county back roads we were taking that avoided going through downtown madison. unfortunately, we didn't discover that the route was quicker because the church was flagged in the wrong location until we arrived at the spot where it theoretically should have been...after climbing yet another absurdly steep hill. with our minds thinking we were done, we still had to push eight more miles or so to get to church. but we finally made it at around 5:30...again.when we got in, the religious members of the group caught a late church service while i milled around in the parking lot talking on my cell phone. it was a bit awkward when the service got out because i was still in my biking regalia and lots of people were giving me funny looks and other wanted to talk about the trip. somehow, i got myself out unscathed, and dying of hunger, got in the car with julie and brad to go grab some food. because we were in a big city and because michele and steph had wandered off (steph attends university of wisconsin, so they were sleeping in her apartment that night), and because george and maxine's son surprised them with a visit, we were all on our own for dinner. of all places, we ended up at the olive garden, and we managed to gorge ourselves on breadsticks and pasta for the next day's ride. the waiter even said we looked like hungry cyclists before learning about our trip (we suspect he was prepped by george and maxine's son) and brought us breadsticks at a faster rate than olive garden rules allow. sweet!
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Reedsburg, Wisconsin, United States

today, we continued along the rails to trails en route to reedsburg as we went end-to-end on the la crosse river trail, the elroy-spara trail, and the 400 trail. by far, the elroy-sparta trail was the coolest of the bunch because there were three old railroad tunnels that we got to walk our bikes through. we knew we were approaching the first tunnel when the trail started going up. the rail route was designed so that it keeps very slight, locomotive-friendly grade (no more than 3% or so), so in order to cross over the hills, even a relatively short climb takes a few miles. as we got closer and closer to the tunnel, the air started getting colder and more humid. the tunnels are big enough that they trap a lot of moisture and the temperature differential causes steam and moisture to emanate from the entrance.we came to the largest tunnel first. it clocks in at nearly 3/4 of a mile long, and since it has a slight bend, you can't even see the idiomatic light at the end upon entering, and it took nearly 10 minutes to walk through. at the behest of one of our other team members who had ridden the trail before, i opted not to use a flash light and kind of stumbled across the wet, rocky tunnel floor. although i couldn't see much, it was a really neat experience to see the light at either end and to see the silhouettes created by other folks in the tunnel. i was fairly wet by the time i emerged on the other side of the tunnel because the condensation on the ceiling was dripping down like a mild rainstorm. the coolness was much appreciated, though, and i was missing it by the time we got going down trail again.the other tunnels were also fun, but by the third one, the novelty was starting to wear a little thin, mainly because we were on crushed limestone trails again, and the day was wearing on by the time we finished with them. we were still facing down 20+ miles on the trails, parts of which were closed due to rain damage that we would needed to inquire about with locals to get ourselves routee around. we also hadn't done a very good job of eating because there weren't so many logical stopping points, so we had to take a break between the elroy-sparta and the 400 trail to have some soda and a snack. an interesting tidbit about the 400 trail: it's a segment of an old rail line that used to connect chicago to minneapolis --a distance of 400 miles--in 400 minutes.by the time we finally pulled into the night's church, it was almost 5:30, making this one of the longer days in the saddle, though it still loses out to the day we were bucking headwinds for the same distance all the way into fargo. upon arrival, we discovered that the church was double booked, and we had to share the joint with a bunch of middle school teenaged girls and their chaperones who were on a cross country trip of sorts. fortunately, they went to bed even earlier than us, and the giggling etc. didn't keep us up too late...
