Wednesday August 1, 2007, 63 miles (102 km) – Total so far: 2,278 miles (3,666 km)
63.36 miles 34 max 5:19 11.9 avg
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All night the train kept whizzing by and leaning on the horn. Then in the middle of the night some barge on the Mississippi was making tons of noise and shining these ridiculous bright lights all over the place. Other than that I slept pretty good, it was nice and breezy all night long. The morning was pretty routine; we charged cell phones while we packed tents and put everything back on the bike.
Breakfast was 5 miles down the road. They gave us these amazing homemade donuts and Jamie decided that he is going to get on the 1 donut a day diet. Breakfast was top notch.
While we were leaving some guy came up to me to ask where we were from and are going. Then he informed me that we are riding the wrong way. I pretended this news was the first time I heard this and he gave me the old ‘Yeah all the weather comes from the west, haven’t you ever seen the Jet stream?’ and I was like ‘Oh yeah, that’s a good point, maybe that’s why it’s so windy!’ so I thanked him for his information and went outside and told Jamie that we’re riding the wrong way. Jamie chuckled and said ‘Well that’s strange because we’re trying to get to Seattle!’
The plan for today was pretty much the same as the past few days. Bang out our 50 or so miles and then get out of the heat ASAP.
Every 10 miles or so, Jamie and I would have to safely maneuver our way around a banana peel on the side of the road. I don’t know who the Joker is, but I would like to meet him. Chuck and I had a serious banana peel problem on our Boston to NY bike tour last summer.
All day we had very few stops. The heat was pretty brutal and the road kept taking us away from the river, into the bluffs and threw some pretty serious climbing our way. We sweated bullets all day long.
At 60 miles we rode into Prescott, Wisconsin. We pathetically sat in a gas station convenience store and recovered from the past few hours of pretty strenuous cycling. Jamie called the library, and found out they closed at 8pm. Both of us had tons of work to do and decided it just made sense to go to the library and spend the rest of the day there.
Jamie and I setup shop in the library for a few hours. I worked on the journal and Jamie made another hokey music video, but this time to the traveling willberries. Jamie wasn’t really happy with it and didn’t wanna post it but I twisted his arm and made him just put it up. What the hell!
The link for that video is here: http://www.teamnortherntier2007.blogspot.com/2007/08/wisconsin-bike-trails.html
While were banging away on our computers the librarians were watching the news and just found out a bridge in Minneapolis collapsed about 30 miles away from where we were. The bridge was an interstate bridge and since it just happened no one really knew what was going on or if anyone was killed. My mom called because she knew we were in the Minneapolis area and was worried. But we were fine and outside of the city.
I also talked to Chuck while we were at the library. He’s doing fine. He’s bored being home and he has to wait a few more days before he can find out when he can get back on the trail with us. Nevertheless he is anxious to get back out here riding. Hopefully he will be back soon; Jamie and I miss him dearly.
After the library closed Jamie and I were both STARVING, we sat in the grocery store parking lot and watched the sunset, while we ate ham sandwiches and strawberries.After dinner I called Sam Kirstein who has been in touch with me a few times saying we had a place to stay in Minneapolis. Sam gave me some directions about getting into Minneapolis tomorrow. We’re going to stay with him and his wife Laura for a night or 2. Sam and Laura cycled the Northern Tier last summer. Their Journal can be found at http://www.tourdeguts.org
We didn’t have a place to stay in Prescott nor did we feel like paying to sleep anywhere. The librarians gave us some tips on parks we could camp at in town. On the way there we found these awesome baseball dugouts and we just decided to sleep inside one of the dugouts.
We setup our tents and were sleeping by 10:30pm. Today’s 60mile ride really kicked our butts.
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