West Memphis to Mississippi River State Park

This is one of the most beautiful state parks with really nice campsites.

After riding nearly 60 miles today, my back was so sore that I knew my long distance riding days were numbered. The rest of the way will be finding some shorter, more scenic/nicer routes to ride to fulfill the spirit of this trip.

The truth is that riding 100 miles on the edge of a highway through flat farmland lost its appeal. This really is the part of the ride where things get kind of flat and boring. Iā€™m looking forward to that last days ride to the Gulf.

Beautiful Fall Day at Mississippi River SP

Meanwhile we had a nice campfire and enjoyed a really beautiful night in the park.

Our campsite

Using the night mode on my iPhone

A Dogged Ride to Fort Pillow

Today I saw fields of cotton ready for harvest for the first time in my life. What a sight! Acres of white ā€œflowersā€ against a backdrop of green.

After breaking camp at lake Reel Foot and riding for a while with Jane I got on my bike for the last 52 miles into our destination of Fort Pillow. Less than 100 yards from starting my ride I was chased by two dogs. Of course this was going to happen as I had just commented to Jane that of all the things so far the last couple of weeks I was glad that I hadnā€™t had to cope with dogs! These two were just a dramatic foreshadowing of my day to come. Following the MRT took me through lots of pockets of rural houses on very lightly traveled roads. But every house had at least one dog and all of them wanted to greet me in some way. None of them attacked, but when you are on a bike it is never fun to have dogs running beside you or in front of you, you just donā€™t know what they will do.

In addition to the cotton fields I also saw a lot of Kudzu forests. Kudzu is an invasive plant species introduced from Japan. It can grow a foot a day and loves to cover the native trees giving the forests that have been taken over by the Kudzu quite an interesting look!

Kudzu forestMore Kudzu!

Todayā€™s ride was also super hilly! The final few miles up to the campground at Fort Pillow almost did me in! Iā€™m very happy that this should be one of the last hilly rides, the rest of the way to Louisiana should be pretty flat.

Iā€™ve read quite a bit about the civil war but had never heard of a general Pillow. Turns out he didnā€™t last long and neither did the fort. Less than a year from completion the fort was abandoned by the confederacy. It was a very nice campground, and it was a beautiful Fall night. A good chance to have a campfire and enjoy some well earned steaks after a hard ride!

Tomorrow Jane and I plan to do an easy ride on a bike path on the way to Memphis, then Iā€™m planning to take a couple days off as we rest up and take in a few of the sites in Memphis. Hopefully some BBQ on Beale street is in my future.

Trail of Tears State Park

From Fort Kaskaskia we drove to the Trail of Tears State Park. This park marks the spot where thousands of Cherokee were driven across the Mississippi river in a forced relocation to reservations in the west. Over 1/4 of the Cherokee died on the trip. A shameful part of our past.

The campground here is small and remote, except for the railroad tracks that run right next to the campground and river. For some reason the engineers feel it necessary to blow their whistles in the middle of the night for the tiny trail that crosses the tracks from the campground to the river. Needless to say this was not our best nights sleep.

But Iā€™m getting ahead of myself. We were only about 10 miles from Cape Girardeau a beautiful river town, with murals on the cement flood wall that tell the story of the town. On our way into town we stopped at the Cape Bicycle shop to stock up on some supplies. I had a great chat with one of the guys in the store (owner maybe). He gave me some good riding advice, and some recommendations on where we could get a good pizza and some local brew. Minglewood brewery was the place. We were able to hang out, enjoy some beer, tater-tot nachos, and pizza while watching the US Mens national team. I would recommend both Minglewood and the cycle shop if you are passing through.

After a pretty bad nights sleep, my back was hurting, so I just did a short ride around on the park roads.

Jane had taken off with the truck to do a hike and I had left my helmet in the truck. So I didnā€™t want to go on the highway and I didnā€™t want to go far or fast anyway, so a gentle ride to stretch my muscles was all I wanted. Janeā€™s hike was like a trip through the jungle, she had to use her walking sticks to clear away the spider webs!

One of the things the guys in the bike shop told me, which of course Jane already knew, was not to ride across this bridge!!

Do NOT ride or walk your bike over this very narrow bridge.

Since it was a day to ride in the truck, I did not! Instead we rode together to Columbus Belmont state park. After setting up camp I had just enough signal to participate in the afternoon plenary session of the Concordia board meeting.

