Monday, June 27, 2022, Day 27: Sunshine, Rain, Wind, Bugs, Mesabi, Gravel, Highway
Wimbledon started today and we watched some of it this morning. After a cup of coffee, Sheri was off for a 5-mile run. I read, ate, and prepared to ride.
The weather forecast was stellar for today and my goal was to get in at least 100 miles. I wanted to get close enough to Eagle Mountain so that we could climb it on Tuesday. After my usual giant hotel breakfast, I was riding at 8:40 a.m. The weather was perfect.
I rode the Mesabi Trail 35 miles to the town of (Little Danny) Gilbert. Along the way, I went through the town of Mountain Iron. This was a huge center of iron mining. In the western part of Minnesota, I rode mainly through farms, but now in the central and eastern sections, the terrain is heavily wooded and the concentration appears to be on mining (historical) and timber. Right along the Mesabi Trail, I rode by a small lumber mill. Probably an artisan lumber mill with hand-milled lumber that costs five times as much. Or maybe they milled the lumber to construct customer furniture.
I met Sheri here and had a snack. We agreed to meet 25 miles later at a park in Embarrass. Sheri found out later that this town is the coldest town in Minnesota. In 1950 or so, they recorded a temperature of -58 degrees. One winter the temperature never got about freezing from November to March. And one January the average temperature was -8. For a month! We were both happy to be here in the summer.
Just after I left Sheri in Gilbert, the skies darkened and soon it was drizzling on me and would for the next 15 miles. In Embarrass, it was pouring and Sheri was so worried about me that she tried to find me earlier in my route. But then the rain stopped and she went back to the park. I never even had to put on my shell. I stopped to do it, twice, but when I was stopped, the rain was so light that I didn’t want to put it on. Moving on the bike, it was wetter, especially with the tire spray, but I wasn’t cold and just rolled along.
In Embarrass, I had a sandwich and a Coke. I’d done sixty miles and had at least fifty miles to go to our projected campground. I was feeling great and optimistic that my legs would hold out. I took off east down the road on the biking route and it soon turned to gravel. The gravel was soft, though, and no problem on my road bike. I rode about three miles before I regained the pavement.
We met again in Babbitt, which had a park with some giant mining equipment all painted bright orange. Sheri had a mini pizza ready for me and I had that with some milk. I’ve found that the key to any endurance event is constant fueling and hydrating. I eat so much at each of these breaks that if it wasn’t for the hundred miles of riding, I’d be obese.
I’d now done 77 miles and our plan was to meet up every twenty miles or so. I rode off and after about ten miles, the road turned to dirt. Sheri was parked there in case I wanted to switch bikes. The dirt was soft and chunky, so I did switch to my gravel bike. It was here that the bugs became epic. Just switching bikes was difficult, as I was swatting bugs constantly. One giant horse fly bit me and that was not pleasant and would shape my actions for the next ten miles of dirt.
The sun was south of me and I rode north. This allowed me to see the shadows of the flys that buzzed around me in a cloud of annoyance. I time trialed this ten-mile section in an effort to go fast enough to leave the flys behind. Despite doing 20 mph for long stretches and generally above 15 mph for the entire section, the cloud of insects stayed with me. At first, I tried to swat at them while riding, but that was tough and tiring. I resigned to just waving them away when they got near my face and a few swats at my legs.
When I hit the highway, Sheri was there waiting for me. I brought with me the cloud of flies and Sheri immediately sprayed me down with bug juice. She then handed me the can and I sprayed my head and face. This worked well enough. The bugs were still around me but were not landing. I switched back to my road bike. I’d done 93 miles and had 23 miles to get to our campsite.
I was now riding on state highway 1, which was really smooth, with a nice enough shoulder and nearly zero traffic. A car would pass me about once a mile. Maybe less. The road twisted and turned and rolled past lakes and beautiful forests. It was great riding and gave me energy. I was rolling along strongly.
With just a couple of miles to go, so I thought, I saw Sheri driving towards me from the other way. We were supposed to turn off onto a gravel road to get to our campground. My phone did tell me that, but I thought the campground was right off the highway and figured that was just a shortcut, as the directions often did for me. Wrong. The route to the campground and to the Eagle Mountain Trailhead was going to be fifty miles of gravel. After the horrible, dirt-road, fly-infested experience, I didn’t think I could stand that. We called an audible and decided to continue south on Highway 1. This is the route that Google will direct cars. We found a campground ten miles away and headed for it.