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Midway, Wisconsin, United States

lucky for us, the threat of rain was more or less gone as we set out this morning. there was still a 30% chance of thunderstorms, but we've been hearing that in the weather report for the last three weeks or so...same old same old. there was a lot of moisture in the air, though, creating a low hanging fog that was a touch reminiscent of summer back home in san francisco. the ambient moisture plus the bicycle induced breeze made for a really nice, cool morning. actually, when we set out, we were almost too cold for the first couple of miles until our muscles started to warm up, and from then on it was quite pleasant.for some reason, i got the idea in my head that i really wanted to go fast today. for one reason or another, the last few riding days had been very slow, and i just wanted to get moving. after 10 miles or so, i noticed that my average speed was relatively good (18 or so), and i got the idea in my head that i wanted to be averaging 20 mph. so, off i went. given the way that crazy math stuff works, for the next 40 miles, i had to average over 20 in order to reach my goal. my legs were feeling really good and the terrain was really perfect for going fast. if eskimos have twenty words for snow, cyclists should have their own vocabulary dedicated to rolling hills. i was pedaling through the type of hills where the ascents aren't so steep and the relative maximum points were close enough that i could use the momentum from coming down one to power most of the way up the next one. rolling through those kind of hills is really quite a pleasure, and it's probably my favorite terrain. well...i should say my favorite terrain that doesn't require a long ascent to get to. anyway, i hit mile 50 after 2.5 hours, though i never met my goal--my average peaked at 19.97.lunch time found us in (surprise) a small little town, and we dined in a restaurant/gas station. the existence of such a place originally shocked me, but we've seen enough of them by now that i know what to expect. the place was filled with retired folks, and we made friends with some old men who used to farm, and while we munched on grilled cheese sandwiches, we got the skinny on what farming is like in wisconsin (i.e. not too different from anywhere else).with the first few pedal strokes after lunch, i started feeling some really sharp pains in my left knee...not good. this is the one that was hurting back in north dakota that i thought had fixed itself, so unfortunately, it looks like i have to be careful with it from here on out. lucky for me, i was able to continue cycling, albeit slowly, and it wouldn't make sense to push very hard for the rest of the day because a few miles after lunch (and after a velva stop where i was able to pick up some ibuprofen) we hopped onto an unpaved bike trail. usually getting onto an unpaved trail with a road bike is a terrible idea, but wisconsin has a series of trails that are covered with a crushed limestone that creates a dense enough surface that our skinny tires wouldn't sink. still, it puts some extra drag on the bike (especially at high speeds) so it's much more pleasant to set a mellow pace and meander through. this trail is part of a network of old rail lines where the state ripped up the tracks and opened them up to cyclists. the trail is really nice because it goes over a series of old rail bridges, and when not next to the river, is seemingly a tunnel of greenery. another interesting consequence of being built on a rail line is that the trail had many super long, straight stretches.ironically, even with the fast start, i didn't get into camp until late afternoon. the rail trail slowed down the average pace a lot, and then i pulled off with about two miles left to talk on the phone, and finally, i missed the turn off to the church. when i got in, it was about time to start cooking dinner. true to form, it was ready late. i used some curry paste and coconut milk that i purchased en route to the twin cities to put together a pot of massaman curry, and it sure was a treat to eat some asian food. as great as an endless string of hamburgers and pasta may seem, i'm really missing the different asian cuisines that i'm used to eating back home.after dinner, i tried to use the church's internet to catch up on email, etc., but they had content filtering on their wi-fi network that was frustrated my attempts to do anything. it deemed "inappropriate" a plethora of sites (gmail and facebook included) and blocked such google queries as "great lakes." here i had thought that content filtering had improved since it's initial implementations...
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Pepin, Wisconsin, United States

and then there was wisconsin... from here, we're going to be spending less and less time in each successive state. until now, we had been following the "northern tier" route laid out by the adventure cycling association, but today we broke off. one fellow cyclist we met had described the route as "sending you to every small town in america", so we're diverting in order to make our way first to chicago, where we'll meet with some worldvision reps, and then to fairfield. after 15 miles of rolling hills that reminded our legs that perhaps they would like more than one rest day, we came again to the mississippi river. now that we're further south, it's much larger and defines the border between the two states. once in wisconsin, we got onto the "great river highway", which winds its way alongside the river, and would define our route for the next couple of days.the magic spell we cast for good weather finally wore off, and shortly after crossing into wisconsin, we began to be pelted with rain. we pushed on through it for a while, but when we reached the small town of diamond bluff, we pulled off the road. in addition to the buckets of rain coming down, we were seeing frequent lightning bolts within a mile or so of us, so we decided to hole up inside. the only place we could find was a bar called the nauti hawg (a great name