Our campground host was very welcoming, and was willing to deliver a nice load of wood for just $5. This was great as we made some pork satays over an open fire along with couscous and chickpeas.

Hannibal / Hamberg to Pere Marquette

I awoke with heavy legs this morning! The plan was for Jane to drive me back across the river, retracing part of my ride from yesterday. Then, to drop me off so I could ride to the State Park. Sometimes things donā€™t go quite as planned.

A mile or two into the ride, maybe even less I noticed that I had a flat. Not so bad, I havenā€™t had any flat tires for quite a while now. So I pulled over to make the change only to discover that I had left my pump in the camper! Thankfully Jane was only a few miles down the road, and I had cell service. She came back with the pump and another tire and a bit later I was changed and on my way.

Less than a mile down the road I was flat again. Grrrā€¦ Maybe it was the tired legs, or the heat, or whatever but that was the last straw for me. On the phone again to Jane. ā€œI guess I was not meant to ride today.ā€ So back she came again. As I was waiting I took the whole tire off and once again felt inch by inch to see if I could find something. Finally I found a tiny sharp spine that had somehow worked its way through. I had missed it the first time around but not now. Still, when Jane got back I put the bike on the rack and hopped in the truck.

I sat there stewing and angry about flat tires for quite a few miles before I finally decided that maybe it was time to pull off, fix the tire and ride the rest of the way.

Fixing a flat

The first part of the abbreviated ride was from Hamberg, which was on some beautiful country roads. Here I am as Jane decided to follow me for a few miles just to be sure.

The second part of the ride was along a pretty busy Illinois Hwy 100. Not so great, but here I am crossing the Illinois river about 15 miles short of Pere Marquette State Park.

We put the Instant Pot to work to make some ribs which we finished over our campfire and some cheesy rice. Tomorrow is scheduled to be a day of rest.

Nauvoo to Hannibal

Today was a total washout. I woke up and looked at the forecast and radar only to see a huge patch of rain heading our way. Strangely from east to west. I guess we are in the south now? I just had time to get the bike on the rack and get them covered up before the rain started. So we had a nice breakfast and watched the radar. Clearly an all day thing. I am not into riding all day in the rain so today became a day off. When the rain finally did let up, we did a short hike at Wildcat Den State Park and then drove to Nauvoo.

Here is what it looks like when you are the only camper in the campground!

Lonely Campground

Nauvoo, home to the grave of Joseph Smith and one really big Mormon temple looked like a pretty sleepy little town as we pulled in. The town turned out to be larger than we thought, but it was still pretty quiet. After setting up camp we took a short walk to the oldest winery in Illinois. We keep trying to convince ourselves that we will find a good wine somewhere along the Mississippi. šŸ¤£

The morning came and the sun was out, a great day to ride to ride. the first part of the day was beautiful, following the river right at river level.

As the day wore on I got further away from the river and more into farmland as well as higher temperatures and a bit of a southern breeze. A different kind of scenery but it was fun to see the harvest in progress.

Fall Harvest in Illinois

Heading into Hannibal I rode across the Mississippi on I72 - the only stretch of Interstate in Illinois where bikes are allowed. At this point I was getting pretty tired of riding into the wind and I was low on water, so thankfully I was getting close. After the bridge it was all downhill into Hannibal. Unfortunately our campground was not in downtown, it was outside of Hannibal on the other side of a hill!

One shower and a gallon of water later I was ready to head back into town. We decided, unsurprisingly, on a pizza/pasta place called the brick oven. We were lucky I was ready for an early supper as by the time we left there was a very long waiting list.

Of course when in town you have to stop and help Tom Sawyer whitewash a fence.

I thought I was cleverly hiding my leftovers while whitewashingā€¦

On the way back to camp we stopped at Lovers Leap where we had a beautiful view of the river and Hannibal.

The Mississippi and Hannibal MO near sunset

I did manage to stay awake until 10, even knowing that I had another 80 miles on the schedule for the next day.

Pikeā€™s Peak to Dubuque

After a wonderful weekend in Decorah for our 35 year class reunion, we arrived at Pikeā€™s Peak state park just after dark. This was to be our first time of setting up cam in the dark, but we were not too worried, until we saw a pickup in our spot. Nobody was around and it was just sitting there taking up space. I hopped out of the truck and knocked on the door of the fifth-wheel next door. No answer. Same with the popup on the other side. Grrrr! Suddenly a nice man came quickly down the road. ā€œSorry, Sorry, I thought this was vacant for tonight and I wanted to recharge a few things. Our spot is not electric!ā€ OK, no problem he moved his truck and we were all good. Time to get a good nights sleep to prepare for the ride.

