Week ending August 2nd, 2009 (Part 2)

We arrived in Havre on sunday evening, having ridden along for much of the last two days with John, a chap from Vermont who now resided in Portland, Oregon. It was good riding and chatting with someone else (according to Joy…) and the time zoomed by.

Havre is a lovely little farming town dominated by the huge steel (or is it aluminium..?) grain store overlooking the railroad, which rode through the middle of town. We had ridden 92 miles to get here, and took a day off to do some sleeping and internetting.

Shelby had a traditional main street, and the feel of a town which relied on more than farming for its livelihood.

Rock formations became more conspicuous as we neared The Rockies

Cut Bank, Montana, had been a name on our lips for ages. We finally made it across the high plains in the evening, and pitched tent in the RV park, alongside John, who had arrived hours earlier. He’s fit and rides on skinny tyres…

Through the mist of early morning (ok, it was about 10.00am) we thought we could see mountains coming into view over to the west. An hour later there they were, The Rockies.

Can you see them..? Can you...? They're there somewhere...

A frantic display of peaks and slopes in light grey, against a light grey background; it was great to (almost) see them at last. Their scale and their shape was astonishing as they didn’t conform to what we had in mind. They stretched over the horizon to our left and one in particular, Chief Mountain, was a vertical faced, flat topped chunk of rock, apparently named after a Blackfeet Indian chief (correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s what I think I heard from someone the other day…). The quiet road, the huge vistas with the Rockies as a backdrop - and the fact that we were crossing an international border - was a great feeling. It was 76 miles from Cut Bank , Montana to Cardston, Alberta, but it went by smoothly and pleasantly. Whilst it was all up, it was one of our best days rides.

The country name reminded us of home

The border control was equally smooth, and we rolled into Canada which afforded even better views of the mountains. We slowly climbed from 3500ft to 4000ft, and though we took loads of photos, they just didn’t do the scenery any justice. How could they?

As we pedalled, the static chatter of crickets surrounded us, and those sunning themselves on the road hopped out of our way just as puddles spray outwards when a wheel rides through them - though the occasional insect, directionally challenged, hopped into the wheels and made the sound of an air rifle pellet hitting a tin can.

Cardston is a pleasant little town, with a lovely camp site by the river. For the last hour of cycling, we tried to outrun the black clouds and scary lightning which were slowly sliding by us. As we pedalled into town, the rain tried to rain. After dinner in town, we managed to put the tent up just in time, as it had decided by then to rain on this part of Alberta on a biblical scale. And thunder and lightning on a Hollywood scale, engulfed us - but we were dry.

We planned to cycle to Waterton, on the northern (Canadian) side of the national park today, but after the heavy weather of last night, Joff’s front wheel started crunching and rattling. Suspecting that the rain had driven the grease out of the bearings in the hub, we tried to fix it…. but with the wrong tools it proved quite tricky. There’s only so much a penknife and some sellotape can do…

Thankfully we met a lady who knew of a man who worked on bikes (albeit his day job is in finance). Via the local newspaper where the editor, Ron, made contact with Rob, Rob came straight over to the park with his box of tricks, and disassembled the wheel, found that I was missing two ball bearings, and some grease, then put it all back together as it should be. Marvellous.

A very welcome hand in a time of need, it was good to meet all three people. Ron even ran an article on our trip, which we have linked to on the homepage. Thank you very much to each of you, particularly Rob - and good luck with your bike race tomorrow

Rob to the rescue

Week ending August 2, 2009

The plains of Montana are quite something. Their size is one thing, exacerbated for us by the fact that we’re only pedalling along at 13mph. But the colour, the grandeur and the occasional rock formations is awesome and quite inspiring.

Rocky outcrops as we head across eastern Montana

The land dried up as we rode up towards 2700ft. The grasses and flowers looked tired and crunchy, and the crops that had followed us (and, probably, more importantly) the river valley, had given way to herds of black cows and several breeds of horse. In the Fort Peck Indian reservation that we entered, there were beautiful speckled Apaloosa horses tethered alongside the roads; others were a plain brown. As is their will, they seemed rather nonchalent, and none of them came when I called them in my best horse language. Funny that.

We saw various irrigation systems. Some were clearly created by individual farmers, though some seemed to have been sponsored and/or developed by the farmers’ unions, or perhaps even the State. The water systems reminded us of the Fens in England, where the diversion of water for the benefit of farmers seemed to be an industry in itself.