for a biker bar alongside the river) that had opened minutes earlier. we were the first customers, so we got to chat with the bartender while the kitchen cooked us up some hamburgers and we disconsolately watched the doppler radar, which showed that the only rain in the entire nation was hovering above heads. apparently we made the right decision by going inside because we also heard the announcement of severe thunderstorm warnings for our region. we killed more time by having a round of warm drinks (coffee, hot chocolate, and apple cider) to warm up before heading back into the tempest. luckily, we had waited long enough that the rain had let up a bit and would (hopefully) continue clearing.we were surprised by the terrain in wisconsin. for one reason, the mississippi valley was quite beautiful and oddly reminiscent of hawaii at times: lush, green, misty, and warm, humid weather. another is that we're used to river valleys being relatively flat and easy biking, but the mississippi here is flanked by rocky bluffs, so we frequently found ourselves ascending some relatively steep hills (and some steep descents that, sadly, we had to take slowly because of the rain). we even had one climb that was a couple miles long and ascended five hundred feet feet or so. we haven't seen anything remotely like that since leaving the rockies! i had gotten ahead of brad and julie, and i waited in the rain for them at the top of that hill. while i was sitting under a bush trying to keep dry, a man drove up in a truck and let me know that the others were stuck back a ways with a flat tire. brad has had extremely terrible luck with tires lately, and this was already his 11th or 12th flat tire for the trip. the runner up is had six, and most people have had three or less. whenever he gets a new flat tire, we've taken to saying the number like the count on sesame street: "12 flat tires, ah ah."we haven't had one of these for a while, but today's silly town name: stockholm. main street was lined with swedish flags and a surprising number of boutiquey shops for a town of less than 200 people.with 15 miles to go, the rain finally stopped...hooray! around this time, we got some fantastic overlooks of the river at lake pepin--a 22 mile long lake created by a natural dam in the river. from there, it was a relatively quick and easy ride to a church on the outskirts of pepin, where we would sleep for the night. the pastor and his wife there were already preparing a spaghetti dinner for us by the time we rolled up. the pastor was a former mountain bike racer, so he was really interested in our trip. he had two daughters of 5 and 8 years whose favorite game was "karate", which involved yelling, "hee-yah!" and sending flying kicks towards one another. i would say that i was amazed that they didn't hurt each other, but that seemed to be part of the game. they would get some good hits in and then laugh about how hard they got knocked. all the more power to them...before dinner, julie, ann, and i snuck out to do some grocery shopping (ann and i were on call to cook the next dinner) and get some ice cream. ann is allergic to gluten, so many of the typical biker junk foods are off limits for her, so she makes up for it with ice cream. during the rain, she had holed up in a little ice cream cafe and made friends with the owner. we were set to have ice cream after dinner as well because today was george's 60th birthday, but that didn't stop any of us from enjoying our cones. yum...
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Bloomington, Minnesota, United States

with an upcoming day off in the twin cities area, julie had been talking up the mall of america for weeks. as we've learned, a single day off is never enough time to accomplish much of anything, so we didn't really have high hopes of seeing much of the twin cities. the afternoon before, we had taken care of as much as we possibly could (laundry, internet, shopping) to give us enough time to head into town, but ultimately, we ended up only going to the mall. at one point on the interstate, we got to see the skyline of st. paul, but that was about it. poor twin cities...living in the shadow of bigger is better consumer america. i hear they're really quite lovely, and i was originally looking forward to having a day to explore, but that was back in those much like camelot, the mall of america is a silly place. as one would expect of the largest shopping mall in america, it's enormous (duh). it's four stories tall, there's an amusement park in the atrium, a mini golf course, a movie theater, multiple food courts, and about every store one could possibly imagine. one notable absence: hot dog on a stick. brad had been looking forward to getting a corn dog for weeks, but where one used to exist, we instead found a boarded up hole in the wall. the lego store was the best of the bunch. they had a number of really cool lego sculptures, including an animated, interactive clock tower.much like when we were in the shopping mall in minot, we didn't have a very ambitious agenda. we wanted to get something to eat, see a movie, and go to the book store. we had hoped to go on some of the rides, too, but they were crazy expensive. apparently, the amusement park area had recently undergone a nikelodeon-branded facelift as part of an effort to rejuvenate the place. we bought tickets for "get smart", grabbed some mediocre food court fare, and then hunkered down in the air conditioned theater and really enjoyed the show. i find it quite rare that hollywood puts out a good comedy, but this one was really well written and executed.after the movie, we met with a friend and old school mate of my mom's. she lives in the twin cities area and was very kind to us by helping us get set up with our campground (it's difficult to find cheap lodging near urban centers) and giving us a small donation for our cause. after sharing an orange julius with her, we found our time at the mall had quickly flown by and we needed to get back to camp to eat dinner and prepare for another day of riding. some day i'll have to come back...
