Virginia to Duluth

 Today was mostly a day of traveling from one trail to the next.  It was our longest day, and except for about 5 miles at the beginning, we were on roads all day.  Here is a picture of the group (except me because I took the picture) waiting at a stop light in Virginia to get out of town.

I believe I have mentioned before that I've been surprised that there has not been more fall colors showing since we are so far north.  That started to change today.

Just as we were leaving the trail, we crossed a bridge, and found this nice picture opportunity.

We are too far east for this to be the Mississippi, but I didn't see a sign so I can't identify it.  Still a nice picture.

Once we got on the roads, I found nothing much picture worthy except for a few adventures.

A flat tire, but not on my bike.  This is only the second flat in the whole group since we started.  The first was mine, but it happened overnight and we were able to fix it before we left in the morning.  This one we had to fix while we were on the road.  We have some good bike mechanics, so it didn't take long.

This was our next adventure.  It is hard to plan for road construction.  Fortunately, we were able to walk around it with only about a 1/4 mile hike.

Beyond that, it was just a long day with a head wind.  The roads were good with mostly wide shoulders, some hills, but no steep grades until we got to Duluth.  Here is a picture of me with the Duluth bridge in the background.

As we entered Duluth, there was about a 5 mile drop to Lake Superior.  I was braking most of the way.  My main thought as I was going downhill was - "I hope there is a different way out of town tomorrow, because otherwise I'm going to have to climb this hill".  I will let you know.

Once we reached town, we weaved our way through a residential neighborhood before getting to our hotel near the lake.  This house caught my eye, especially because of the fancy moulding at the top of the pillar.

That's all for today.  Everyone agrees that we will sleep well tonight.

71 miles today.

Hibbing to Virginia

 It was a nice short day today & mostly on the Mesabi Trail.  It is obvious that the Mesabi Iron Range is the past, present & future of this whole area. Where iron is being mined, the towns rely on it.  Where iron used to be mined, towns struggle to survive.  We see lots of small towns with mostly deserted business districts.

Today’s ride was a perfect mix of old rail beds & newer bike trails designed to get us from one place to another.  Here is something I have not seen before in this area.

A lake with bright blue color.  I’ve seen that before, but not around here.  I know there is an explanation for what causes it, but I don’t know what it is.

As we rode along, there were a variety of displays connected to iron mining.  One place they were obviously putting together an outdoor museum with this large display as the centerpiece.

It appears to me to be the method they used to load ore into rail cars, but no signage was up yet, so I will just have to come back later to know for sure.

The next town had a park with some interesting displays.  I had Nettie stand in front of the tire to show some size perspective, and if you look carefully in the locomotive, you can see me & Keith getting ready to head down the tracks.

As we entered our destination town of Virginia, the route took us through the city park, which was large and well kept.  Signs indicated that much of the development happened during the depression with WPA funds designed to keep the economy alive.

I was surprised to see the fountain still working this late in September.  It seems to me that frost is not far in the future.  I assume they know what they are doing, and it was a good picture opportunity.  I don’t know if the tree carving is depression vintage, but again makes a nice picture.

Fortunately there was another sunset opportunity.  This time right in town behind as much of a cityscape as this town can create.

31.2 miles today

Hibbing, Minnesota

Today was a rest day for us, and usually there isn't much to write about on a rest day.  Today was different.  One of our riders set up a tour of the town we are staying in - Hibbing Minnesota.  It was a short ride of 13 miles, but there is surprisingly a lot to see in this small town.  

Hibbing is the home town of Bob Dylan, Kevin McHale (a pro basketball player), and the Greyhound Bus Company.  There is also a huge iron ore mine here.  So - off 3 of us went.  The first thing we came to was the old railroad depot.  It has been turned into an Antique Store, which was closed, but outside we spent some time investigating a drill press that can be operated by a hand crank, or with a flat belt from some other power source.  An engineering marvel from the 1800's 

From there we rode to the Greyhound Bus Museum.  When we got to the door, there was a handwritten note on a piece of accounting paper which said "Volunteer went home sick, Sorry".  So we didn't get to go in, but we did learn about the history of the bus company from exhibits outside.  We also got this picture of an old time bus.

