We are still alive and well and making good progress!

My apologies to everyone who thinks we might be dead. All is well, but I  for one am looking forward to cooler weather.
This is August 25th, and we made it to Marquand, Missouri this afternoon. It is very hot and humid, and the hills on Tuesday and Wednesday were brutal (today not so bad), so our days have been shorter than we had planned. Tomorrow we will arrive in Cape Girardeau where we will cross the Mississippi River for the last time and head east on the last leg of our trip. We left KC almost 3 months ago, and we’re pretty much on schedule. And, you know, neither one of us misses home. We miss our friends, family, and neighbors, and maybe I miss the cats a wee bit (Dave doesn't, needless to say). It has been hot and humid since Minnesota, so we gave up on camping for the most part. We only camped once in Minnesota, twice in Iowa, and once here in Missouri a couple of nights ago, because of the heat. So far, we have crossed the Mississippi River 8 times, and we’ll cross it one more time at Cape Girardeau.

Here’s a summary of our Minnesota trip.

Fargo to Minneapolis days 40 – 45 July 22 to July 27
Fargo to Pelican Rapids 66.1 miles
Pelican Rapids to Alexandria 82.2 miles
Alexandria to Holdingford 59.1 miles
Holdingford to Milaca 55.4 miles
Milaca to Osceola, WI 79.1 miles
Osceola, WI to Eagan, MN 65 miles

The first day out of Fargo started out flat, but it got hilly in the last half where there were a lot of resorts; muggy and buggy. On day two about 25 miles down the road at Fergus Falls, we got on the Central Lakes Bike Trail and rode on it the rest of the day to Alexandria. In Alexandria is the Kensington Rune Stone, which some people believe proves that the Vikings reached Minnesota in the 1360’s. There is a paragraph chiseled in the stone written in the ancient Nordic language stating what had happened to them in the year 1362. It was unearthed in 1898 by a Swedish immigrant as he was clearing land near Kensington, MN. Scholars dismissed it as a hoax, but it was exhibited in the Smithsonian in 1948 and described as “probably the most important archeological find yet found in North America.” But linguists and historians say is it’s a practical joke played by an early Swedish immigrant.
The next day, we continued on the Central Lakes Bike Trail to Osakis, then got on the Lake Wobegon Trail to Bowlus, MN. We rode on those two trails for 106 miles. Both were paved trails, and all of the towns along the trails had green spaces with benches and flower gardens. It was great. One of the towns we went through while on the trail was Sauk Centre, the boyhood home of Lewis Sinclair.
The route then had us go north of Minneapolis, across the St. Croix River to Osceola, Wisconsin. Along the way, we went through Sunset, MN, the boyhood home of Richard Widmark! More significantly, there was a great little ice cream place in the old bank building. We spent the night in Osceola and it’s a neat little town. Our ride from Osceola south to where we crossed back into Minnesota at Stillwater was really fun. We were on mostly untraveled county roads on the bluffs above the river. We ran into some construction, so we had to make our own way. And it was funny, out in the middle of nowhere, we met a car, and the man asked us directions, as if we on loaded bikes would know where we were. The weather looked more threatening as we crossed the St. Croix into Stillwater, which is a very busy tourist town, so we stopped for lunch. It poured while we were eating, so we split a hot fudge sundae to kill time. The rain stopped just long enough for us to put on our rain gear and get on our bikes. It poured while we rode into and through the twin cities, all on bike trails. Getting through town took a good 2 to 3 hours, and the rain did stop about half way. Along the way, we caught up with an older man (yes, even older than us) who had ridden cross country over several years, and he invited us to stay with him. We've met nothing but kind, generous people on this trip. Eagan is a suburb on the south side of town, and Dave’s nephew John and his wife Krisi put us up while we were there. They arranged a family get together (15 people!), including Dave’s aunt Dorothy, who is 90. Great fun. We stayed three days, and it was a much needed rest, at least for me. I had too plead for that third day off. We went to a Twins game (rode the light rail to the stadium), and visited the Mill City museum (Minneapolis used to be the flour milling capital of the United States).
We left Minneapolis on Sunday, July 28th, exactly two months after we left KC., rode southeast and crossed the Mississippi into Wisconsin……. sorry, no pictures tonight.