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Lake elmo, Minnesota, United States

after weeks and weeks of pedaling through really rural areas, we finally got to a major city...or cities. we went over and around the twin cities of minneapolis and st. paul to a campground in the suburb of lake elmo. aside from a really nice lake, the area is a strange combination of corn fields and strip malls, and in the middle of it, we found our campground.overall, we had a rather uneventful ride into the twin cities area, though we've been noticing that it's been difficult lately (with the notable exception of little falls) to get into camp early. for one reason or another, we'll lose time throughout the day to small things: julie and brad taking a team leader type phone call, coordinating with velva, flat tires, disorganized break times, etc. even on the small mileage days, we seem to have something holding us back, like the headwinds on the pelican rapids day. as further proof that it's nigh impossible to get into camp early, it took us until 3:30 to get into camp on a 63 mile day. we slept in a little, dawdled leaving cambridge, had a couple of long breaks, and suddenly it was mid afternoon. one of our cold drink stops was in a combination gas station/asian food market, which i found quite exciting. i had been wanting to make a thai curry dinner for weeks, but it's not as easy to come across the curry paste and whatnot in rural montana. funny that...we were a bit adventurous with the route. the evening before, we had met a gentleman in the bike shop in cambridge that had helped us map out an alternate route to save on mileage. our established route had us crossing the river into wisconsin and then crossing back at a different point to arrive at lake elmo, but he knew of some bike paths and a series of county roads that would shave off 10 miles or more. one of his quotes: "i've never ridden that road in particular, but washington county really maintains their roads." one of our experiences: CR-8, which we were on for five mile,s is a serious contender for worst road of the trip. otherwise, his directions were quite helpful, and the 25 miles we got to do on a bike path were really nice...we could ride side by side and hold conversations without having to constantly worry about traffic. we also got to ride through the town of wyoming, MN, where we see a sign welcoming us to wyoming. we were tempted to take our pictures by it and slip it in with the rest of the "welcome to" photos.the campground of the evening was quite luxurious. it used to be a KOA campground, but is now independently owned, and it sports a pool, showers, internet, and laundry. the weather started turning hot again today, so the swimming pool at the end of the day was wonderful. hopefully we didn't make it too grungy when we all jumped in! in the evening, there was a chance of thundershowers, and we saw a massive storm cloud building in the distance, but we stayed dry throughout the night.
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Cambridge, Minnesota, United States

once again, we struck the jackpot in regards to food. the pastor and his family greeted us in the morning with a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, pancakes, coffee, juice, and all the trimmings. his kids were slightly delirious due to the early morning rising, so it was pretty fun to watch them run around and interact with the team.and off we went for another long day of riding... by this point, getting up in the morning, packing up, and jumping on the bike is becoming quite routine. it still seems crazy to think that we've gotten ourselves all the way to minnesota, so we choose not to and just pedal, pedal, pedal instead. one thing that was special today is that we got to do a little dance 25 miles in because we crossed the 2,000 mile boundary. we also celebrated by taking pictures of a bunch of cows trying to keep cool in a little mini-lake. they were so cute...and stinky!the halfway point found us in milaca doing some emergency maintenance on brad's bike. somehow, he lost most of the cable tension in his rear derailleur and was limited to only 2 gears, (it's scary how quickly i'm learning about bikes) and i was sitting in the parking lot of a gas station trying to fix it, tugging at cables and messing around with other adjusters. brad and julie were amused because they have been biking for years and me for months, but i've already surpassed their knowledge of maintenance by reading a couple of chapters from a book that they themselves had purchased. it's also nice of brad to put so much faith in me! i was able to get his bike mostly in working order, and then we set off again.while we were stopped, michele and stephanie (the mother and daughter duo) passed by. we caught up to them in a couple of miles, but while they're usually content to proceed at a leisurely pace, michele has a fiercely competitive streak and started trying to race us. it was a pretty annoying on one hand because it prohibited us from engaging in proscribed behavior (read: pace lining) and because it's hard to have a relaxing ride when someone's riding your tail. in the end, though, it's a pretty unfair advantage to be a twenty something male when racing against a forty something female, and brad and i pulled far, far away