After 119 miles, with four miles to go, my phone died. That was no problem for navigation, as this time I knew the campground was right off this road. It was a slight bummer to lose communication with Sheri, but I’d see her at the campground. The big problem was that I lost my tunes. Just as I lost them, I hit a headwind and a hill. Immediately, I bonked. It was shocking how quickly I went from feeling if not great, quite good, to having no energy. I carried a small granola bar in my jersey and I ate it immediately. It tasted so good and I wished I had five more of them. I also had one Gu. I’d been carrying it for emergencies for 27 days. I only had three miles to go now, but I downed that Gu and I squeezed out every last calorie. And it tasted so good.
For the next three miles I fantasied about stopping and eating. If the campground wasn’t where we thought it was, I prayed that Sheri would stop regardless. I was done. I just wanted to sit in the car and eat and eat and eat. If we had to go further, I’d have to ride in the car.
At 123 miles into my day, I saw the sign for the campground on the left. I turned down a dirt road and within half a mile I was at the campground and continued down the campsite loop until I found Sheri. She was busy putting up the tent and gave me the great news about an available shower and a restaurant in the camp lodge. How glorious. I headed immediately to the shower.
When I got out of the shower, Sheri was just outside my door, in a small anteroom before the women’s and men’s bathrooms. She was sheltering from tremendous rain and hail. I’d missed that weather by fifteen minutes. We went directly to the restaurant, in the same quaint building as the bathroom and had great burgers and even an ice cream sandwich for dessert.
Tuesday, June 28, 2022, Day 28:
The bugs were out in force this morning and I smothered myself in bug juice and sheltered in the car, writing on my blog and drinking my coffee. It then rained for thirty minutes. We headed south, past Finland, to the coast of Lake Superior. It was only eleven miles away and I flew down to the shore.
Lake Superior is the largest freshwater lake in the world (and 2nd largest overall after the Caspian Sea) and the five Great Lakes represent 20% of all the fresh water on the planet (this doesn’t count Antarctica, as that’s ice and not water). So, yeah, Lake Superior is kind of a big deal. All the other lakes know it and respect it. Sure, Lake Baikal has some attitude since it holds as much fresh water as all the Great Lakes combined because it is so deep, but is only the seventh largest lake by surface area. On my trip, I’ll be riding along Lake Superior and Lake Michigan (5th largest).
At 600 feet above sea level, Lake Superior is the lowest point in Minnesota. Just 25 miles away is the highest point on the summit of Eagle Mountain at 2301 feet. That was our next destination, though it was fifty miles away from where we hit the shore. We decided to drive there, since it was a side trip from our quest to bike across the US. I threw my bike in the car and Sheri zipped us up to the trailhead. Along the way, we saw a moose exit a lake, give us a look, and then take off into the forest. Moose are cool.
We were surprised to find the entire graduating class of a Fargo middle school in the parking lot. Twenty-five kids and three adults broke into three groups to respect the rules of the trail. Sheri and I started up the trail after the second group and soon caught and passed them and the first group.
We were hiking through a very lush forest. It started to rain shortly after we started and I put on my shell but it stopped soon and I quickly shed it. Sheri was setting a fast pace, mostly in a hopeless attempt to get away from the bugs, while my stubby, biking legs, unaccustomed to the ways of the trail runner, struggled to keep her in sight.
We hiked over quite a few boardwalks that kept us out of the swamp below. We’d read that the bugs were epic on this hike and so slathered ourselves in bug juice. While we still had a cloud of mosquitoes trailing behind us, they weren’t landing or biting us. Properly protected, the bugs were a minor annoyance at worst.
We hiked to Whale Lake, so named for the rare and spectacular Pygmy Freshwater Ice Whale. Its size eliminates all predators, save the Kraken, of course. From the lake, we turned uphill. Until this point the trail seemed to go down as much as it went up. After 3.4 miles of hiking we arrived at the summit marker, in the middle of the woods, with no views to be had. Just down from the summit, there was a vista, the first I’d seen since entering Minnesota. It was probably the most striking view in all of Minnesota and equivalent to any small rise in Colorado. Below us stretched dense forest, all the way to the horizon.
