This morning we woke up and had our first breakfast together at the campground. After, we packed our bags to head to the beach and Provincetown for the day. The trail was hillier than we expected and the sun was hot. But, the beach was beautiful and the cold water felt refreshing. After hanging out for a while, we got on our bikes and headed for Provincetown. We locked our bikes up at our favorite bike shop, Ptown bikes! Then we explored town and stopped in some shops. Once we got back to our campground, we started making dinner. It was our first time cooking and it turned out pretty well. We made a stir fry ramen dish! Tomorrow we have our first big ride day so were headed to sleep early to get some good rest.
We have braved the seventh ring of retail purgatorio and ridden away unscathed, save for bruised pockets and battered baked goods consumed from infernal constructs such as Shake Shack and Great American Cookie Co.
Our rest day at the Mall of America (MoA) saw us blessed with more friends and family hospitality — delightful lunch of ramen, boba and gourmet chocolate with Mateo’s great aunt and uncle Linda and Kent followed by a surprise healthy homestyle dinner of cornbread, chicken, rice, beans and more from Roch’s family friend, Meredith, an experienced adventurer in her own right. We are so grateful to you all for the kindness and generosity so often shown to us. You can hear the morale shooting skyward like a bottle rocket after these encounters.
Today also saw us saying our final goodbyes to Dane. We then stared blankly at Google maps like Kubrick’s chimps before a monolith, ultimately grunting approval at our next destination, Wabasha.
Tomorrow we shall pedal 98 miles into temperatures hotter than HAL. Coincidentally, our mileage will also pass 2001, properly apace for our odyssey.
We’re now down to our core half dozen Trekkers: Emerson, Mateo, Noah, Oscar, Roch and Shaun. We miss all our friends who rode with us along the way and will carry your spirit over the cracks of Coney Island’s boardwalk and into its palm-lined, sapphire shores.
Time to stock up on morning sausages and tuck toast into our pocket protectors before this odyssey zips us out of the City of Lakes and back towards Ithaca. Adieu.
The day started with a meet up on the harbor at Boston. After a ride on the ferry to Provincetown, we biked to and climbed up the Pilgrim Monument. We biked to the Bike Shack, a bike store, to pick up some supplies, then we ate lunch outside the store. After that, we went to explore around the Provincetown, and got a few goodies. We went to the grocery store to get the food for dinner. After we arrived, we met the other leader and the other 3 campers. We ate dinner, and we got ready for sleep. That concluded day 1!
All was quiet on the Midwestern front at St. Cloud’s Rivers Edge Park… Til the midnight bell tolled. Quietly nestled in our sleeping bags like stuffed stockings under the mantel, we lay blissfully unaware of the terrors that would soon unfold.
Dark obelisks rose from the earth one by one, whirring to life with sinister hydraulic intent…
Sprinklers.
The demon shafts arced frigid rainbows across us in the dead of night, soaking our tents and unprotected bikes. We scrambled like Denny’s sous chefs to the safety of floodlit cement, caught between wet socks and a hard place to rest our heads. There we lay, petrified in petrichor till the morning sun banished our wet torment back to the troposphere.
It wasn’t our best night’s sleep, so we eased back into biking shape with a comforting breakfast at Ronald McDonald’s fine dining establishment #37,674 and got to work with a grimace on our 83 miler to the Mall of America. The terrain rolled gently in tandem with the clouds, so we followed suit and enjoyed a pleasant ride into Minneapolis. Emerson’s relatives surprised us again with a clutch refuel of water, bars and delicious Gatorlyte along the way, keeping us rolling when the afternoon lethargy came knocking.
Dane once more guided us home, a coup de grace navigation performance which capped his time riding with us. We are liable to end up somewhere between Lisbon and Lesotho without his adept spatial reasoning and real time problem solving ability, but we will do our best to decipher elevation in his stead.
Our ride through thrumming Minneapolis downtown at the lovely Best Western Plus, where we met Dane’s mom Kristin, who treated us to a warm welcome and a delicious dinner at Chevy’s, restoring the mana we left on the tarmac.
Now we roost in comfort with down pillows and high thread count sheets, enjoying the buzz of humanity in contrast to the hum of cicadas and rattle of cornstalks. Tomorrow we become Macaulay Culkin archetypes and parlay with indoor SpongeBob roller coasters before we say our final goodbyes to our Charleston Chew-obsessed Magellan.
The Trekkers of 2 groups the Cape Cod Trek and the New England Shore Trek met this morning to begin their adventures. The groups embarked onto a ferry going from Boston to the far tip of Cape Cod, the town of Provincetown. Over the next 10-16 days this combined group of cyclists will ride the entire length of Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard and along the way will climb the Pilgrim Monument, bike the Dunes Bike Trail, tour the towns of Truro, Wellfleet, Chatham, Hyannis, and of course stop at many beaches along the way. The New England Shore Trekkers continue 6 more days to Newport, RI, Block Island, Mystic Seaport and end in NYC. Stay tuned for the stories of their adventures right here!
The sound of miniature hooves clip-clopped atop our tents, rousing us like children on Christmas morn. Did our yuletide kahuna return bearing gifts of Lays potato leis and pineapple scented bike grease for our knitted stockings?? Or was our sense of urgency fueled by fears of drenched panniers?
T’was the latter.
The rain chimed the morning bell, and our stomachs stoked the coals, sending us down the street to pump the bellows with gas station fare. Nordic waffles and breakfast pizza burned slow like Centralia’s underground as we pushed off down Lake Wobegon Trail. Woes were minimal — our only complaint was the constant thudding of our frames over seams in the trail, jarring our bones every five yards.
