I survived Fergus Falls. Torrential rain and swirling winds were lit up by incessant lightning. I’m not at all sorry that I didn’t camp.

Main Street in Fergus Falls looked like a snapshot of my hometown in the 1950s.

The road northwest was, well, a road. No more bike trails just The Mule, me, some rolling hills, and 10,000 expansion joints. Did you know that Minnesota has more lakes than expansion joints? It’s true!

After 18 miles I pulled into a diner to top off my hotel breakfast. They were having a Father’s Day brunch by reservation only. Having not planned ahead for the repast I left.

More hills and lakes for 12 miles until I found Zorbaz, a local pizza and Mexican place. The parking lot was overflowing so I went in to see what the crowd was eating. I immediately grabbed a table and was eating a burrito with chips and salsa within five minutes. They must have heard I was coming.

In addition to rolling hills today featured the first headwinds in a week. And I got rained on which actually felt splendid even in the cool air of the north.

It gets much colder in the winter so people burn a little firewood.

I found a fine place to entomb my wife’s car.

The headwinds were wearing me out as I rolled through Downer. Then it was on to Sabin for some gas station junk food. I think I’m finally tiring of chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches.

As I was leaving two eastbound bike tourists pulled in. Anna and Keith are doing the full Northern Tier from Anacortes Washington to Bar Harbor Maine. We traded intel about the road ahead. I learned that Anna started riding in January. Unreal.

I left the Northern Tier which follows the road grid west then north then west to Fargo. Instead I took a highway diagonally to Morehead, Minnesota across the Northern Snake River from Fargo, North Dakota They have trains out their wazoos up here, many transporting oil from the Bakken oil fields to the northwest.

I swallowed my introversion and arranged to stay with a Warmshowers hosts. The Trickle family. Terri immediately made me feel like family. Drew and I got into an ugly fight about politics and I started smashing things. Okay, I made that up. We sat around and drank wine in the cool evening breeze on their back patio. Son Scotty came home and poured me a glass of chocolate milk because nothing quite goes with a good Cabernet quite like some brown moo juice.

Their house dates to the postwar era. They even have an old pink built-in range in which Terri bakes junk food. I have photographic proof!

Suffice it to say these are incredibly nice people who love hosting bicycle tourists from all over the world.

And so I end my days in Minnesota. On to Fargo, the land of the wood chipper.

Big thanks to Terri, Drew, Scott and Poppy the goldendoodle.

Miles to day: 82.5

Tour total: 1,958

I’m now about halfway.

Posted on June 18, 2018 by rootchopperPosted in Any Road to the Pacific NorthwestTagged Fergus Falls, Minnesota, Morehead, Northern Tier. Any Road Tour, Pelican Lake, Zorbaz.7 Comments