We trotted a bit on the way down and despite not hiking or running for a month, my feet recalled my signature stumble. Then I got too close to Sheri and didn’t see a root across the trail. I caught it and tumbled to the ground. I lay there quietly, doing a systems check, and hoping that Sheri hadn’t heard me fall. That way I could right myself and catch up, claiming that I stopped to pee. Alas, I heard her return and ask, “What hurts?” “Only my pride,” I responded.
Eagle Mountain was my 20th state highpoint. I’m working my way west to east and have pretty much done all the highpoints west of this one, though maybe not, as I haven’t done Iowa or Missouri or any states south of these. It was Sheri’s 9th highpoint.
On the way back to where I stopped biking, we stopped at a coffee and pastry shop in Schroeder. We’d noticed it on the way up because on the side of the building it offered “Espresso, Malts, Pastries.” They also had awesome donuts and I ate four of them before I got back on my bike, along with an incredible espresso malt.
We returned to the junction where I had previously hopped in the car, and I kitted up and got on the bike. We headed southwest along the coast of Lake Superior, at first on the North Shore Road, but then I mostly rode the awesome Gitchi-Gami State Trail — another paved bike path. This got me off the busy North Shore Road for the most part. I did have to ride on it a bit and unfortunately part of that section was under construction and there was no shoulder at all. They were short sections, though, and I mostly rode them without cars behind me. The weather was nice and I stopped at all the information signs and overlooks.
We wanted to camp at Gooseberry Falls State Park, but it was full. We continued another 14 miles to the Burlington Bay campground in Two Harbors. That gave me 45 miles for the day, which was my second shortest day of riding (besides my rest day) and it came after my second longest day, so that seemed appropriate.
We had a nice site in a busy campground, right on the shore of the lake. We read and relaxed. After dinner, we walked down to the shore.
Wednesday, June 29, 2022, Day 29:
The morning was beautiful but a bit chilly at 50 degrees or less. I made pancakes this morning, mostly to finish off our extra container of margarine that was taking up valuable space in our tiny cooler.
At 8:30 it seemed warm enough to ride and I continued southwest to Duluth where we’d get around the western-most tip of Lake Superior, enter Wisconsin, and head back to the east.
I rode a quiet road that paralleled the main North Shore Road and hardly any cars passed me. I rode by coffee shops, trailheads, bridges, campgrounds, and even a cascade. I wanted Sheri to follow me this way, but I knew she’d already left for Duluth. I then got on the paved bike path that went around a tunnel and continued on quiet roads into northern Duluth, where I got on a bike path and followed it down to the Lakeshore bike path. I found Sheri walking here, about a mile from Canal Park. We agreed to meet at the car and I went on ahead to change clothes and secure my bike, so that we could walk around the park.
I got a drink and a muffin and we sat along the shore on a bench. It was finally warming up. I rode down to Duluth in leggings and armies and my hands were cold enough that I barely had the dexterity to tie my shoes. But the sun warmed us nicely here. We’d been looking out into the lake at a huge ship and Sheri says, “I think that ship is coming closer.”
Sure enough, it was headed for the canal. We hopped up and walked over to the edge of the canal, where we found lots of people waiting for the boat. We could hear an announcement saying that this ship was 1009 feet long. A guy next to me told us that it was coming in empty to pick up a load of coal. When the ship leaves it will be drawing 28 feet of water and the canal is 29 feet deep. That’s cutting it close.
After the ship passed through at a decent pace, it pivoted and backed into a berth. While the ship was making the maneuver, the lift bridge was descending. The bridge uses huge concrete counterweights on each side to minimize the energy needed to raise and lower the bridge. Once it was down, cars and pedestrians began crossing over it.
We walked out to the lighthouse at the end of the pier and hung out a bit longer. I spent about 90 minutes here. We agreed to continue to a campground in Solon Springs, Wisconsin, about forty miles away. Sheri headed off to buy more coffee and I changed back into biking clothes and took off.
I followed some bike paths and roads, through a downtown-ish section (Duluth has a population of 86,000 people, so it is smaller than Boulder, people-wise, but it seems bigger with a number of cool bridges, some tall (compared to Boulder) buildings). I rode across the Bong Bridge, sober, and found myself riding through neighborhoods until I got onto country roads. I headed for the Wild Rivers Trail, but when I got there, I found it to be chunky gravel and I knew I would not enjoy that on my 25mm tires. I zigzagged on country roads towards Solon Springs and with 17 miles to go, Sheri had found me and I took a break to eat a sandwich and down a chocolate milk.
