An Update from Minnesota

So I have been here in White Bear for about five days hanging out with Kristin and her family. It has been a great time full of live music, the longest and most spectacular finale Fireworks display I have ever seen, canoeing, and massive amounts of food and sleep. Believe it or not I am having just a bit of a difficulty motivating the getting back on the road part. It will however happen today after this e-mail. So leading up to getting to the Twin Cities area I rode for 18 days straight covering a distance of about 1500 miles or so. I would not ride that many days straight in the future but this time is worked out that way due to the enthusiasm of my new riding crew and the desire to get to White Bear Lake on time for Kristin's arrival without hitch hiking or using some form of transportation other than my bike. Consequently I have been dealing with some absolutely incredible leg cramps which were occurring from something as simple as walking down steps or riding my bike for a quarter mile. Lame to say the least but after a great deal of rest and massive amounts of electrolytes, far more than I thought necessary in the beginning, I think all will be fine. I guess I was a little tired.

Any how, North Dakota was very nice for being as flat as it was. It was really nothing but endless ag-fields of wheat, corn, soy and sunflower with the occasional hay field. The fields stretched as far as the eye could see occupying every square inch possible. The only thing on the landscape that was not row crops were either, houses and barns, sparse tree stands and wetlands. The row crops went right to the edge - within one foot of the wetlands. So essentially it was electric green everywhere. The people were really nice as well. Minnesota was a bit more of a blur as I was in push mode and I had 15 mile per hour head winds for three and a half days straight. Well I guess some of it was a cross wind. Big motivation needs during that time which I think diminished my ability or desire to look around much. It is better sometimes if not most of the time to not know how much ground you are covering or even think about distances. I split from my riding companions about three days into North Dakota. They were losing one of their riders (he was done) and needed to meet another one of there riders in a town about fifty miles away at the other end of a hellish road with no shoulder, lots of traffic and a ripping head wind full of rain. I decided to take a very quite side road complete with shoulder, side wind, and little rain. It was a little strange to be solo again for a day or so but then I got back into my rhythm.

So today I am heading off to Wisconsin. I will be in touch soon.