Home 45 miles.

Went to Square Lake to take in the lake. The lake is used for scuba diving and it is one of the cleanest lakes around. Especially that day when they were preparing the beach for Labor Day. Hills stopped interesting me.

When I went to the beach I locked up my bike close to road so I could walk down then up the hill to and from the beach instead of biking up the hill. Came home tired and ready to be back but the journey was well worth the effort.

 

William O’Brien State Park 30 miles.

One place I knew I had to stop off at was the Franconia Sculpture Garden in Franconia. Always interesting to see what is new and what they kept. They are now adding a beautiful learning center. They do so much for the local and international community. Was ready to get back home after spending time in the sculpture garden.

Wild River State Park 67 miles.

It is rare I bike more miles than my age but this time I did it with the help of a tailwind. I got fascinated by the surface designs on the St. Croix River and took more pictures then I probably needed to. Always enjoy coming to this park.

Banning State Park 55 miles.

There were two construction projects on the Munger trail. Fortunately I laminated the trail map so I could see where the trouble spots were. The first one by looking at the map it was obvious the road to take without going too far out of the way. The second one wasn’t to bad either going up. Going back they closed the road I used to detour from the trail. So I had to make a detour from the detour. Took a few wrong turns before I found the road back to the trail.

After the gravel roads coming up decided on different way of going home. My first time at Banning State Park and it was well worthwhile to visit. Stopped in a little cafe in Finlayson where I decided not to enter a raffle to win a rifle. Made me realize what a different culture that is there then what I am used to. Purchased solar panels before I left to recharge my cell phone while I was biking. It worked great until for some reason it stopped charging my phone. After which I nursed the phone as much as I could. Would sneak in a 10-15 minute charge here and there and minimized battery usage as much as I could. Was able to get home with about 10% power left.

Jay Cooke State Park 50 miles.

Just south of Duluth on the Willard Munger trail someone told me a storm was coming in and should find shelter. Just started coming down when there was a little shelter I ducked into for a couple of hours until it stopped. Biked to the state park and once there the thunder and lightning started up again. Once it died down a bit set up my tent and listened to the thunder from my tent. Was fortunate though if I had not stayed that extra day in Jay Cook when I came up would have gotten into a major storm where there was wind and about four inches of rain fell instead Jay Cook only got maybe an inch.

Two Harbors 40 miles.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened to me today. Usually would hike any trail that was on Highway 61. This time passed over any trail that did not look flat. One advantage of spending an extra day at Jay Cook was that my ride on Sunday the road had a wider shoulder then the Grand Marais to Tettegouche ride I would have been on. This was the busiest the roads had been on the days I rode. I noticed that a lot of times traffic would be going north and nothing going south or the reverse so there was more room for cars to maneuver around me but today there was a lot of traffic going in both directions.

(No pictures today)

Tettegouche State Park 54 miles.

Afterwards for the first time my legs felt tired. I was not in a mood to do much of anything. Biked and hiked over 200 miles in the last four days over hilly terrain and was definitely not used to it. Encountered another bicyclist who was biking around Lake Superior and he asked me when the hills ended. Told him that at the border there was a mile stretch that looked flat The waterfalls I identified might or might not be correct.

Grand Marais 42 miles.

Weather turned overcast and rained off and on so it was pretty much straight biking into Grand Marais not good picture taking weather. People did not talk to me as much this time as opposed to a couple of days ago. Last time about five came up to me and said they saw me biking anywhere between Two Harbors and the Split Rock Lighthouse.

Grand Portgage State Park 51 miles.

Found a post along the road which I could lean my bike against to see what the problem was. The side on the bike rack that I taped up because the screw was missing had to be re-taped and the screw on the other side was broken off. So I taped up the two sides up as well as I could so that the tire would not rub against the rack. At times the rear tire would barely rotate because it was laying on top of the rack.

Grand Marais was only 10 miles away. Was able to bike there with the makeshift arrangement. While eating the bike rack had collapsed again but fortunately the bike shop was a couple of blocks away and was able to get a new bike rack. With a new bike rack and the wallet around my neck only one minor problem arose after this.

The ride to Grand Portgage was hilly and spectacular. At the top of one of the hills you could see the Suzie Islands and they were beautiful to look at. And the tallest waterfall  in Minnesota is located in the park.