77: A very long day

Everything about today seemed long. It took us about 30 miles to leave the Twin Cities metroplex - which is to say we were just on the fringe of Cottage Grove, a suburban community of St Paul, when we ran into cornfields again.

We crossed Minneapolis on bike trails, followed the river road, crossed through Fort Snelling, and crossed I can't remember how many rivers and streams: at a minimum, Minnehaha Creek, the Minnesota River, Mississippi River, St Croix River, and finally Chippewa River.

The Big Muddy - Mississippi River. We'll be back to it in a few thousand miles!

We changed our mind about our course across Wisconsin at least three times (at least no extra miles were ridden) and finally settled on the most direct route, roughly following US 10. It's a pretty route, but the road surface is a mess. The first segment had concrete for the road, asphalt for the shoulder, and a nice little groove between the two. The shoulder wasn't really wide enough to comfortably ride, so we kept crossing over that groove and a couple of times, I feared we were going to come to grief and take a spill. Roger held us steady, though, and the road did finally improve about 20 miles into the state.

Wisconsin cows - milk,  not burgers

Wisconsin farms are beautiful!

The farmland isn't vastly different from what we saw in Minnesota, but there are some distinctions. It seems almost all the barns are the prototypical red with hipped roof. Whoever put the initial model together for that cute little Fisher-Price toy farm must have been from Wisconsin, because it's a direct copy of what we've seen out here.

And - the cows here are dairy cattle, and so far we've seen them in several colors, but not the black Angus of the beef states.

I didn't get his name, but his kind gent and his buddy were at the convenience store when we stopped in, and he was impressed with our travels and wanted to buy our sandwiches. Since we'd already paid, he bought us some cookies after lunch.  So our first "treat" from a complete stranger has come in Wisconsin.

Thanks!

Based on the clouds, I was thinking that perhaps Minnesota would make it 7 for 7, and we'd have rain before we left the state. But we managed to cross the St Croix into Wisconsin without getting rained on, making Minnesota the first state in which we have ridden without being soaked.

Clouds looked threatening, but did not break.

We are making for the ferry to cross Lake Michigan, and so today was long - 90 miles. Tomorrow should be a bit easier.

The day's report:  Minneapolis to Durand, 90.3 miles/3747 to date