I had no trouble riding to the campground, but by the time I got there, I was feeling a bit tired and glad to be stopping. I’d done just 76 miles, but it seemed like more. Some days are like that. Some days I feel great and like I could ride forever. Well, for a hundred miles. Other days, I want to stop after 70 miles. It’s probably good to listen to my body. I’ve only taken one rest day, on day 14, and when I did that we thought taking a rest day every two weeks was a good idea. Being this is day 29, I’m due for a rest day, but I think I’m going to save it for a bad weather day. Or when I’m more tired or in a better place to hang out.
We chatted with a couple of college guys that walked past our site. They were studying forestry, which has mostly been about logging, but nowadays it is also about thinning forests for fire management. I suspect they will have no trouble finding jobs in the future.
Oh, two things struck me biking through Duluth. First, in the northern part, I rode by a “Dog Bakery”. Seriously. How can Duluth have one of these and not Boulder? The other was “Duluth Water Park”. How many days a year can such a park be open? A couple of weeks in August? That’s got to be a tough investment, versus a water park, say, in Las Vegas.
We are headed to Timms Hill, the highpoint of Wisconsin. It has a gain of 130 feet from the trailhead, but what it lacks in vertical, it makes up for in distance: 0.3 miles…roundtrip. I know it seems silly to bike out of the way for this, but it isn’t that far out of the way and, well, I like checking things off lists. We all have our personality quirks.
Thursday, June 30, 2022, Day 30:
I awoke at 4:30 a.m. which isn’t that far off normal for me, but I generally don’t get up until after 5, so I rolled over and the next thing I knew it was 6 a.m. Nice. Sleep is good and I’m not that good of a sleeper these days. The night had been really warm and I was never in my sleeping bag. The morning was warm too and the bugs weren’t bad.
I started riding around 8 a.m. Sheri planned to do her workout and then a walk before catching up to me after a couple of hours. We were headed to Glidden. After three nights in a row camping, we were due for a hotel stay. We didn’t really need one, as the camping had been fine (all had showers), but we wanted to do laundry as well and hoped to find a hotel with laundry.
I rolled along nicely today. I’ve been riding by mostly forests since entering Wisconsin and that continued today. I expected nonstop dairy farms. I saw an otter run across the road, numerous deer, two turtles sunning themselves on a log, and a few signs warning me about elk crossing. Elk? In Wisconsin?
On all the trails that I’ve ridden on this trip, they all specify “No motor vehicles.” At least until I got into Minnesota and Wisconsin. Here all motor vehicles are banned, except snowmobiles. There are also lots of separate ATV trails and lots of signs designating which roads are ATV roads. The signs are all over the place. Apparently, they love their snowmobiles and ATVs in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Sheri met me after I’d done 38 miles and then again 19 miles later. By then I was hot and sweaty, but Glidden was only 19 miles away. I faced some headwinds and hills getting there and was going through a period of low energy. Glidden is a cute town, but Sheri didn’t like the look of the hotel, so we agreed to go 18 more miles to Park Falls. Some more food and a Coke revived me and I was psyched that I’d get in 90+ miles.
I listened to a book and the next miles passed without any suffering. Still, I was glad to roll into the hotel parking lot and see Sheri just starting to unpack. It was great timing. I laid on the bed in the air conditioning and ate while Sheri went to do the laundry and to pick up dinner. How decadent is that? I’m so spoiled. Sheri gets to a hotel and goes straight to work. I get there and do absolutely nothing except feed myself. I’m a lucky man.
We’ve now done 30 days, which is half the time I allocated to do this ride. Lately, we’ve been thinking of shortening up the rest of the trip, which really means just skipping some state highpoints, but we are committed to getting Wisconsin and Michigan and going through the UP (Upper Peninsula) of Michigan.
So, 30 days done and halfway in terms of days. How’s our mileage? We’ve done 2,316 miles (and 77,580 vertical feet) for an average of 75.7 miles per day. My original plan called for 70 miles per day, so we are nicely ahead of schedule. Getting our two more highpoints and skipping the rest, we have about 1400 miles to go. At our daily average that is 19 days to go, assuming we don’t take any more rest or weather days. Call it three weeks until we reach D.C.
