Day 37 Alexandria MN to Albany MN

July 24, 2023

This is Ryan the one from MD heading to San Francisco

This is the stuff to help with the erosion

This is Fred and Marcia. Hopefully Fred will bike across the US.

Can’t just have breweries, we need distilleries too

Stopped to read about Sinclair Lewis and see his house

A neat little area that looked like it might have been something touristy in its day

It was a beautiful morning when we headed out this morning. Again the GPS had us going through neighborhoods instead of down the main road. It is nice to see different areas of homes and the different styles. We were heading to the bike trail when Hubs noticed a Casey’s and he pulled in. I told him we still had muffins but he said we needed more. When he went in he came right back out as there weren’t any muffins. Good thing we still had two. We got on the bike trail and it had some Bumpity bumps for some miles and then it started getting nicer. We saw bikers coming the other way but most are on e-bikes. This one guy went by us on a recumbent and he was tooling along so I told Hubs he had a motor on it. As we continued to ride we did see a biker coming towards us that was slowing down. His name is Douglas, he originally comes from South Africa but lives in Vancouver. He’s been inVancouver over 20+ years. We chatted with him for probably 1/2 hour or so. When we continued on, the guy on the recumbent was heading back our way and stopped to chat. He is 80 years old and has been biking for over 50 years. He used to bike to work every day. It turns out he does not have a motor on his bike so good for him. His name is Dale. The bike trail was getting nicer and nicer as we peddled along. After 20 miles we decided to stop for a snack. I can’t remember what town we were in but it had a covered area with picnic tables and low and behold there was Caleb. He is the kid we met in Fergus Falls that is Disc Golfing his way across the Northern Tier. We sat and talked with him for a bit and then we headed out first, knowing he would be plowing by us. Before he caught up to us another biker was headed our way fully loaded. We stopped and his name is Ryan and he is from Maryland heading to San Francisco. As we were talking along comes Caleb and we all gabbed for a bit. Ryan told us that the bike trail was going to be smooth sailing and it was as we kept going. How much nicer to roll smoothly and at a faster speed. Caleb was just flying ahead of us. It was getting hot today and for the next few days we will be having heat indexes in the 100°. Hopefully we can keep getting water along the way. We stopped in Sauk Center for lunch and I missed getting a picture of the water tower as I didn’t see it.😟. We also were stopped by two people walking the trail to find out where we were headed and where we came from. Their names are Fred and Marcia. They seemed like very nice people. Fred said he would love to do this so we told him, Do It! As we were getting closer to Albany the sky on the left of us didn’t look happy. We had about 3 miles to go and we were hoofing it, hoping to make it to the motel

This is Douglas. He is originally from South Africa heading home to Vancouver where has been living for over 20+ years

This is Dale. He has been biking for over 50 years. Keep it up Dale.

Part of the road was closed as they fixed it and these men were laying this stuff down to prevent erosion

before the rain came. Luckily we did and just in time. After the people in front of us registered and we registered and got to our room is when the thunder, lightening, down pour and hail came. Phew were we lucky. Tomorrow we head to Monticello MN

Today's ride: 50 miles (80 km)
Total: 2,186 miles (3,518 km)

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Edward GriecoGood work , your almost home 😊
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