Biking Across the U.S (hopefully)
Bray Park - Minneopa State Park 20 Minneopa - Camden Park 110
I got to spend a little time in Mankato MN while waiting for a new chain and cassette on my bike. I was a little bummed with the mechanic's work, because even though a great guy... the chain rubs in the lowest gears and his remedy was to put another link in the chain, and tell me not to use certain gears. I think I'll have to get another shop's second opinion. Took a slow day in Mankato and hit up the Minneopa state park. While walking down to the waterfall there's a bunch of bluffs with thousands of words carved into the soft rock face from the past Winnebago tribe. Just kidding, it was probably just years of punk kids... but it's still pretty cool. Though a cool waterfall, I shuddered at the base of the hike every time it splashed water up after seeing a sign saying "do not swim, water contains dangerously high fecal content". After the poop waterfall I found a campsite and kicked it with the mosquitos. I was supposed to rise at 5:30 the next morning... but somehow that became 7:30 despite my sleeping mat deflating every night, leaving me to wake on the hard ground. The day became long hours of cranking out the miles in the sun, stopping in the tiniest Minnesota town to stock up on water from a super nice old lady's garden hose. She said, "I've been drinking hose water from this town for 85 years and it hasn't killed me yet". Hope I'm not the outlier. The terrifying thing about this part of Minnesota (which will only get worse the more west I go) is what I think looks like 5-10 miles on Google maps turns out to be 20-30. That's so many miles of farms. My luck of sneaking into campsites and out in the AM ran up when I pulled into Camden state park; the rangers were there collecting money for sites even at 8:30pm. What the heck man.
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AuthorHey I'm Alex Soper, a dude living in Durham, NC. Shoot me an email if you want [email protected] ArchivesCategories |