leaving poor julie to fend off michele. when julie caught up with us later, she admonished us to never ditch her with michele again. apparently, michele was riding her tail the whole time catching her draft while saying, "i'm not trying to race you julie." fun fun...with 20 miles to go, we stopped in the town of dalbo to figure out the rest of our route. it's a pretty small and quiet place, and there wasn't even a gas station to ask direction. luckily, brad has an amazing lack of inhibition with asking people for information. he approached a young boy (about 9-10 years old) who was out riding his bike and playing with his dog and asked him about the roads we were thinking about taking. surprisingly, the kid was really knowledgeable and warned us to stay away from one of the proposed routes because it would take us along one of the most dangerous highways in minnesota. his dog was great...he was a one year old black lab mix named timber who was super friendly and full of energy. he was jumping all over us, and julie and i had tons of fun playing with him and playing fetch with his favorite toy--a little tire.once followed the kid's route and arrived in cambridge, brad and i went straight to the bike shop. he needed to get a real tech to fix up his bike (which in the end got some new cables and some other hardware) and my bike was still acting a little funny. on the road today, it had started making new noises that i couldn't diagnose. it turned out that one of the spacers in my rear cassette had broken off and disappeared, so the whole assembly was loose. hopefully that's the last issue to shake out from the disaster two days ago... the bike tech was really nice and let me work with him in his shop and kindly answered all my questions and even showed me a new trick or two.when i got back to the church, there was a lasagna dinner waiting for us. we've really been lucking out this stretch with people providing us with meals. after dinner, one of our hosts offered to give me a ride to his house to take a shower. while i had been at the bike shop, the rest of the team had gotten the choice of going to one house and going swimming or going to this guy's house and taking a shower. i'm constantly amazed at how kind the people we've been meeting are. they don't know us, but because we're riding for a cause, they're willing to cook us dinner, drive us to their houses for showers, host us, etc etc. it's really amazing...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/stevevls/2/1216000920/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/stevevls/2/1216000920/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/stevevls/2/1216000920/tpod.html Sat, 09 Aug 2008 17:58:07 -0400 Biking across the US...

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Little falls, Minnesota, United States

we got lucky with the wind again, today. a brisk tailwind practically blew us to the next town, and since we had a short mileage day, we made it to our church in just over three hours in the saddle.the ride was a bit hairy at times. some folks had suggested an alternate route to cut on mileage, and it took us down a somewhat busy and really poorly maintained road. julie likened it to a video game because you had to constantly be scanning the shoulder for all the cracks and holes and darting your bike around them. she said she was singing the tetris song the whole time. fortunately, it was usually possible to keep to the shoulder when cars were driving by, but i had to come to a full stop once or twice in order to avoid hitting a car and/or a huge pothole. with the tailwind pushing us along, it was all the more interesting. when we arrived in little falls, brad commented on how strange it was that the terrible pavement hadn't given any of us a flat tire, and within a few blocks, i realized that in fact it had--my front tire was flat. another slightly scary bit was when we were going from little falls to the church where we'd stayed, which was just outside of the city limits. the pastor had given us driving (rather than biking) directions, and it put us onto a major four lane highway for about a mile. the shoulder wasn't so bad, but it got really tricky when we needed to make a left turn.the most exciting item of the day: we crossed the mississippi river! i had no idea that it started so far north. at this point, it's still a pretty small river, but they do have a dam in little falls that generates enough electricity to power the town.with so little riding, it was almost like we had a free day. we did all the usual "fun" free day things: laundry, internet, and bike maintenance. we also had packages waiting for us because this stop was one of our mail drops. there were boxes and boxes of cookies waiting to be eaten, a package from rei, and even a bag of goodies for each rider put together by one of the ladies in the congregation. in the evening, the pastor and his family put together a really great dinner for us with roast beef, homemade mashed potatoes, green beans from someone's garden, and one of the best apple crisps i've ever had. after dinner, i spent more time tweaking my bike (with the pastor's kids for an audience...they were really interested in learning more about the bike), and after a few hours of that, it was time to turn in and get ready for another day.
