Day 36--Central Lakes Trail

Sunday 12 July
Pelican Point to Alexandria, MN

Long day today—nearly 80 miles, all but about 20 miles of it on the MN Central Lakes Trail, a wide, paved Rails to Trails trail of over 100 miles. What was that about the splinters wanting shorter, more leisurely, days? So far it ain't happened.

We hadn't reached the trail yet but were seeing snowmobile signs, so had to pose with one

Two of us? Twinkie shots of the same thing.

As we were leaving Pelican Rapids, we saw many of the town’s white namesakes on the shores of the ever-present ponds and lakes. Along the road we also saw white turkey feathers left by the trucked turkeys that make up Pelican Rapids’ main industry. I also upped my roadkill bird data by 7: crow, cuckoo, 4 Canada geese, goldfinch, robin, 2 unidentified.

We ate breakfast this am in a Mc D’s—one of the fanciest I’ve been in. The staff even came by to replenish coffee.

One of several tunels on the trail

"Are you coming?"

A pretty farm captured poorly with my camera

Bill has gradually added all sorts of things to his load, including two worn out bike tires, several canisters of fuel and various and sundry other stuff; he's riding an old metal bike with down-tube shifters, so any load is a big burden

Bill taking a power nap along the trail

There was no camping symbol on the map by Alexandria, so we thought we would camp in the city park. Wrong. A Minnesota law states that one cannot tent where there is no washhouse. Then we were turned down by an RV park with plenty of room for tents but no washhouse—this after biking to a grocery and three miles off route. We finally settled (perhaps illegally) in a lovely, shady park on Big Ole Lake at 7 pm, thus the day was long not only in miles but in hours in the saddle. To get to the park we had several miles of up and down single-track, root gnarled trail, but we managed it without a spill. It was a hiking trail I think and not intended for bikes.

The two of us with Big Ole; we'd asked a woman passing by to snap the shot

Sitting on Big Ole's feet

Food first-- clean up later

This park did have a concrete block bathroom and changing stalls, but no showers, so once again we took sponge baths and called it good. Before cleaning up, we dove into our food boxes and prepared something for dinner from the food we'd bought at the grocery. Both of us fell into our tents and were dead to the world while it was still light.

Tomorrow we set off on the trail again for St Cloud. Jess, I’ve called Tish and it looks as though we’ll get a visit in on the 15th, 16th.