But what are a biker’s bones if not to be rattled? So we rode on, passing through a youth triathlon and mini-music fest underneath a large Viking statue.
The chittering of chains and bike rack thunks mingled with birdsong as we cruised past opalescent waters and arboreal overhangs for many miles, until coming upon strangers holding a sign… Protesters? Nay, Emerson’s relatives! They quelled our appetitive rebellion with pizza and stamped out our thirst with Powerades and waters. We camped in a bustling park and chatted with locals on spirituality and the merits of treating the world as one’s house. Then we staked out our bedroom under ceiling beams of stars and a crescent shaped chandelier . Tomorrow our berth is the home of the Twins.
Early morning pinballing round Fargo bike shops gave us a chance to warm the legs to the tune of 10 miles. Shaun fixed up his bike, Grace bought a new one and we then cracked off at noontide like frozen ropes from Roger Maris’ Louisville Slugger, adding 75 more miles to our little AM jaunt.
Spirits lifted like the Kon Tiki’s sail as we kissed the interstate goodbye like a violent pet chimp… It had its strengths but ultimately was a bit stressful to be around.
So now we’re on bike paths — The Central Lakes trail, which is scenic but a bit bumpy. We look forward to the mirror pond smoothness of Lake Wobegon Trail tomorrow.
In other news, we’re experimenting with new approaches to answering the scripted dialogue we so often elicit from tootling townies, as the hundredth iteration of the following can be grating when we’re tired and trying to move.
“Where y’all going?…”
New York.
… “How many days?”
Et cetera et cetera.
But they’re all so kind, the script must unravel as surely as our tents in the evening.
Perhaps we should have them visit a website with our info, place banner ads on it and generate passive income as we travel. Or maybe sell merchandise which shows our route… The saddle hours afford lots of opportunities to think of new approaches to problems. One of biking’s many charms.
Tomorrow maybe we’ll find a nice lake to swim in, but til then, it’s time to let fall oars in our Ozark Trail longships and sail for the Valhalla of circadian rhythms.
Yesterday’s *tailwind turned round and buffeted us like Berkshire Hathaway properties, making our century feel like it began during the Taft administration.
We incised our way through the wind like it was fresh elote, leaving husks of exploded inner tubes in our wake, and despite some early hurdles, we made industrious strides worthy of those who carved out the Panama Canal. The last 22 miles were made easy by Noah’s genius push to buy a 3 pound bag of kettle corn with group funds– only the second of that size ever purchased from the establishment.
Now we lay cradled between the interlaced fingers of ND and MN, on Roger Maris Drive at Lindenwood Campground. We’re ready to take a 72oz big gulp of Minnesota tomorrow, get away from the I-94 Doldrums and hop down Lake Wobegon Trail in search of rhubarb pies. But tonight was pizza pie and Uno games. We’re proud of our progress.
The Comfort Inn continental biscuits and syrup hardtack stood us in firm stead to blitzkrieg 102 miles from Bismarck to Jamestown. Guest relations at the hotel were cordial, but our gust relations made us feel like riding royalty … We had a 20 mph headwind all day, as if an invisible red carpet were laid out on the I-94 shoulder, allowing us to firm the distance in a mere 5:40.
We stole into Steele for lunch by the world’s largest sandhill crane statue, a monolith which attracts pilgrims both human and avian. Somehow, we were swarmed by seagulls as we lunched. We can only assume they left the last of their foodstuffs at the feet of their winged idol.
We thrice denied them and pushed onward, earning ourselves an early arrival at McElroy Park, firing up the grill for greasy quesadillas plus cookies.
Much of the group sits circled round a table playing Magic: The Gathering. Others cool out on the swing set or huddle and converse. Our legs are strong and our corrugated Moloch urges us onward. We can only hope the Funyun crumbs left at its feet keep tomorrow’s crosswinds at bay, because it’s another century on the docket. We must go far, for we cannot forgo Fargo.
Today we bade dear Arthur goodbye, our dual citizen chum from London, known for his quads — both the muscle and the amount of bear mace canisters he purchased after hearing local grizzly horror stories. Our 21st century Oscar Wilde made us laugh with his wit and whimsy, bringing many laughs per minute to lighten the load. Farewell, chap and good luck at Berkeley.
Now seven Trekkers remain. Our Bismarckian rest day began slowly with bike maintenance plus curbside breakfast. Once we could check in, we went our separate ways. Some explored museums of dino bones backed by Big Oil, others rooted out trading card decks in hobby shops, still others retrieved lost credit cards returned via kindly gas station employees a state back.
We waterslid indoors like Augustus Gloop sans chocolate, and all laundered odiferous garments, tossing everything in together to make the world’s worst detergent-based ghoulash.
Stew wasn’t on the menu, however. Rather, a Chinese buffet with racks of rice, noodles, pies and meats lined up like Terracotta Soldiers. Patiently waiting our turn to fill plates and distend our bellies in Midwestern fashion, we gorged like pythons on gazelles, unhinging jaws and inhaling dumplings as if it were summer of ’69.
Once stuffed like taxidermy, we slunk the block home to absorb the mindless bliss of Family Guy and take an inspired group photo, part Annie Leibowitz, part Ansel Adams. All Across America. Almost halfway. We are shooting for two consecutive 95ish mile days to reach Fargo, and ultimately Minneapolis, where we’ll say goodbye to our most cartographically fluent, Dane.
Wish us luck, and sugary dreams of extra maple syrup drizzled on the Bisquick batter in the morning. Tally ho.
. Tomorrow our berth is the home of the Twins.
… “How many days?” 
We had a 20 mph headwind all day, as if an invisible red carpet were laid out on the I-94 shoulder, allowing us to firm the distance in a mere 5:40.