Ready to Ride

Yesterday was the start of the final push of this journey. Iowa to the Gulf of Mexico! And what a ride it was, 58 miles with lots and lots of climbing. At times I was cruising along high above the river with great views and other times it was just me and my friends.

Ummmmā€¦. Cows

Mostly the roads were good and the motorists were all very courteous. I had a good shoulder to ride on most of the time. I could definitely tell that I had not been doing enough climbing as my back was a little sore and my neck muscles were too by the time I finished the ride for the day.

After arriving at the campground in Dubuque Jane was just setting up camp, so I helped finish that task and then did some stretching. We had plans to have dinner with Rachelā€™s parents (Greg and Peggy Miller) and it turned out to be a wonderful evening. I had some great pasta (Carbs!!) at L May in downtown Dubuque.

This is going to be a great trip. We will see if we settle into a rhythm, but its kind of nice to wake up, have a few hours to work, answer emails, etc. before jumping on the bike again.

02 Bemidji to Brainerd ā€” My First Century

02 Bemidji to Brainerd - My First Century

Yesterday the ride from Itasca to Bemidji turned out to be shorter than expected by 10 miles. Todayā€™s ride turned out to be longer than expected by a good 10 miles. Yesterday started out with a flat tire after only 10 miles. But after the flat the ride was easy and interesting. I crossed the Mississippi ā€œriverā€ several times.

The Mississippi in its not so mighty phase

Today began bright and early with a 6:40AM departure from our campsite at Lake Bemidji State Park. The temps were cool, and a stiff breeze out of the south kept me feeling good. Later I would come to appreciate that breeze less and less and the temperatures rose and my legs got more tired. Early in the ride you cross the Mississippi as it exits from Lake Bemidji.

The mississippi coming out of Lake Bemidji

After that, the Paul Bunyan trail does not cross the mississippi like the Mississippi River Trail, but is an official alternate for the MRT, almost all of is on abandoned rail beds and is pretty flat. Everything was very pretty with the morning light.

Little Valley

except for one section around Walker (about 50 miles in) that was not very flat, and came at exactly the wrong time in my ride.

At the 79 mile mark Jane was waiting for me with Lunch! It was about 20 miles further than I was ready for it, but that is part of what this first leg of the journey is about. Figuring things out, learning what gear we need and what my limits are.

After lunch my legs were still feeling tired, and the wind kept getting stronger and stronger out of the south. Also less of the trail was tree lined so that made the breeze and the sun both stronger.

I made it to the 100 mile mark!

100 Miles! My first Century!  Still 20 miles to go.

Unfortunately after making 100 it was clear that I still had at least 20 miles left to go. At that point I knew I could make it to Brainerd, but I was probably not going to make it to our campsite south of Brainerd for the night. That is why we have the truck!

Now Iā€™m sitting in the camper writing this post and encouraging my legs to recover their strength for tomorrow. Tomorrow and Thursday are much shorter 68 miles tomorrow and 58 miles on Thursday. Should be a piece of cake!

Prelude (Day 0) Mississippi Headwaters

Standing at the headwaters.  I remember wading here when I was much younger.

We had a lovely 20 mile ride around Lake Itasca planned for today with a stop at the headwaters of the Mississippi. As the sign says, 2552 miles! That is roughly the length of our journey, in three parts ā€” Its a long way, but at least it is downhill! For those who donā€™t know what Iā€™m going on about, here is the story.

Sometime earlier this year I said it would be fun to ride the Mississippi from start to finish. It turns out there is a popular route known as the Mississippi River Trail. Its not a bike path but an established route of trails and roads leading from Itasca State Park in Minnesota all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. Iā€™ll be riding my bike and Jane will be riding a bit, pulling the camper, hiking and providing support.

Part I is the ride from Itasca to Minneapolis. This will take place Monday through Thursday this week. It features my first 100+ mile day from Bemidji to Brainerd on the Paul Bunyan trail.

Part II is the ride from Minneapolis to Lansing Iowa. This will be three days starting Labor Day. Weā€™ll end up camping in Decorah prior to Josh and Rachelā€™s much delayed wedding celebration with friends and family. All fully vaccinated, we hope.

