2022 Bike to Fargo

  6/25        Holy wind. Got the full experience of the prevailing prairie winds today on our last bike ride of the trip. Up a little later this morning with the benefit of a comfy bed to avoid the storms last night. Made some pancakes with the instant batter I had packed and then set off for Fargo on backroads: the Central Lakes terminus is Fergus.         I was quite the grind out of Fergus. Definitely 200ft+ of climbing to leave town and get on the county road that we’d take most of the way into Moorhead. This was the stretch I was most worried about. Mainly a small shoulder and possibly hostile drivers. Traffic was quite sparse though (I also figured this might be the case) and most people that passed us waved as they went. Rolled 13ish miles into the hamlet of Carlisle where we stopped for a quick water break before continuing. The headwind was present, but no where near what it would be later in the day.        ...

 Well- the storms skirted off to our north last night, but it was still a tough sleep with some pretty high winds ripping through Sauk Center. A new pad helped at least, but we probably settled for less than 8 hours again, for the 2nd night in a row. Slept until somewhere in the 7s, then got up for a bit of a hodgepodge breakfast of yogurt, a little granola, a cliff bar, and some orange juice. Hit the road a bit later than yesterday (maybe 9:15ish), but made really good time on a flat trail and a tail wind. Briefly stopped in Osakis for a water refill, then trekked on to Alexandria for a late morning doughnut stop. Alex felt pretty big. Kate and I had been here a few years ago and it still feels like a hub to the region. Lots of traffic and the houses/neighborhoods stretch for a ways out of town. So many lakes too. It would be a nice place to live.      They have an old-school bakery downtown with a good selection of doughnuts. I got the “skunk” which was a chocolate...

  6/23 Well- it turns out that my sleeping pad (borrowed from Kate) had a slight leak in it, so even though camping isn’t the best sleep, camping without a pad is assuredly a step down. Got at least some, but woke up leaving something to be desired.          Ate a breakfast of coffee, bananas, granola, and yogurt before setting on our way bound for St. Cloud and beyond. Rolled into the Clearwater rest area around 9:30 to hit up their bakery- actually surprisingly good. It’s made the tribune taste section before. Not quite a Mojo Monkeys, but a step up from grocery store/gas station doughnuts for sure.        We enjoyed a tailwind most of the morning and cruised the next 13 miles into St. Cloud as well. It’s cool coming into a big(ger) city again. You get the sense of traffic picking up, developments in the middle of nowhere, and the benefit of bike trails to guide you into town. The Beaver Island trail picks you up 5ish miles out of St. ...

  6/22 So evidently, we started our bike trip on the same day last year (checking last year’s journal), but a much later start for Greg and I for this one. He had just gotten back from France the day before and I wanted to bring Dash to the soccer field one last time before heading out. We probably got off at a leisurely 10 am, west bound for Lake Maria State Park in rural-ish Wright county. To change up the route from our trip to Lupilin a few years back, we instead took the Luce Line west to Long Lake before cutting north on the Lake Rebecca Regional trail, which connects Baker park with Crow-Hassan. The Luce Line was a nice pick. Great to be riding on the gravel, familiar shady trails as we worked our way out of the suburbs. Leaving the city on bike never gets old. It’s so cool to watch how the landscape changes from urban, to suburban, to exurb. Stopped in Long Lake to pick up some sunglasses at GearWest, then grabbed some lunch at the Long Lake grocery story at their salad bar...