Freight trains, some towing in excess of 100 carriages, rattled by. As we rode along one day, Joy counted 121 carriages pass us, towed by 4 locomotives.

Freight train puffing across country

Their soporific rattle and the horns they enjoyed blowing, followed us for many miles. These massive loads seem to need up to 4 locomotives to tow them, and as we raced them along the prairie and waved, they would on occasion honk back at us. Whilst we are mature adults, the fact that Casey Jones and his friends were blowing their horns and saying ‘hi’ to us from these fantastic trains was a real thrill. We bowled along grinning, counting the carriages and laughing. The sun shone and it was good to be in Montana.

The weight of road traffic was light and we welcomed that. When the wind is at our backs, we hear them rumbling along from a few miles away, as the sound travels across the prairie, but when the wind blows in our faces they are silent until they are upon us. The shoulders on the roads are frequently erratic, with little thought given to cyclists. If it was only us who moaned of this problem, I would assume it was a European attitude, and that we simply didn’t understand the requirements / economics / politics involved - but the fact that all the cyclists we met (who all happened to be American) had the same view, buttressed our view that the road builders just didn’t consider cyclists.

Week ending July 26th 2009

Stanley, a quietly fading little village reminded us of others in the State which had seen better times. Hopefully the oil found under the hills, will help to rejuvenate these places, but at the moment it seems unlikely. Boom and bust has apparently been here since the 1950’s.

We rode the Old Highway 2 and didn’t have a vehicle pass us, in either direction, for over an hour and 20 minutes. Bliss. The scenery was good too. Much of it in this part of the State was proper prairie. Delicate flowers blowing in the wind, whispering grasses (and other song title-related imagery, no doubt…) Little yellow butterflies fluttered by, crickets cricketed, and birds of all sizes and colours sang and squawked from field and wire. Farmers are apparently being funded by the State to return some of the land to wilderness, just as it used to be before the trains came and the farmers ploughed.

Compass Flowers on the prairie

Again, images filled my head of Indians on horseback surveying their land for buffalo; which we also heard the white man wanted decimated, in order that the Indians couldn’t feed themselves.

On the interminable straight roads that we have experienced in the last few days, large grain stores appear on the horizon, shimmering above a mirage of water. Riding towards them, they appear to remain so very far away - but in reality we tend to pass them within a few hours. They’re never quite as large as they at first appear, but given that everything else on the scene is so small, or far away, they loom large.

The west continued to beckon, and with a slight drop in the wind we ventured onwards, like the pioneers of old who didn’t know what they might find, except dysentery and the heat.

In Ray, a pleasant place little village dominated by the Farmer’s Union Grain Co-op store and elevator, we had a very welcome lunch - which featured a salad… something we had forgotten existed until we saw the familiar word on the menu in the Ray Cafe.

Williston was calling. We rode 79 miles to get there, again into a strong headwind. It began to get a little bit tedious, but we were assured bythe shiny weatherman on tv that it would subside - well, at least to 20mph. Mustn’t grumble, we thought. Then I continued to grumble all day long.

Williston wasn’t worth looking forward to. Strip malls, and an appalling lack of ‘zoning’ meant the place grew without either check or balance. The oil industry is good here at present, and the workers and their trucks were omnipresent. Despite the country having in excess of 40m acres of protected land, and 2m being in the State of North Dakota alone, there’s plenty of space for drilling to be undertaken, usually seen on a horizon - which might spoil the view - but pleases the people of the town.

After a day off, in which the calm and relaxing library featured strongly, we showered in the recreation centre opposite and camped in one of the city parks. We were glad to be moving on in the morning.

Montana welcomed us with 13 miles of roadworks, in which both sides of the road were hacked up. The sky really is very big in Big Sky Country. Just as the cinema curtains open further before the feature presentation, it seemed the sky increased in area. Or it could have been the fact that we continued to increase our altitude to approximately 2700ft. as we rode across the plains. It was pleasantly green, though land use slowly changed from crops to cattle and horses.

Culbertson museum had a fabulous collection of articles and machinery from the earliest days of the pioneers, up to the middle of the 20th century. Little towns like this appear to struggle against the weather and the economic conditions, but are vital and energetic; and this energy is clearly displayed in the items and photographs on display in the museums.

Wolf Point, Glasgow and Malta passed by quietly enough, as the landscape clowly changed from high plains to river valley. The wide Missouri departed and the Milk River joined us, the trees in the valleys a continuous reminder that the fertility of these places depended on the water these rivers provided.