Part III will be from Lansing to the Gulf starting October 4th. We will be back at Luther for our 35 year class Reunion and when that is over we will take off down the river. Most days will be 60 - 70 miles but as we get further south and the route gets flatter Iā€™ll have a few 100+ days.

Trying to catch up to Jane ā€” riding her new eBike!Our campsite, right on the bike trail.

Our ride today was not what we expected since the wilderness road was closed due to downed trees and a high fire forrest fire risk šŸŒ² šŸ”„. So we ended up doing more of the ride on the wonderful state park trails.

Tomorrow Iā€™ll rest my legs for a day and then Monday I will take off for Bemidji.

Three Days in Chelan

Well, I think it is time to head East. When we started making our egg scramble for breakfast this morning the sausage had mold on it, and so did one of our bags of shredded cheese! Its nothing that a stop at a grocery store wonā€™t fix, but we are both ready anyway. Weā€™ve been on the road with the camper for 20 days, and it has been quite a trip.

The last few days have been really wonderful. We got to park the camper at Lake Chelan State Park and hang out with our friends Jim and Karen for three days! Jim and Karen are experts on the Chelan and Leavenworth areas having both lived in the area before, so they had lots of great outings planned for us.

Day One, we met at the Wal-mart parking lot to leave the camper until check-in time and headed out for a wine tasting and lunch! We found a great location at Bensonā€™s who also served a great local wood fired pizza. Check out this amazing view of Lake Chelan from our lunch stop!

Wine and lunch at Bensonā€™s winery

That pretty much captures the area in a nutshell. Everywhere you go you are treated to amazing views of the lake. By the time we finished lunch and our tasting it was late enough to move the camper to the campground.

Beautiful campsite at Lake Chelan State Park

With the camper situated, we were able to explore the south side of the lake and see the Holden guest house that Jim helped build many years ago. We had another pre-dinner wine tasting at the Tsillan (pronounced Chelan) winery. The weather was HOT 95+ degrees. The wine was also really good. Iā€™m bringing home bottles of RosĆ© and Pinot Grigio. Dinner was in downtown Chelan at Campbells, followed by a campfire back at our site. There were two big RVā€™s next door to us, each with a gaggle of kids and their bikes. The kids were riding their bikes back and forth, no hands, getting as close as they could to Jim and Karenā€™s car parked in front of our camper! This was making both Jim and Karen very nervous, and they were ready to make the drive back to their place anyway, so they left. Meanwhile the biking and the squeaky bike brakes continued long after dark! We laughed that we are edging ever closer to those old people that yell ā€œget off my lawn!ā€

Tuesday morning, Jim and I headed out for a ride up the lake. It was perfect weather and a great morning for a ride. My fat tire had to work hard to keep up with Jimā€™s road bike.

Trying to Keep up with Jim

We had bratwurst for lunch at the campground, and then Jim and Karen took off to take care of some family things. We were also awaiting the arrival of Janeā€™s aunt Joanne and uncle Dale. Her cousin David drove them up from Yakima to see us. This is Janeā€™s last remaining aunt and uncle and we havenā€™t seen them in years so it was great to see them and have a chance to chat.

Wednesday, the plan was to head to Leavenworth, where Karenā€™s parents and cousins live. Karen had a favorite hike for us to do, and Janeā€™s cousin runs Viscontiā€™s restaurant there. Leavenworth has been remodeled to resemble a Bavarian mountain village and is a charming little town. We enjoyed a lunch at a local Mexican restaurant (Yes, I know, not very Bavarian, but we just had brats for lunch on Tuesday). We visited the local fair trade store that was owned by Karenā€™s parents as well as the hat shop and toy shop owned by her uncle.

Downtown Leavenworth

Downtown was really hot, so we headed up the mountain to take a hike along the Icicle river. The snow melt is fast and furious in the mountains so the rivers are really flowing.

Wild Rapids

Great to visit friends in Washington!

Not a selfie!

Although the water was very cold and the temperatures up on the mountain were much cooler we were still all pretty hot and tired after the hike. So we showed up for our reservation an hour early. No problem we enjoyed some more local wine and eventually ordered our meal.

Karen was going to spend a couple of days with her parents, helping out around the house, so we dropped her off before making the hour long trek back to the campground. By then we were tired so we just spent some time picking up the campsite and preparing for our morning departure.

