Heading for Bob Dylan Country

Rest Day in Duluth August 6 - We are in Duluth, Blues festival this week end but we will be on our way to Wisconsin. I will have to go back to Minneapolis to pickup Dana for her trip to the Mayo Clinic. Bob Dylan was born here but grew up about 40 miles west in Hibbing. Did not get a chance to see Bob Dylan Way or take in some of the Bob stuff available in Duluth. More later.

Sandy Lake Campground to Duluth August 5 - We took off from Sandy around 8ish on brand new fresh asphalt brought to us with Obama bucks, federal economic stimulus funds. This was a pleasant change from some of the rough roads we encountered in the previous days in this part of Minnesota. We got off of the new road and onto a nice quite road pretty much to Carlton MN where we got on the Munger Bike Trail. I was having a good day riding feeling fairly strong and we all shot right into Duluth about 2 blocks from the Indian Point Campground along Lake Superior. The accommodations were not as nice as Grand Rapids or Sandy but served our needs.

Grand Rapids MN to Sandy Lake Campgrounds August 4 - We couldn't leave GR without breakfast at Dottie's Cafe. Don and Mary ate their the night before or at least noted its presence. Breakfast was very good at Dottie's and a there were several locals who spoke with us about our ride. One local had tried to do a cross country previously and on the same route as we are taking. His story was that we was jealous of us as he only made it to eastern Washington, got a ride to Spokane and left his bike behind as he had no way to transport. I believe he had some health issues associated with a fluid filled lung. He told us if he had know we were in town we could have stayed at his home!? Braden and another local struck up a conversation about the ride and some observations about travel in general. The local stated and confirmed my suspicion that Grand Rapids had no rapids. He also maintained that did Grand Rapids MI and Great Falls MN had no falls, either. After pancakes and other breakfast fare at Dottie's we headed out toward Sandy Lake. Yet another local (a guy with a fishing motif t-shirt that said "Gittin Any") told of a back way out of town that turned out to be a low traffic paved road that work out well for us. We stopped at a convenience store and heard that Art and Jon, our Maine friends, had been their the day before. This campground has earned 4 gold stars from our group. Everything at the camp was great and the camp host even delivered us with some firewood. We all cooked dinner at the campgrounds and turned in around 10 pm which is pretty much our normal time.

Pennington MN to Grand Rapids August 3 - A little longer ride today and it was delayed by a very heavy fog. We hung out in Pennington at a small grocery store for about an hour waiting for the fog to lift. The ride was very scenic through the Chippewa National Forest I believe with some tail wind. Don's sister met us at a small restaurant in Bena about half way and brought along some snacks for later which consisted of smoked salmon and whitefish, salmon spread and a pecan pie. From Bena we headed past Lake Winnibigoshnish to Ball Club and on into Grand Rapids. I haven't seen any rapids and this town is not to be confused with Grand Rapids, MI. Grand Rapids is the largest town we have stayed in in awhile, we sampled the Don and Mary's smoked salmon and went different directions into town for food, library public computers/wireless and other needs. Grand Rapids was a great town and the fairgrounds camping was outstanding, good showers, laundromat, clean with lots of trees and it sets next to a lake, mosquitoes were minimal. We liked this town nice amenities beautiful library, Art and Jon from Maine our previous riding partners had stayed there the night before.

Avay Up Nort Campgrounds (adjacent to Itasca State Park) to Pennington MN August 2 - We continue to have some nice cycling weather but did run into some rain today the most since we left Anacortes, WA. The rain wasn't terrible but did get shoes and socks wet. Once it quit raining the ride was very nice. We had lunch (BBQ) and saw Paul Bunyan with Babe the Blue Ox in Bemidji. The ride was mostly dry and we ended up at a campground outside the tiny town of Pennington after about a 1/2 mile of ride on a dirt road. We enjoyed warm showers, laundry and a nice lodge in the basement of the camp office. Of note was the laundry, in order to dry our clothes it took two of us to get the dryer going. One to hold the dryer door switch and spin the tumbler and the other to push the start button. In the beginning we had three of us doing this one on the stuck tumbler, one on the door switch and the other hitting the start button. A nice little extra after a day of wetness. The place wasn't great but adequate for our needs and right on a beautiful fishing lake. Early to bed here, prior to going to my tent I fell asleep at the lodge in the only recliner I have seen since leaving Wichita, I nearly knocked Braden over to get to it. After a nap in the recliner in the "lodge" I and the others all went to our tents fairly early so the mosquitoes would not haul us off. These mosquitoes are nasty and plentiful up here.

Calloway MN to Avay Up Nort August 1 - Left Calloway and headed toward Itasca State Park famous for being at the headwaters of the Mississippi. The Mississippi is so small you can walk across it at this point. Itasca is also one of the most popular parks in Minnesota so we could not get a spot at the campground and ended up at the Avay Up Nort, we are definitely in Norwegian country here. We had a nice camping area at Avay Up Nort and the owner came by with firewood to tell us some Ole and Lena as well as Ole and Sven jokes. The owner also told us that his wife was 100 percent Norwegian and that he thought it would be fun to name the camp something catchy playing off of the Norwegian accent of the region, doncha know. We were joined by a motorcyclist, Keith from Philadelphia, who hung with us until it was escape the mosquitoes/bed time. Keith was headed to Idaho on his Suzuki and shared some touring stories of a car wreck and later ghosts at one of his camp sites. Eerie stuff, can't wait until morning to get away from the mosquitoes and down the road.

Moorhead to Calloway July 31 - We leave for Calloway with Jim and head out through some unpaved roads to Highway 10 and on to Calloway. Somewhere about 5 miles or so out Jim says his goodbyes to us, in addition to those we said back at the KOA. Jim is heading back to Detroit area and his job as a funeral director. Thanks for the good times Jim and I will enjoy sitting in the fine baby blue camp chair you sold me!! Biggest incident of the day was Braden's rapid tailwind ride past our turn to Calloway. I was sure Braden was never coming back until the border patrol stopped him at the Canadian border. Somehow he realized we were not with him and finally turned back. We got to tiny Calloway after a brief lunch in Hitterdal. Calloway had nice city park for camping and a brand new convenience store with wind turbines supplying their power. It rained and we all took a nap in our tents waiting out the rain. Some fixed dinner at the camp site and some ate at the convenience store. Everyone slept well and we had a little more rain.

Rest Day Fargo/Moorhead July 30 - Decided to rest and have some maintenance done today on Jim's bike and the support vehicle (Roger's Ranger truck). Prior to running these errands in Fargo Art and Jon bid farewell (the two from Maine who had ridden with us since Republic, Washington) to us. Art said a prayer for us and mentioned Dana in his prior regarding her upcoming visit to the Mayo Clinic. It was sad to see Art and Jon go but we knew they would be leaving us since their route to Maine will take them on a different path than ours to Washington DC. Hopefully we will meet up again with Art and Jon on BAK (http://www.bak.org/) or on a Prince Edward Island ride in the future. Also sad was Gary's departure, he decided to go back with Ardith to Wichita citing his previous shoulder injury as a factor. Our rest day group is now down to the original 6 of us plus Jim from Detroit who will ride out tomorrow with us and head southeast somewhere down the road.