UpperMiss

Day 5

Wednesday, 2 June 2010
St. Croix Falls, WI to St. Paul, MN
52.7 miles, 4h22m, 12.1 mph
Elapsed Time: 6h06m, Max speed: 32.5mph
Total Climbing: 1578ft, Max elevation: 1186ft
Total mileage: 351.5

We planned a short day today so we could get in to St. Paul do stuff. But we woke up to rain. The rain that was supposed to pass through last night was a little late, so we waited for it to end. We finally got started at about 9am.

We found some back roads and plunged down into downtown St. Croix Falls and stopped at the National Scenic River Visitor Center. Watched the movie. Marveled at the destructiveness of the zebra mussel. Learned how Minnesota wild rice is harvested. Learned that there never were falls at St. Croix Falls--only rapids--and the name was a gimmick to get tourists to come. Then went on our way.

And took one last picture of the St. Croix River.

We took the short climb up the other side out of Taylor's Falls--which was the steep climb. And then we ended up on a dirt road for a while...

..which made both of us unhappy.

Then suddenly we stumbled across the Franconia Scupture Park. This is not one of your typical, "We've got nothing to do all winter so we make funny "art" out of junk." No, this is real art...at least some of it is.

Not sure about this.

Or this.

This is a playground made from jagged and rusty metal.

This is me in said playground.

This is an Oldsmobile Achieva S.

At this point it was 11am and we had covered less than 10 miles. So we got serious and crancked out some miles. Still, there were distractions.

Like this monument to the first Swedish settlers in Minnesota.

Twenty miles outside of St. Paul we jumped on he Gateway Trail, which took us almost to downtown. There was a dog chasing incident involving "Amber," whose owner decided that she wouldn't need a leash. The pepper spray was not deployed.

Not how Mr. Balint blends in to his surroundings.

I just can't get away from these things.

And we stopped by the state capitol for a quick photo-op.

We checked in to the hotel and walked down to the Science Museum of Minnesota to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit and the rest of the science stuff. This is the best science museum I've even been to. The stuff was intended for more than just kids--they even had an exhibit explaining calculus, which we steered clear of. The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit was long on history and short on scrolls. But they can only show the scrolls for so long before the light starts to affect them, so they only show five fragments at a time. Still, it was worth seeing.

They even have a Quack Science Exhibit. The Prostate Gland Warmer was a favorite.

I think this was spider web silk, or something.

By the time we got out of there it was dinner time. We hit the Grille across the street from the hotel.

Tomorrow we're riding 70 miles to Lake City. Friday could be a problem. There's a state track meet in LaCrosse and all the hotel rooms in town are booked. We'll see where we end up.

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