It turns out that the Museum is very close to the huge iron ore mine, so we rode over there.  The machines they use in the mine are unbelievably large as you can see in this picture comparing me and my bike to a dump truck.

The size of the mine itself is also hard to comprehend.

 Climbing on my bike up to the top where the displays were is not something I was able to do, but one of my fellow riders did get this picture of me rolling down the gravel drive from the mountain.

After that adventure, we were back in town, studying the city's displays honoring their favorite son, Bob Dylan.  Right outside his boyhood home, they have an interesting way to paint a crosswalk.

I'm not sure which of his songs the crosswalk displays.

At the high school there is a wall with one side commemorating his Nobel Prize.

And the other side having a permanent chair in front of a mosaic of his lyrics.  I am sitting in front trying to soak in all the wisdom.

By then it was time to get back to the hotel, go to dinner, and catch another sunset.

Not bad for a day off.

13 miles today

Grand Rapids to Hibbing

We had a relatively short ride today, almost all on trails, and there were lots of picture opportunities.  The forecast was for sunshine, but relatively cool weather, so we all put on sunscreen and wore our cool weather clothes.  Turned out the forecast wasn't completely correct, but we were able to adapt without problems.  Here is the start to our "sunny" day.

I suppose the sun was out above the fog, so maybe that counts.  The fog didn't last real long, and soon we were on our trail for the day.

This trail is privately managed, and they have a registration fee of  $10 per rider for a 3 day pass.  Well worth it in my opinion.  It appears to be a combination of old railroad beds & just trails laid down through the landscape.  From a bike riding perspective, the railroad beds are easier riding but typically not as scenic.  It is nice to get a five mile stretch of flat riding after struggling up hills for a while.  I only have two complaints about the trail maintenance considering they have my $10.

In fairness, I guess they can't be everywhere instantly, but we did have to walk around this tree that was obstructing the trail.  The other problem is something that we have experienced on and off the whole trip when we are on trails.  

In some areas, the trails have horizontal cracks that are jarring on the bike, although I have an easier time with my recumbent seat.  Our upright bike riders have a bigger problem.  This picture shows a single crack, but it isn't unusual to have as many as 15 or 20 cracks in a 200' stretch.  The  other problem is identified by the white circles painted on the pavement.  These are sometimes affectionately called "Launchers".  They protrude up through the pavement, and just plain need to be avoided.  The paint serves as a warning, but the preferred solution is to get rid of them.  I'm glad to say that more than 90% of the trails don't have either of these problems.

Now on to some of the more interesting features seen today.  I stopped to take a picture on a bridge and noticed that some ambitious spiders had built webs on the bridge itself.  I found this picture more interesting than the lake.

A little further down the trail, there was some evidence of logging activity.

And then I came around a corner and thought I saw snow on the ground

I knew that couldn't be correct, so I got off the bike and investigated.  The area looked as if it had maybe been logged in the last 10 -15 years.  Some young trees are starting to come back, and this is some kind of moss or something.  Here is a close up.

The next interesting sight was a floating bridge.  I'm sure it is cheaper than something more permanent, and since the transition point to the trail can vary depending on the water level, the sign was appropriate

I did walk my bike across as suggested, but someone not in our group chose to ignore the advice.

When we were obviously back on the rail bed portion of the trail, we also traveled through a few small towns.  The other day, I put up a picture of a colorful tire fence.  Well there must be a lot of extra tires up here, because here is one I found that has a bunch more tires, might actually serve as a fence of some sort, but isn't nearly as colorful.

Another thing I haven't noticed before on the rail bed trails is shown below.

Chin Link fencing on both sides of the trail.  This is an area where the trail was at least 20' above the surrounding landscape, so the only thing I can imagine is that they are trying to keep bicycles, and maybe snowmobiles from falling off and down the embankment.  Seems like an expensive deterrent to me.

I don't have any sunsets or rainbows today, but here is the most picturesque scene available.

41 miles today.

Next up is our final day off before we finish next Saturday.