The campsite was very tight, and in addition, there was a car parked right across from our site, making our exit very narrow. after getting the trailer hooked up Jane nearly had us out of the site except for the large rock blocking the corner of our site. I had tried to move it earlier in the morning in preparation for our exit but couldnā€™t move it. Luckily there was a burly young man doing his dishes at the water faucet on the edge of our site who said ā€œI can move that rock for youā€. together we rolled it over and we were able to get the camper out. Our next move was to wake up the tenters that owned the parked car and ask them to move it. Thankfully that was not needed.

Snowy Adventure

The North Cascades (Americaā€™s Alps) is a beautiful stop on our journey. Not to mention the warmest temperatures (72 degrees) since Indio! It is also Memorial Day weekend, and the place is a zoo! Cars are everywhere, people are everywhere. Its almost as if friends and families have been freed from a pandemic and are now happily gathering together again after more than a year of quarantine and social distance.

Case in point, our camping neighbors, with double the allowable tents on their campsite, two dogs (Luna and Lance) and countless children. My guess from looking at all of them on the trail is that they are all young tech workers who have made the trek to the National Park to enjoy a holiday together. I really wanted to poll everyone who passed us on the trail ā€œComputer Science degree?ā€

After arriving and getting the camper situated we decided to hike the Thunder Knob Trail. The info Jane had on the trail said it was 425 feet of elevation gain. The park brochure said 625 feet, but my feet and legs were claiming even more! We had about a quarter of the trek up left to go when a pair of young girls skipped past us and announced ā€œYou have a LONG way to go to get to the top!ā€. Thanks for killing my spirit I muttered. It would not be a proper vacation without at least one hiking turning out to be way more challenging than you thought.

Nevertheless it was a spectacular view of Diablo Lake. The kind of place you could just sit and contemplate the beauty of nature, and remind yourself that there is a lot of good in our country.

It was a perfect night for a campfirešŸ”„ unfortunately we were lacking šŸŖµ šŸŖµ The National Park prohibits gathering šŸŖµ as well as the sale of šŸŖµ. We should have bought šŸŖµ in Marblemount from one of the friendly people on the side of the road! We made due with what our predecessors had left us in the fire ring and a little bit of kindling that was laying next to the šŸ”„ pit. The leftovers consisted of three large šŸŖµ that refused to really burn. Jane did her best to whittle down the šŸŖµ into smaller chunks but really only made more kindling. We managed to enjoy it all for a couple of hours anyway.

Jane making some Firewood

This morning we had many options! Jane had a very long list of hikes we could do. We decided to head for the furthest one called Blue Lake. Alas when we arrived at the trailhead the lot was still under many feet of snow. We hiked through the lot and attempted to find the trail itself, which did not look at all inviting.

The Blue Lake Lot is closed

OK, for plan B we drove back toward camp thinking we would stop at Rainy Lake. It looked snowy as well, but the sheet we got from the ranger said that it was ā€œA wheelchair-accessible paved trail to a mountain lakeā€ How hard could it be? Our first clue should have been the couple and their dogs on skis! It turns out that when a wheelchair-accessible trail is under anywhere from 5 to 20 feet of snow it makes for a lot of ups and downs! Lots of slippery climbs and feet sinking six inches into the snow! In short, it was a snowy adventure (in shorts!) just trying to figure out where the trail was.

Works for meā€¦

Is this the trail??

This is a good sign!

If Jane hadnā€™t downloaded the trail on her All-Trails app we would never have found the lake! We would trek a ways forward then stop and consult the map. inevitably we were off to one side or the other of the official trail. We were completely by ourselves, and I immediately thought about the warnings that there were bears and rattlesnakes about. Well, I was not worried about rattlesnakes! I wasnā€™t really worried about šŸ» either but the thought did cross my mind.

After all of our work to get to the lake it was definitely worth it, all the more so because there were only a few people there. A real contrast to the campground!

By the time we finished the hike Janeā€™s feet were soaked! We were both way more worn out than anyone would ever imagine after a simple two mile hike on a wheelchair-accessible trail šŸ˜‚ On the way back to the campground we discussed our options. Jane had made a second reservation for tonight at Pearrygin State Park, in case it was too cold in the National Park. Its not cold, but we decided that we might as well make another 60 miles of progress this afternoon as another hike was not in the cards. Who knows how busy this campground will be but we might as well find out.

It turned out great! We have a great site right next to the lake, and it was a beautiful night to grill some steaks and enjoy a campfire. This time we stopped and supported the ā€œneighborhood kidsā€ outside of Winthrop by purchasing several bundles of šŸŖµ for our upcoming šŸ”„.