Little Falls, Minnesota

The past few days have been really good. We are now in Minnesota. Two days ago we crossed the Oliver Bridge over the St Louis River. That was the state line. We were disappointed that there was no welcome sign again. I guess that’s one of the drawbacks to being on such small roads.

The bridge itself was a little unusual. It shared the structure with a rail line. On top of the bridge, directly overhead was a set of train tracks. No train passed while we were on the bridge though. That was ok by me, there was enough stress without having a train passing overhead. The road, route 105 had no shoulder or pedestrian walkway on the bridge. A few miles before the bridge was a stone quarry or gravel plant that had a steady stream of tri-axel trucks coming and going. They too were headed for the bridge. It worked out well for us though. One of the tri-axels got behind us, turned on his hazard lights and just crept along, staying way back. On the other side we pulled off the road to let him by and exchanged freindly waves.

I can’t remember all the roads we have been on the last couple of days. But one of them turned into a limited access highway. For some reason the no bicycle or pedestrian sign was about two miles from the on ramp. The shoulder was huge with a rumble strip and we felt safe on it. We hated to leave the road and didn’t want to backtrack so we bushwacked to a nearby orv road. Thankfully it was only 4 miles until we got on pavement again.

Minnesota is beautiful. I know I probably say that about every state but Minnesota has got to be about one of the prettiest so far. The first part was woods,water and marsh. Lots of little lakes and rivers with white birch, aspen and evergreens on the shores, reflecting in the sparkling water. Everyday we see a hundred places that would make a great stealth camp. Some of the leaves are turning a vivid golden yellow and with the sky an azure blue with big fluffy clouds that are the same bright white as the bark of the birch and aspen trees,all reflecting off a gurgling little creek,it’s tempting to stop and camp all the time.

We got on the William Munger Rail Trail in West Duluth.

It is a very nice paved trail that we rode for 60 miles. We stopped at Jay Cooke State Park on monday night. After leaving the park we just headed out with no destination. Just ride the trail untill we were tired then stealth camp. Headwinds were pretty strong and we only made 40 miles before we started looking for a campsite. We needed water and that was determining where we could camp. Either find a stream or ride the 4 miles into Finlayson. We sat down on a bench and studied our maps, nothing looked to promising so our plan was to ride another 8 miles to the other side of Finlayson and get water when we passed through the town. We were not too exited about 8 more miles of headwind. We got back on our bikes and headed out though. Two minutes later a perfect spot appeared! A free hiker/biker site. Water was a little creek about a quarter mile away. The road provides!

We packed up and left our little trail side oasis pretty early. The Windy app predicted that we would have a 10 to 12 mph tailwind. We wanted to use every minute of it to our advantage. We were on the trail by 7:30. Leaving our campsite it was uphill to Finlayson. I am really glad we didn’t have to ride that yesterday when we were tired. At Petry’s bait shop we got water, ice and two bananas. That was the end of the bike path for us. We got on route 18 and headed west with the wind on our backs.

The forest and wetlands slowly gave way to rolling hills and farm land. As we continued west the fields of crops got larger. Lots of alfalfa and corn. Maybe a few fields of soybeans or field peas, they didn’t quite look like soybeans so I’m not sure what they were exactly. We rode Route 18 west until we had to turn south to skirt around the bottom of Mille Lacs Lake.

After that it was all small towns and farms. Great roads, great tailwinds and very few vehicles. We would often go 15 to 20 minutes without a car in either direction. When there was a vehicle the driver was always super courteous and would give us the whole lane even though we were on the shoulder and to the right of the white line. I notice in farming communities traffic always gives us more room. I guess driver’s are acostomed to getting behind farm equipment and waiting until it’s safe to go around.

From the lake we got on route 27 and continued through the towns of Onamia, Lastrup, Pierz, and the whole way to Little Falls. 90 miles today! A new record for this trip. But even more exciting, we are within sight of the Mississippi River.