On the fourth day in Montana, we saw the Bear Paw Mountains to the west, appear and slowly grow in the distance. The rough grey outline was a welcome distraction from the plains, and a precursor of what was to come. They remained with us for the next couple of days, and were joined in time, by what appeared to be the foothills of the Rockies. The excitement was growing.

Week ending July 19th 2009

Cindy Quitzau, a lady from Massachusetts, emailed us recently - and having got permission to put some of her text on our blog, I forgot to do so. Sorry, Cindy..!

So, in case you’re wondering whether what we’re doing is actually having an influence, or making any headway in terms of coverage around the world, read on:-

Hello Joy and Joff,

I am mom to 7 year old Calvin (and his triplet siblings, Emily and Jake) who has DMD. We live in the Mansfield, Massachusetts, just south of Boston, in the US. I have been following your journey and wish I had the opportunity to meet you and provide a warm shower and lodging. You two are amazing! As mom of a young boy with Duchenne, I  cannot thank you enough for what you are doing for our cause. This world is a richer place because of people like yourselves. My son will be a stronger boy because of you. You two are so very generous and inspiring to many in our DMD community. I wish you well on your journey and may you both be blessed with incredible experiences along the way that make your tremendous efforts truly worth your time and energy.

If you find yourselves making a wrong turn along the way and ending up in the Boston area, please feel free to contact me! May each day bring you a have a warm shower, a snuggly bed, and the energy to get you thru another 60 miles. Thank you for doing what you are doing!!

Week ending July 19th 2009

The small village of Page was a delight. We rolled in at 7.45pm to discover that the cinema (yes, a cinema in a village of a couple of hundred people) was showing the latest comedy.

The village is centred on the railroad, which cuts right across the town and the roads. It seemed out here that the freight trains would run every couple of years. Some that we have waited for have rattled past us for 15 minutues, carrying their produce from one side of the continent to the other. 

We decided to get some dinner, but as the cafe was closing at 8pm, and it looked shut from outside, we wondered whether it would be another bagel-fest. Not to worry, the cinema lady said that the cafe was always open - and so it was. We had some of the most amazing blueberry pie available, and loads of cups of tea, before heading to the town campground for the night, where the mosquitoes were entrenched, awaiting our arrival.

Sunset in North Dakota

The weather was good. The sun remained in the sky and the wind was generally at our backs. We left Page at 8am the next day and rode the 77 miles to Pekin happily. The flatlands that we had been warned about had disappeared. Had we got lost..? North Dakota began to get a little bumpy, and the trees and the fields of crops and the set aside took on more form. We rolled down valleys and alongside shelter belts of thick woodlands, tohugh we did also see from time to time huge piles of dead wood, apparently grubbed up by farmers wanting their trees to be replaced with crop. In ND, the farms are spaced out so much more so than in Wisconsin, partly because the land is less fertile and the area required to sustain cattle so much more than in the dairy States to the east.

Pekin was another eye-opener of a village. I visited the pub to find out what time they closed, only to find myself being looked at by three men wearing big stetsons and bigger moustaches. They stared at me, but I could have outdrawn them if I had needed to. However, they just went back to the drinking, and I left the pub, just as my eyes had adjusted to the gloom of a place with no windows. The daylight reflected off the dirt road and burnt my retinas.

We set up camp next to the Prairie View Lodge and showered, then wandered back into town for a showdown. It was us or the pizza. I ordered the Pepperoni, Joy had the Chicken Alfredo.

A huge grey steel grain store overlooked the town, just as it had done in Page and just as it did in Minnewaukan, the town we arrived at the following evening.

Farmers' Union Grain Store

They reminded Joy of cathedrals. The remarkable thing for me was that we cycled through the Spirit Lake Nation - a reservation for Sioux Indians. Thoughts filled my head of cowboy films, and the Acts enacted and the promises broken by the westerners who overran the place in the mid to late C19th. Nations of Indians were corralled into lands which, at times, weren’t even their traditional lands, in order that white railroad magnates and white farmers could take over. We rode on. The scenery was impressive, and seemed to befit the history of the place.

