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 "County Road E" also tried to substitute the word "East" for "E", which didn't help matters. But I made it to my destination without any detours. It just took me awhile to figure out the maps.

How about a few pictures? I snapped a couple good ones today!

First, I'm going to post a few pictures from our second day in Minneapolis. We took the light rail downtown and there were a couple huge murals of Minneapolis musicians that you may recognize:

 

Next, we went to the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. There was only one sculpture that I cared for; all the others were a bit too abstract or too "something" for my taste. The one I liked was called "Woodrow" (by Deborah Butterfield) and it was a horse sculpture made out of what appeared to be drift wood and sticks; in reality, they were bronze replicas of drift wood and sticks that were welded together so the sculpture would be more durable:

And some of the others that I didn't care for:

 

 

Left to right, top to bottom: "Adam and Eve," "Empire," "Hand for Minneapolis," and "Hephaestus." "Hand" and "Hephaestus" weren't too terrible.

Back at our AirBnB, we also took a walk to nearby Minnehaha Regional Park, where was saw Minnehaha Falls:

 

Now let's get to some ride pictures from today:

I rode through Sunrise, who claim Richard Widmark as their own.

I finished off Minnesota and started into Wisconsin. Wisconsin is the only state I'll ride through that doesn't border Canada.

 

I rode the Gandy Dancer Trail for about five, unpaved miles. I didn't realize it was a fee-required trail until I was about halfway done with it. I was taking a picture of the brown sign above when I noticed the part about "State Bicycle Trail Pass Required." Oops. I was supposed to have bought a $5 pass at the trailhead.

Toward the end of day, I passed a farm whose owner must be a welder. I especially liked the mosquito sculpture as it made me laugh:

I think the full sign used to say, "Average Size Mosquito In Wisconsin."

Actually, I have been quite lucky so far with bugs and the weather on this trip. The flies in Montana and North Dakota (i.e. cow country) were annoying, but they mostly didn't bite. And there have been a few mosquitoes, but not nearly as bad as I was expecting. Weatherwise, I've had a couple days of very light rain and a few hot days in Washington and Montana. But again, nothing major. All in all, I count myself lucky so far.

Tomorrow I ride into more sparsely populated northern Wisconsin.