Craig's Big RIde

A Wet Day Today was forecast to be rainy in the afternoon. So I started a touch earlier than normal in the morning and tried to hammer out as many miles as I could before the rain started. I never really encountered any rain, but I managed to find numerous wet roads just after a rainstorm has passed through. So my "backside" ended up quite wet from road spray for much of the day. But the rain held off and I racked up 97.7 miles. I'm going to let the pictures tell the story.   Yesterday, I posted one picture of a tree starting to turn orange. Today, I came across many more trees showing their fall colors. I think it's the maple trees that are turning colors already. I rode for many miles through the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. The town of Glidden is the "Black Bear Capital of the World." And the Glidden-ites have put their natural resources to the best possible use, though I'm not sure I'd want to be an employee who has to do the collection d...

Northern Wisconsin I didn't get many pictures today. The first third of my ride was dominated by more cornfields. I did see an Amish man walking down the highway, but it didn't feel right to take a picture of him. And less than a mile later, I saw an Amish woman driving a horse buggy, and again, it didn't feel right to take a picture of her. The latter part of today's ride was more in the trees. Sometimes my map would show that I was riding alongside a lake, but the thick trees would obscure the lake most of the time. So it really felt like I spent a good portion of the day riding on tree-lined roads. As a result, I didn't get many pictures today. Here are the few that were worthwhile: This was near Birchwood. Most of the larger lakes have cabins and small resorts dotting the shoreline. You can see some of the docks along the left shoreline. What to do with an old snowmobile? Use it for a flower planter of course! Toward the end of today's ride, I rode past a Ch...

Back in the Saddle Again After a couple rest days and a little sightseeing in Minneapolis, I was back in the saddle today. I finished off Minnesota and logged my first few dozen miles in Wisconsin. I rode 85.7 miles from Springvale, MN, to Cumberland, WI. My running total is 2089 miles in 28 days of riding. It was another cool, fall-like day, which was just fine by me. It just wasn't quite as cool as the couple of days before my latest rest days. But still cool enough for knee warmers, arm warmers, and a windbreaker (for part of the day). The County Roads in Wisconsin are named poorly, in my opinion. I was on County Roads E and G for a good portion of the afternoon. And they kept splitting off from each other and then rejoining together some miles later. The roads were following section lines and sometimes E and/or G were running straight north/south and other times straight east/west. It was confusing and I lost track of where I was more than once. Searching Google Maps for "...

Rest Day #4 Today was my fourth rest day of this adventure. We're staying in an AirBnB "cabin" in Minneapolis. It's an old house that was probably in the country when it was built in the 1920s, but it's now definitely in the city. We spent a portion of the day doing chores and running errands.  We did manage to pop out to the Mall of America for a couple of hours to check it out. There were the usual mall stores like Nordstrom Rack, Old Navy, Claire's, Sox Appeal, Aeropostale, LL Bean, Eddie Bauer, Victoria's Secret, and so on. There were also a bunch of restaurants, both typical fast food options plus full-service sit-down places like Margaritaville, Rainforest Cafe, and Bubba Gump's Shrimp Company. I won't bore you with pictures of those "normal" stores and restaurants. Of course, I'm going to focus on the unique! First, there's an amusement park inside the Mall: Lailla checking out the amusement park. There were some decent-loo...

I don't have a lot to write about today. I logged my sixth consecutive 80+ mile day, riding from Holdingford to Springvale today. It was another fall-like day with cool temps in the 50s, a stiff breeze at times, and the threat of rain that delivered the real deal this evening...after I was inside at our lodging. I also finished off the 100+ miles of rails-to-trails recreational trail and had to get back to riding roads. The next two days will be rest days. Lailla and I want to check out Minneapolis a bit and so I'm taking an extra rest day so we don't feel so rushed. I may or may not post something each of the next two days. If I don't post, it's not because any mishaps have befallen me; rather, it'll just be a brief break from blogging in addition to a break from riding. A 7.5-mile warm-up on the Soo Line Trail (also known as the Lake Wobegon Spur Trail) started my day. At the town of Bowlus, I had to jump back onto regular roads. In Bowlus, the directional sig...