Singing on the Sakatah Singing Hills State Trail

This is a photo at the start of our 50 mile ride at Cannon Lake just outside of Faribault, MN. The winds were gusting up to 25 miles per hour but the sun was shining, the sky was blue and the flowers were still covering the countryside. It was the type of day that made one understand why they loved the Midwest (Easterner that I am), the skies that go on forever, the vivid colors of green from the corn and soybean crops and yellow from the goldenrod, cone flowers and woodland sunflowers. It moved me to start singing "America the Beautiful" at one point (to Will's dismay). The Sakatah trail goes from town to town so many of the cyclists we meet are community cyclists and not tourists like us. They're the ones that always say Hi and comment on the bike. "That's the way to ride," one kid yelled at us while another pronounced us "Awesome!". It's a feel good trail from the forest of the State Park and Sakatah Lake to the cornfields outside of Elysian. Put that to music. I was feeling one with the bike but Will complained that he was not with it. He had put a new chain on to hopefully remedy the miserable noise in the rear wheel. I was getting excited after 40 miles because all was quiet but kept my mouth shut not wanting to mention a shutout. Unfortunately about mile 41 it started again but not quite as fingernail across the chalkboard painful. There are a number of other fixits to do which involve replacing other parts. Other screamers out there will sympathize with us. We drove the Highway 13 home and went off road to discover Kilkenny right here in Minnesota. It has a bar which was hopping on Saturday night. We now move into our fall biking schedule - hard to believe Labor Day is just around the corner.

Three Trails in Three Days

We were in the middle of a rainy week complete with tornadoes when we decided to be "wild" and take off for a biking weekend. Will got out the map and figured if we stayed in Little Falls we could finish off the small section of the Central Lakes trail that we were rained out on over the 4th of July, get a short ride in on the Lake Wobegon Trail and spend most of Saturday on the Paul Bunyan trail. I managed to get reservations at the Waller House Inn for two nights http://www.wallerhouseinn.com/ Friday morning dawned with more rain but the weather radio said it was going to clear so we headed west by northwest to Bowlus. http://bowlusmn.com/ This has become one of our favorite trailheads on this particular trail. It has great facilities including a cafe in town, picnic area, and most importantly flushing toilets! We headed up to the Blanchard Dam first to view the river with all the rain from the previous week. The trail goes across the Mississippi immediately adjacent to the dam so you're looking down at the water spilling over the causeway. Cool stuff. Along the trail there are remnants of the telegraph poles, some still with insulators. We headed back to Bowlus and on to Holdingford. The flowers were amazing - predominantly yellow with golden Rod, false sunflowers, common mullein and woodland sunflowers. We also saw monarch butterflies. I had just heard on MPR that morning that the cool temperatures and dry summer had kept the numbers of monarchs down from previous summers. But we were pleasantly surprised to see quite a few. They are especially attracted to the Joe Pye weed and milkweed that were plentiful along the trail. Not much in the fauna department except for black squirrels, an occasional chipmunk, fighting goldfinches and an immature red tail hawk landing right next to us on the trail. Just a note that Bowlus is the hometown of the boxer Duane Bobick who went to the 1972 Olympics on the USA boxing team. We checked into the B&B and met one of our hosts, Raquel. We had the Sapphire Suite which was two rooms so we were able to spread out our gear and I had room to do yoga in the mornings. Raquel had suggested that we eat at the Black and White Restaurant which is run by two trained chiefs. The food was great and we treated ourselves to a bottle of wine. http://www.attheblacknwhite.com/ It was quite a surprise to find this quality restaurant in a small town. Saturday dawned sunny and cool. After a breakfast of baked blueberry pancakes we rolled ourselves into the car and on to Merrifield to start our ride. If the Lake Wobegon trail was the color yellow; the Paul Bunyan was purple. There was beebalm, thistle, Prairie Blazing Star, chicory, New England Asters blooming everywhere among the golden rod, black eyed susans, etc. Minnesotans were out in droves around Nisswa which is like a shopping mecca in the middle of nowhere. We road alongside lakes on the right, on the left...it was the fisherperson's paradise. Our goal was a 30-40 mile ride but we finished with 52. Not a bad accomplishment after the 33 the day before. Again we drove home, showered and headed bck to the Black and White for another great meal and a short walking tour of Little Falls. It's really a neat town, full of old houses, interesting churches and of course it is the hometown of Charles Lindbergh. Sunday morning was a later than usual breakfast - hashbrown quiche. Did I tell you I gained back all my weight loss in one weekend despite the exercise!! This was the day to finish off the Central Lakes Trail and our missing few miles from Evansville (named after a postman) to Ashby. We started out from Brandon and road uneventfully to Ashby which sits over a pair of lakes - Lake Christina and Pelican Lake. The road back was long as our legs started to feel tired and then to top it all we heard the ominous hissing in the front tire. Luckily we had a spare (fast learners) and as Will worked on changing the tire I watched a pair of egrets on a small lake and discovered two turtles basking in the sun. If we hadn't had the flat we would have missed them. Back in Brandon we loaded up the bike and headed home on the backroads to add a few more towns to our list. Have you been to Brooten or Regal or Eden Valley?

Back in the Saddle

After a long hiatus we finally got the bike out. House guests, our own non-bike travels, Irish Fair, and my sinus infection took way too much time from our summer. But today, despite high dewpoints, we threw the bike in the van and headed south to our favorite trail on the Cannon River. It was a wild flower day with 12 sightings of summer wildflowers: spotted knapweed, green headed coneflowers, grey headed coneflowers, Canada Goldenrod, Wild Bergamot (like beebalm), Joe-Pye Weed (not Joe Pa), Queen Ann Lace, Common Mullein, Purple Coneflowers, Tall Bellflower (my favorite with delicate blue-purple star flowers), Spotted Touch-me-not (best name), and Jewel weed. The green headed coneflowers which are tall yellow flowers covered wide areas of the trail. Despite the layoff we rode reasonably well and the nasty crank noise didn't start until 20 miles were covered. Is it the chain, the derailler (sp?) or both. HMMMM. Wildlife - chipmunks running across the trail in front of us, a hog nose snake along the side of the trail, ground squirrels, circling vultures and a young deer peering at us from the side as we rode toward it not deciding until the last moment that it should actually cross the trail. I told Will it would be a perfect day if we could see the wild turkeys and low and behold we did see them but from the car on the way to Red Wing - six turkeys strutting through someone's front lawn! People everywhere today including a woman who complemented me on my "punk" hair. Also the guy wearing the "Beat Michigan" shirt was a hit. The kids tubing down the river yelled up at us "cool tandem" as we waved majestically from above. A good Day.