We rolled into the village of Warwick, which I was convinced was a set from a 1950’s B movie. All roads to Warwick were gravel. The village hall, the garage and post office had flat roofs and the bar, only distinguished by the Budweiser neon sign hanging from the wall, had no windows and a steel front door which had been kicked and punched more than once. How could anyone live here, we thought. It was silent - but there was no tumbleweed. Trees shrouded the half dozen houses, as if innocent witnesses hiding from the gunfight. The road was probably 30yds wide. We saw no-one until we ventured inside the bar and was greeted by the barman. (Un)fortunately there was no cooked food, so we had some coffee and a chat, before mounting our steeds and rolling out of town.

Warwick, a real one horse town

The clouds were gathering. In this part of the State there hadn’t been rain for a month. This was all about to change. We couldn’t outrun the sheet of gunmetal-grey cloud that followed the fierce winds (which, incidentally, blew in our faces.) We were on the top of the rolling hills just as the lightning struck and the thunder rolled. Who had we to appease for this to stop? The rain stung and the lightning fired all around us. We decided it might be prudent to get off our steel lightning conductors, but there was nowhere to hide, so we stood, in a Mexican Stand-off, at some distance from them, and waited for the display to pass over. It took a couple of hours, and we were sodden. But at least the farmers were pleased.

Minnewaukan, we had heard from a passing cyclist, had nothing to offer. Images of Warwick came to mind. Thankfully we were happily surprised by the metalled roads, the pretty white clad church, the brick courthouse, the attractive houses and the library. There was even a restaurant in the bar and a camp site near the lake.

We chatted to some fishermen, who were fishing for Walleye from the road, which was partially submerged on either side. Devil’s Lake has been growing since 1993. Minnewaukan itself used to be 8 miles from the lake, but it is now between 10 and 30yards… Apparently, for every 12″ of water that rises, another 10,000 acres of farmland is consumed. To say the least, this is a pain for the farmers, who continue to be under-compensated by the Government, but a boon for the fishermen, and the businessmen who have traded on this. Some people in various places around the lake have lost their houses, which they were told to remove, or burn down, before the water engulfed them. According to the people in the village, the lake has no natural outlet. It fills up and evaporation eventually lowers it, but the cycle has become very drawn out, given the massive quantity of rain that has fallen since 1993.

Apparently, in the 1880’s the lake was almost as high, but there were far fewer people to suffer the consequences. The locals are now waiting for the rains to reduce and the cycle to reverse, which of course has consequences for the farmers; both those who are happy with the current rainfall (as they farm out of reach of the lake), and for those farmers who can eventually get their land back, to begin all over again.

The wind hadn’t abated by the time we began cycling again. It gusted at 40mph in our faces, as we climbed out of Minnewaukan and over to Esmond, a miserable 26 miles later. We camped in a delightful little park provided with a bathroom just for us. The cafe fare was up to the usual standard - though getting a little predictable - and we again waited the winds to die.

Nope… Next morning, it picked up and blew in our faces again. Whicver direction we rode, it was in our faces.  We struggled on, another 38 miles to Rugby, the geographical centre of the North American continent. Joy ws a bit put out that we had done all this work, only to find ourselves halfway across the country. But thankfully this wasn’t the case. The corners which were taken as the ‘corners’ of the continent, included Lubec in Maine (which we had entered the US through), Key West in Florida, Acapulco in Mexico (which for this exercise has become part of the North American continent) and somewhere in Alaska.

Rugby saw the first of the oil field workers, and an industry which has in the recent past boomed. The nodding-dog dinosaurs which pump the oil began to appear on the horizon, not enormous like in Texas, but friendlier and somehow more parochial. The landscape again flattened out, but the crops in the fields blew just as strongly. Wheat, beans, peas, soya and sunflowers all rippled like waves on a green sea. We were too early to see the flowers themsleves, which appear before the first frosts, which can occur in October. We did hear however from a lady that she was out last year combining her crop in november, which lay under 18″ of snow. The season is so short over here, it’s a testament to the quality of the soil and the summer weather that they grow so large in so short a time.

A major road led us to Minot. The town didn’t require us to linger. We did however have the best cuppa since leaving Blighty, in a place called the Black Iguana. The campsite on the edge of town was however quite charming. Whilst tenters usually get the dirty end of the stick in terms of location to pitch, we found ourselves in a lightly wooded glade, by a river, with no mosquitoes whatsoever. A man with a hand-held smoke machine visited us, pumped some white clouds of gas around us and vanished - just as the mosquitoes did. Thankfully the birds didn’t all drop out of the trees and, 3 days later, we can both breathe efficiently, and remain in possession of all 10 fingers and toes…

Week ending July 12th, 2009

The Land of 10,000 Lakes has, unofficially, the mosquito as its State bird. But Minnesota is beautiful, lush at this time of year and not overly populated. Except with mosquitoes.