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Parkers Prairie, Minnesota, United States

today was one of those days where nothing seemed to be going right. it started off with a 5 am alarm clock, which is never ever a good way to kick off the day. the annual turkey festival was going down in pelican falls, and vendors needed the space where we were camping to begin setting up their stalls at 6. when i stumbled out of my tent, i could already smell roast turkey wafting in on the wind. those of us late risers blearily packed up our stuff, and the first sign the day was going poorly was that one of my pairs of sunglasses had broken.10 miles down the road, disaster struck... i had done some maintenance on my bike's shifting system the night before, but i didn't ride the bike after doing the adjustments because everything was shifting smoothly when i had the bike on the stand. however, putting the bike on the stand is more like laboratory conditions, and the bike can respond quite differently when on the road. for example... say you're pedaling up a hill. the chain might over shift and get stuck between the rear cogs and spokes, breaking one spoke and shearing a few others. just for example... and of course, there are other potential variables. you might find yourself having pulled apart your rear tire with cogs spread out on the shoulder of the road and your instruction book trying to fly away in the wind only to discover that a bike shop tech 2,000 miles ago had sold you the wrong length replacement spoke. and unfortunately, spokes are pretty important. if you're missing one, then the wheel will start bending, rubbing against the brakes, and in the worst case, become deformed to the extent that it's not usable anymore. and wheels (like all cycling components, but even more so) are super expensive, so you don't want to ride without a spoke. spokes are also extremely specific, so no one else in the group would have one i could use, and even though julie and i have the same bike, she had bought her spares from the same guy i did. so, into the van i would have to go.when we were having really hot weather in montana, julie had made a speech to the group about how it's okay to get into the van if you were feeling too oppressed by the weather and how you could still say that you had ridden across the country. i (and others) had inwardly scoffed at that remark at the time, so it took quite a few moments to come to terms with the fact that i would be missing out on at least one day of riding. of course, getting in the van didn't prove to be so simple either. we have bike racks mounted on the top of the van, but for the most part, they haven't been used, so i ended up getting to troubleshoot them myself as, one by one, i found small problems with each. ultimately, i had to figure out how to do a quick repair on one of them before being able to strap my bike in. and of course, the wind hadn't died down, and it almost blew my bike down onto my head a couple of times.so now i'm in the van, and i quickly realize that it's not so bad after all. it's amazing how quickly the van moves! the mile markers were flying by at an astounding rate... after catching up with them, brad, julie, and i had a pow wow in a gas station, and we decided that we could have velva drive me into st. cloud where we had located a bike shop via google, thanks to the only early-rising friend i know on the west coast. so, off we went! it was fun to get to hang out with velva for a while as we drove into the "big city" of 100,000 or so people. we had chosen st. cloud because it looked fairly close on the map, but it actually took quite a while to drive there. we had thought it would take about 45 minutes, but it actually took almost two hours. we arrived in town and found the bike shop with relative ease, and the guys there were really nice. they were able to replace the broken and breaking spokes within an hour, and they hardly charged me for it. they also gave me a really reduced rate on the spare spokes that i stocked up on, and i also bought the store out of tires. while they were doing the work, velva kindly treated me to lunch at a chinese buffet restaurant across the way, and then took me to mcdonald's where she bought me a cup of coffee at the senior rate. it was so kind of her! this is becoming a theme, but i really would have liked to see more of st. cloud. it had a really nice downtown center, and nearby there is a university and a couple of lakes. more than anything, though, i really like the name of the place.after a long drive back, we finally arrived back in parker's prairie and met with julie and brad in town. we pulled my back off the top of the van so i could triumphantly ride back into camp. actually, i had to ride because another team member wanted to hop in the van, and all the baggage was still loaded, leaving only the passenger seat available. nonetheless, as soon as my bike was off the roof and the passenger seat occupied, rain started pouring down. fortunately, it let up after 10 minutes. the upside of rain is that when it cleared, i saw the most amazing rainbows...though of course, my camera was in the van, and i couldn't take a picture. i had never witnessed either of these phenomena before, but i saw two concentric rainbows and then one rainbow that was distorted in the middle such that there was a smaller rainbow bleeding into it. they were really amazing.i wasn't looking forward to getting back into camp, because the arrival was much later than anticipated. when we created the game plan, we thought st. cloud was much closer, and we hadn't considered the various ways that time can be eaten up. the others (minus brad and julie who had camped out in a pizza parlor and had a fun time) were pretty upset about the van's unavailability. of course, while i was on the road, i had thought of better ways to handle the scenario, but of course by that time we were already committed to the game plan. unfortunately, the rest of the group decided to just stay at camp without food or luggage, even though they were getting updates about how long it would take to get back. it was pretty strange that they would choose to be cold and miserable and so upset when it was well within their power to go the 1.5 miles into town to find shelter and food. nonetheless, i offered to help everyone with their cleaning shifts for the rest of the week to try to help smooth things over.throughout the evening, a handful of other things went wrong... the rearview mirror i had bought the day before in fargo got broken, the rain started any time i started thinking about biking back into town to hang out at the cafe, etc. nothing major, but it sure was a frustrating day. one cool surprise that the evening had in store was that dan we met in whitefish was camping at the same site. he only had a few more days before finishing his trip back to his home in minneapolis, so it was fun to bump into him again and hear about his adventure. we compared notes on how to get the attention of roadside cows, and he told us that he'd had far more luck by shouting, "hey cows!" than with mooing. who'd have thought?in other news, we're half-way through the trip both in terms of mileage and time. we had a little celebration with a cake and everything.
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