Day 33 Dalbo

June 20, 2018

Dalbo, MN

66 miles, and now over 2000 total!

Day of redemption.

We had a nice breakfast at the hotel and headed out at about 8:30. Jon found some back roads to keep us away from the trucks and traffic on the main road, so it was quite pleasant. At one point, we saw a sign that said “Pavement Ends” and we got a little worried, but the road was rideable and wasn’t a dead end. It reminded me of some of the back roads I’ve ridden in Vermont. After a couple of hours, we arrived in St. Cloud. We picked up a few bike supplies and fought our way out of the city. Riding in a city is always a fun adventure. We found more lightly traveled roads to ride on for the next 45 miles. We stopped in a tiny burg for a lunch break. There was a gas station with a sign saying “No public restrooms. Don’t even ask.” Okie dokie. Next door was a bbq place that looked relatively new, but had apparently closed down. So...we peed in the wooded area between the two buildings. 🤫 In the behind the restaurant, they had a patio area and beach volleyball courts. We availed ourselves of a couple of chairs and ate our pb&j’s in the shade. No time for volleyball though. After that, we cruised along the aspen and pine tree lined roads. I love the sound of the breeze through the aspen. We took a couple more dirt roads. It’s amazing how different our frame of mind is when we’re on a dirt road on a sunny, slightly breezy day. If it had been rainy, not so much. We passed some huge Christmas tree farms, water lily covered ponds and roadside wild iris and ferns. Eventually, we pulled into Dalbo and stopped at the one eatery in town, the Dusty Eagle bar and grill. Had some great burgers with pepper jack and pico along with some fries. Jon liked it so much he ordered a second time 😋Tummies full, we rode to the Dalbo Bike Bunkhouse, a converted barn on a farm just outside of town. It’s on the Adventure Cycling cross country route. The place is amazing. The farm is owned by Donn, who grew up here, then was an army helicopter pilot and came back after retiring. As the story goes, years ago a few bikers doing the Adventure cycling route asked about tenting on his farm and over the years that evolved into converting the barn into a hostel. There’s a central room with table, chairs, couch, recliners and tv, books and maps. A fully outfitted kitchen with hot plate, microwave, grill, stocked refrigerator with free food or some for 25-50 cents. Four rooms with platform beds and gym mats and pillows as well as a full upstairs room with cots (where the hay loft used to be). Donn told us that his daughter had her wedding reception up there last October (within 3 days of our 25th anniversary) and then left up the festive lights that they’d strung along the rafters. We showered in the outdoor shower, sort of a wooden shed with full hot/cold water pipes. The bathroom is in a similar structure, fully flushing, etc. There’s also a silo outside where they have collages on the wall of previous years’ bikers and articles. At around 8, two more bikers showed up, a father and daughter from New Hampshire. They started in Anacortes, WA and are doing the Adventure Cycling northern tier route. We all talked for quite a while and Donn gave us route info, including news that some roads in Wisconsin are closed due to the recent heavy rains. Looks like this will impact our route going east, so we’ll need to consider an alternative route. Good to know though; that would have sucked to have to turn back and reroute on the fly. He also told us about a paved bike path going north towards our destination tomorrow. Sweet! 20+ miles of 70 on bike path! We got to bed way too late, but had a good evening and a great day of biking.

Today's ride: 66 miles (106 km)
Total: 1,845 miles (2,969 km)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	1
Comment on this entry	Comment	0