A pretty days ride took us to Alice’s Attic, a farm from where Alice sells antiques - but as she wasn’t there, we waited and waited for her, then finally, as the mosquitoes were getting set to dine out, we set up tent and went to sleep. The herd of cows leaning over the fence were intent on sniffing us, but thankfully they remained out of the tent. The sun shone strongly as we packed up the next morning and left by 8am. We didn’t inform the State birds, however.

We bowled up to a rough looking bar with no windows and a beaten up door, for breakfast in the town of Royalton. Great food and coffee, and a chat with the owner who showed us how to get on the bike trail from Bowlus to Fergus Falls - which is in excess of 160 miles. It seems that some towns don’t know what bikes are for, but those that do certainly create some lovely trails.

We visited a cyclist’s cafe in Bowlus, met the owners and filled our bottles before heading south west across the State. The path was fully metalled and gloriously devoid of traffic. A few other cyclists passed us in the opposite direction, and we covered the 60 miles to Sauk Centre quickly and smoothly.

Sauk Centre was, unbeknown to us, the place in which Sinclair Lewis based his famous novel (the name of which escapes me) and the bar in which we sat the next morning the place where John Steinbeck and F Scott Fitzgerald both sat. Of course, we had our photos taken there.

We met Linda who, with her husband Dave, run the local newspaper, as well as the dairy farmers’ local paper, the Minnesota Bike Trails magazine and a fourth publication covering antiques and collectibles. Linda interviewed us and put together a very comprehensive article for the paper, then offered to put us up for the night at her place.

We met Dave, and Linda’s brother and dad (a real life ex-FBI agent) and had a lovely evening in their historic house in the middle of town. The following morning we went to the diner and were told about Lewis, and the attraction that the town had for Steinbeck and Fitzgerald on the basis of Lewis’ novel about Main Street. Apparently the BBC has even been here for an item on the state of the nation, based on ‘Main Street’, USA.

We caught up on some emails then waved goodbye to Sauk Centre. The trail continued. We had a beautiful day’s ride and again, met no cars en route.

We met Jake, the bike shop owner in Alexandria, who fixed Joy’s bike stand and lent us his phone to call Perry, a warmshowers chap we had contacted. Perry, a recumbent cyclist duly arrived on the trail, and escorted us to his cottage on the lake, a fabulous setting, quite traditional in this State. After dinner with him and Terry, his wife, we all went out on their boat to see an island colony of birds,  protected by the State from hunting. The chorus was made up of egrets, herons, cormorants and gulls; and the sight was spectacular.

Finally we had managed to catch up with Tapio and his family, whose son has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). We arranged to meet his mum and dad at their farm, just over the border in south eastern North Dakota (ND).

The trail that we had met Perry on, finished as abruptly as it had begun, in Fergus Falls, on the western edge of Minnesota. Beyond a road bridge which went overhead, the metalled trail stopped, the rail tracks appeared and there stood a freight train. It looked at little disappointed to be here.

We entered ND and as soon as we did, the land flattened out. A flat page, with the occasional small wrinkle on it, the prairies spread out before us. This was, historically, buffalo country, and the land of the Sioux.

After a ride of 25 miles more than we had come to expect from the map (something to do with map-reading error, I would suggest…), we made it to John and Tuula’s farm by 8pm. In the last 4 States, there have been lots of dirt roads, and today, we rode a few - just for fun…

Their farmhouse is on the national historic register of old buildings, as a structure worthy of retention. However, as John and Tuula have taken nothing from the government by way of financial incentive, to help them restore the building, the State can do nothing to prevent them from altering it or flattening it. Apparently, the State has a rather overbearing influence in respect of old buildings, and so it seems many people prefer not to involve them in their attempts to preserve old buildings.

We were offered a rest stop at John and Tuula’s which was certainly welcome. We met Tapio and his family the following day and redoubled our admittedly rather amateur efforts at publicising the charity and the ride - Did you know that we’re riding on behalf of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and that you can donate via the link on our homepage…? Just checking.

It was lovely to meet John, Tuula, Tapio, Anneke, Derek, and the kids and to pass on to them information that we had on DMD and to glean information from them. It strengthened our resolve.

