Let's Settled Down Here

Woke up to roosters call at five in the morning. Not enough sleep. We rolled around in our makeshift beds until 9:00, trying to get some remnants of sleep without much success. I awoke slightly earlier and began to journal hardcore – making up a lost day in fact. Today, I don’t think I will do that.

I was able to patch up my sleeping mattress finally to quality. The boys made some breakfast of the bratwurst and eggs our wonderful hosts left us. There was more after we had had our fill, so we made egg and bratwurst sandwiches. Duane and Yvette also had left us homemade bread and jam, which was just fantastic.

For some reason, it took us a really long time getting out of there though. I guess we were just enjoying our meals/moving really sluggishly due to the lack of sleep. Each time we walked out of Duane’s “man cave,” we were greeted by a hoard of geese that we, after a while, began to curse out loud for their annoying honking.

Lee washed his chain and I slowly began to pack things up, including the tent that had been drying on the line.

We got on our bikes at 12. We had a long ride still ahead of us before getting to Sioux Falls. We kept a pretty upbeat pace the whole day. After an hour or so, we stopped at a gas station for waters. Lenny found some marked down Lemon Bars with 400 calories for 30 cents, so he bought 12. I think the gas station was called Mel’s 7-17. It was a hoot. A gas station, a restaurant, and a knick-knack store. Mel was behind the counter. He sold us the Lemon Bars and almost ran after Lenny when he thought that he had stolen a small little woodpecker bronze statue that Lenny was just trying to fit to his headset. A funny little station out in the middle of nowhere. Lenny also started looking at the shirts in the back, all old and used. One he was looking at was this big yellow one that obviously didn’t fit him. I wasn’t sure why he kept shifting through them, since none of them would do I was sure, but he certainly looked funny trying on all these old shirts that were too big for him. Especially that yellow one – he put in on and had to wrap the ends around him to get it to stick to his frame.

I walked around and played on a little decorative horn and tried to put a cassette tape in a cassette player and listen to music. I joked about all the old movie titles I was seeing and played with some knives. I considered buying a candle and a glass, but didn’t. We ended up spending an hour at Mel’s.

We ate some lemon bars outside of the shack while Lenny admired the woodpecker statue and looked at the map. I talked to one of the people filling up on gas about 23 and he said it wouldn’t be very nice riding. We choose to take a scenic route by nabbing 75 out further West. We rode another 18 miles into Clara City to have another sit and fill up our bellies on trail mix and the sandwiches we had made from earlier in the day. We didn’t stay long and were back on the road. Lee put on his headphones. We decided to take 23 since it looked pretty good, but soon regretted our decision as the shoulder got narrow and discontinuous from the road with lots of potholes. After about 10 miles, I pulled us over and advised the scenic route. The guys agreed.

Riding west, we ended up in the town of Granite Falls. I thought it was just the most beautiful little town you’d ever seen. Right on the Minnesota river, it was a clean town with well paved roads and plenty of small businesses to choose from. I felt at home and we sat on a bench in front of the chamber of commerce snacking and checking our route. I began looking for Indian pow wows going on, though was stopped short by Lee, who apparently didn’t care and wanted to get going. 

We stopped for water at Jimmy’s pizza and sat down to an old fashioned Pac-man videogame. As we got on our bikes, I commented on how lovely the town was. How I wouldn’t mind living there when I was older. I began to describe all the places I would visit on a daily basis, the business I would start. It was a lovely little daydream. Before I knew it, we were out of Granite Falls and riding 67 going west. We would ride that highway till the end.

For some reason, the guys were really powering up today on the road. I had trouble keeping up out of Granite Falls. We rode 20 miles and stopped for one last snack in Clarkfield. I told the guys it would be another 26 miles until the next town and we had already rode 62. Again, the guys had a fire in their bellies or something because they were ready to go. And I was ready to go too.

We packed up on condiments and made our last big haul of the day. It was tough, but by 9:00, we were in the town of Canby. “Could be in Canby” “You can be whoever you wanna be in Canby.”

On arriving, we immediately saw “free” camping at a place called Triangle Park off the highway. We were set. While Lenny worked on his chain, Lee and I worked on dinner. Rice, beans, salsa, cheese, eggplant, onion – all wrapped in burritos. It was the perfect end to a very nice day of riding. Oh, and didn’t I mention the heat wave from the past few days was over? It was a good day, though a bit of a stretch and a challenge getting 88 miles when starting at 12.

After dinner, it was sleep. We bantered a bit – the guys made fun of me for the way I didn’t ask for things nicely and rarely said please. I laughed at myself because I knew it was true.

Michael