Walker to Grand Rapids

Today's ride took me back to 2019 when I did the Coast to Coast ride from San Diego to St Augustine.  At times it felt like Deja Vu, and brought back lots of memories.  Here's why - 

1.  We were 95% of the day on roads (nicely paved with good shoulders)

2.  We rode for about 60 miles, which is more than the average for this ride, but just about the average for the Coast to Coast.

3.  There was a lot of up and down hills. (mostly not too steep, but I am more tired tonight than any day on this trip yet.

4.  It rained on and off most of the afternoon (we had a lot of bad weather on the Coast to Coast in 2019)

The day can be pretty much summed up with these three pictures:

These three roads pretty much took us the whole way.  One of the nice features of both this trip, and the Coast to Coast is getting rest stops along the way.  The wife of one of our riders drives a van, which also hauls our clothes and gear so we don't have to carry that on our bikes.  She also positions herself about every 20 miles so we can stop and refill water, get a snack and just check in with each other.  Here is what such a rest stop looks like.

We are just getting ready to pull out after our break.  You will notice that I have my yellow rain jacket on, which means this was in the afternoon.  The forecast was for "sprinkles", but when we came outside after lunch at a local cafe, it was raining, not sprinkling.  We waited for about 10 minutes, and the rain stopped, but still looked threatening, so on went the rain gear.  For the rest of the afternoon it alternated between steady rain, and other times the road was dry meaning it had not rained at all there.  Most important I was warm.

Here is a picture someone got of me from behind.  You can see the storm clouds building.

One of our riders is intrigued with how I start out from a stop on my Cruzbike.  My approach is what is called the "Fred Flintstone".  I stand up and push off to get the bike rolling a bit, then just slide down into the seat and raise my feet up to the pedals.  I find it very effective.  He says that from behind it looks like I am getting ready to launch like an airplane.  He tried to get a picture of it for the last few days, but wasn't happy with the results, so this morning we did a posed take off, and got this interesting shot.  I told him we just need to get the tires off the ground!

Our nightly ritual is dinner at a local restaurant, and here is a picture of our current group from tonight.

I've posted a number of sunset photos from other days, but tonight we had something different to see in the sky.

Tomorrow we are back on a trail for most of the day, and the weather is promising sunshine, but cool.  We are all ready for that.

62 miles today.

Bemidgi to Walker

Before we left Bemidgi this morning, we back tracked a couple of miles to see their version of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.  We were going to do that yesterday as we came into town, but decided against it because of the rain.  Here is what we saw.

I personally liked better the other likenesses we saw as we were riding north, but now I know.  There was also a statue of a Native American in the same park as Paul.  This statue was made out of iron & is bigger than life size.

Then we started our trip to the next trail.  That means much of the day we were on country roads.  They were well paved with wide shoulders and a rumble strip to alert any drivers who may accidentally drift.  I felt very safe.  A lot of the roads we have been on carry this designation.

We are close to the headwaters of the Mississippi River, and it is a tourist attraction for many.  We probably crossed the Mississippi 5 or 6 times today.  In this territory the river does not run straight south as we are accustomed to thinking about it.  It runs north out of Lake Itasca, then west, then south, then east etc before it makes the big turn south towards New Orleans.  It is also much smaller as you can see in this picture.

I do understand why Minnesota is called the land of 10,000 lakes.  Here is another perspective on that with a little different look than some pictures I have posted before.

 There is another piece of the landscape that I have seen other places before, but today for the first time on this trip.  A large swampy area with thousands of dead trees.  They aren't really large trees, but big enough to have grown for 10 - 30 years I would guess.  Makes me wonder what caused all of them to die.

One human interest picture today from the road.  I choose to call it the tire fence, but the tires are spaced out so far they won't hold anything in, and they are sunk in the ground about 1/2 their diameter, but the thing that made it picture worthy is that every other tire is painted either purple or blue.  Why?  I have no idea.

After about 25 miles on the roads, we did come to a trail that took us to our overnight stop in Walker.  Tomorrow we have a full day of roads before we come to the next big trail adventure.

48 miles today.