UpperMiss

Day 3

Monday, 31 May 2010
Duluth, MN to Hinckley, MN
79.3 miles, 6h37m, 12.0 mph
Elapsed Time: 8h50m, Max speed: 25.0mph
Total Climbing: 1015ft, Max elevation: 1188ft
Total mileage: 237.5

It was a beautiful day for cycling. We rolled out of Duluth at 7:30 and worked our way through town to the Willard Mulger State Trail--a paved bike path that would take us some 70 miles to Hinckley.

All happy and full after destroying the breakfast buffet.

The Munger Trail is on an old rail line. For the first 9 miles it climbed at a fairly steady grade. We kept expecting to crest the ridge and start down the other side, but it never happened. It still hasn't happened. I guess this is just how high it is around here and Duluth is in a valley. Anyway, that's elevation we've got in the bank.

Climbing on the Munger.

All happy and climbing.

Up on top there was a resevoir spillway.

The first 14 miles of the Munger Trail were fairly interesting, and then it set out across the prairie. And it got, well, kind of boring. If we were on the road at least we'd have to stay alert to traffic--though there wasn't much of that on the roads we could see. The trail was mostly good, the weather was beautiful, the scenery was repetitious--like a Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

Imagine looking at this for about four hours.

So we found ways to pass the time--like guessing what that white colored thing off in the distance was (it was a building roof, which won me a beer--Balint said it was the sky).

And there was always the phone.

We stopped for lunch in Moose Lake, which was not as picturesque as the name would suggest. But we had a good lunch, and pie that claimed to be the "Best on the Planet." We must have changed planets because I'm pretty sure I've had better pie on Earth.

After lunch we just cranked out the miles. We stopped in Finlayson to refill our bottles. And cranked out the miles.

The highlight of the day was passing this unusually tall telephone pole in a gravel pit.

And finally we rolled in to Hinckley. Hinckley is famous for the Great Fire of Hinckley, a forest fire that destroyed several towns and killed 400-800 people on Sept. 1, 1894. There is a Great Fire Museum here, but it was closed today and won't open until after we're gone tomorrow.

The restaurant choices are somewhat weak around the motel, so we'll be taking the free shuttle to the casino for dinner. We'll see how that goes.

Tomorrow we've chosen to ride a shorter day--due to threatening weather and bodily pain--so we'll be riding to St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. This will lengthen the overall trip by a small amount, but shorten the next couple days. It will also allow us more time in St. Paul on Wednesday--should we go there.

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