Anneke, Jack, Tapio, Joff and Joy

We had a great photoshoot the next morning and then rode the dusty track back to the metalled roads 3 miles away. Friends had been made.

For much of my life I have known of the ‘Wells Fargo’ stagecoach company which, during the days of the wild west, rode through Injun territory, dodging arrows, to deliver mail - and the occasional single woman - to some dusty, tumbleweed-strewn town in the middle of nowhere (ok, I grew up on the Spaghetti Western, but how else does a kid from England learn about the wild west..?) Anyway, perhaps I digress… We were now heading for Fargo. The road was flat, it had little of interest and was best seen looking backwards. The residential areas that we rode through on our way into town were very attractive, but suffice to say, the town itself was nothing like I had imagined as a kid. Roads the width of runways dominated strip malls, and low rise, flat roofed buildings that looked at though they might last another 3 or 4 weeks, gave a very transient feel to the town. It was, frankly, quite ugly, but thankfully, hasn’t been the norm in our experience.

At Fargo/Moorehead, the twin towns on the borders of ND and Minnesota, we met Bob, Barb and their kids, Kelly Ann and Erin, who had cycled east, from Washington State, in four weeks…!! And their bikes are not tandems… We felt some little relief that the last stage of the trans america was only a few weeks away, but awe that the family had covered the distance in such a short space of time. Particularly as the girls are 12 and 14, and carry as much luggage as we do. Perhaps it was really flat and the wind was really strong…

It was lovely to meet other bikers on a similar route to us, and we chatted and swapped notes on the trip.

North west from Fargo, the land remained flat for a day, but then it began to ruffle.

Week ending 5th 2009

The western half of the State was less rolling, and the dairy farms less concentrated, but it was nevertheless verdant, rural and quiet. Marshfield came and went, though whilst Loyal was no more than a village with a library and a bar, it had a distinctly rural character to it. The guys in the bar, and the guys in the diner the next morning, were all farmers, with the pre-requisite plaid shirts, baseball caps (with a camouflage design on it, to illustrate the fact that they were hunters), and jeans that hadn’t seen a washing machine all year. The vehicles in the car parks were trucks, and the village itself featued a farm insurance agent, a farmers bank and, slightly at odds with the theme, a nice library with air conditioning.

We continued west to the western edge of Eau Clair, French for ‘clear water’, which was a busy, expansive, low rise kind of a place, with too many lorries and a cycle path that ended, as abruptly as it had begun, just before a major road crossing the river. We stayed with Lucy, a warmshowers contact, a lovely lady and very clever gardener who had created various areas within her garden, including  a bottle garden and a necklace garden - after a friend of hers gave her 200 necklaces - which she strung across and between the trees.

The bottle garden at Lucy's place

 Steve O ‘Rourke met us in Hammond, a small town where we waited for him in an outdoor bikers bar, kitted out with real American bikers, drinking Bud and Coors. 

We’ve been into various of these establishments during the last few weeks, usually accidentally, but on each occasion have felt that we ‘belonged’ there. We may not have the beads in our beards (yet) or the noisy, underpowered and rattly motorbikes, (usually made by Harley Davidson) but as two-wheelers we have a shared understanding of the perhaps precarious nature of riding alongside lorries, school buses and trucks on roads which, at times, appear to have been maintained by short-sighted school children.

Steve and his grandson met us on their pushbikes. Steve was previously a mountaineer until an accident damaged his shoulder, though he continues to be a cyclist, active until recently in the local bike club. He took us to buy grocries, and let us use the internet, whils showing us round the area and discussing the history of the place and where the US might go from here.

The following morning he rode with us to Osceola, a town on the border of Wisconsin and Minnesota, the self-styled ‘Land of 10,000 lakes.’ We had  a well-earned milk-shake and, after 44 miles, he turned round and rode home. He got a little lost, and ended up doing well over 90 miles that day. We didn’t. We rode over the river into Minnesota and to the small town of Lindstrom, where we got a motel for the night.

As we live near Cambridge, UK, we felt it would be nice to be in Cambridge, Minnesota, for July 4th. We needn’t have been so keen. A few fireworks, reminiscent of Swaffham Bulbeck  fireworks night, and no parade or show, followed by a hasty cycle ride back to the motel, with only a dozen extra mosquito bites to show for it. Apparently Minnesota’s State bird is the mosquito. I can see why.