Have you ever flown across the country and looked out the window and all you can see is miles and miles of green grid squares with what appears to be a home at one of the corners and then maybe a town or two between every 15 or so grid squares? Today I kind of got the sense that we were cycling through a landscape that looks like that from 36,000 feet in the air. Our route today seemed to include more 90 degree turns than usual as we continued to make our way eastward one pedal stroke at a time on rainy Tuesday morning.
Since I’m soon to be 63 years old, waking up in the middle of the night for a quick trip to the bathroom is the norm for me. But last night it was mother nature that awakened me with a huge Minnesota thunderstorm that got me out of bed first. So, I went ahead and did my business and went back to sleep hoping that the weather would pass before we did our roll-out at 7:30 AM. Wishful thinking.
Since yesterday was such a long day in the saddle, and since today’s ride was “only” 81 miles, we did a little later start than usual but it was raining steadily as we departed the Best Western, again with the wind in our faces. Today’s route was one of the few with less than 1,000 feet of elevation gain and we were looking forward to a relatively easy ride today. The rain made it harder. It was a fairly warm morning so the decision to be made is whether or not to wear rain gear or not (I did). Rain gear will keep you mostly dry – but you’ll soak yourself with sweat at 72 degrees. Or you can go without rain gear and hope the wind will dry you out quickly when the rain slows. So, it’s pretty much pick your poison, at least today it was. The weather was just a little wild today and I took the rain gear off when the rain slowed.
We had 2 roadside SAG stops at mile 20 and 42 before our lunch stop on the town of Albert Lea at mile 58.5. It was at mile 20 in Blue Earth, MN where we stopped to see the Jolly Green Giant. The Giant was put there in 1978 by a local radio station owner after he found out that Interstate 90 would bypass the town (only by about 1/2 mile) and he feared that the town would lose visitors. So up went the 55 foot tall Giant. While the radio station and The Green Giant company no longer exist (acquired by Pillsbury in 1979), the Giant still stands tall today right next to the Dairy Queen.
After lunch, we were happy to see the sun come out again and quickly get us dried out as we pedaled the final 22 miles to the town of Austin, MN (the home of SPAM maker, the Hormel Corporation). They actually have a SPAM museum right nearby but I opted to skip that so that I could spend some time with my West Point classmates Gerry O’Connor and Pat Moran (CNQ ’86). It was meaningful to me that they drove about 2 hours from Minneapolis and that they also brought loads of goodies for our group. We had a great visit, grabbed an early dinner and look forward to our 40th class reunion coming up in November. Needless to say – we’re getting old!
Time now to get rested up for our 118 mile ride to Lacrosse, WI. It looks like decent weather and maybe a tailwind – both of which we could really use right now.
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