HavengaBikeRide

  Our family bicycle trip involves 2 of our children and their spouses, and their children, our 7 grandsons, ranging in age from 4 to 12. So there are 13 of us all together.  We travel mainly on rail trails and other bicycle pathways with a variety of equipment--tandems, tag-alongs, single bikes and a double Weehoo trailer.  Twelve of us travel along the trail, going about 20-35 miles a day. The other one drives one van to the end, then rides the route the opposite way and meets the rest of us in the middle, often about lunchtime. They then  continue to the beginning and pick up the other van which is pulling a U-Haul trailer. That way we get vehicles and all our gear and paraphernalia moved along with us. We stay in hotels along the route, preferably with a pool.  Our daughter planned the route and where to stay and made reservations.    Saturday night was the time our other grandsons and their parents were arriving from Peoria.  A st...

We found out the county fair was happening, and decided to go. We had a good time going through the different animal exhibits: dairy, beef, horses, swine, rabbits, sheep, goats, chickens, turkeys and one lonely silver pheasant.  We had fun watching a horse ground-driving class being judged. Walking behind your horse, you directed it with reins to go around objects, go into and back out of a rectangle, and stop by a mailbox while you collected the mail & put it back in the mailbox.  We discovered that the Chocolate Shoppe had a food truck there, so we got some great-tasting ice cream, then on to the midway. Grandma Kay was wise and had us walk through the rides so we could see what was there, and then each grandson could go on two rides. Had some fresh-squeezed lemonade and ate some pizza and then for the typical fair food--some COTTON CANDY.  We all had a fun time. A smile:  our grandsons seemed to have as much fun running throught the misting station set up to h...

Jim took grandson Ben for a kayak ride.  Originally both of us were going to go but other grandsons were worried about it being too windy.  We saw a bald eagle, sand hill cranes & blue herons.  Part of the trip was on a large inland lake and part on a stream which is fed by some large springs.  

Today, we did two 8-mile round-trip bike rides with grandsons to the firefighters park playground and one also included getting ice cream.  When we were getting married, Jim jokingly talked about wanting to be married for 50 years as he wanted a specific goal, then would consider re-upping.  Well since we paused our trip, he noticed his ring finger seemed a lot bigger around; his fingers have gradually gotten larger but now his ring seemed tight.  He went to a jewelers and had to have it cut off.  The jeweler recommended waiting a couple of months to have finger stabilize before getting the ring resized. So now what? Resize old ring,  get a tattoo, silicone ring or go bare finger?  Jim is blessed that he still gets tingles when he holds Kay's hand.  

Our blog will greatly slow up  until about August 2 as we spend the next few weeks with family.  The bike adventure was fun but as we approached our daughter's family's home, we were getting eager to see family.  We have now spent time sharing meals with our daughter, son-in-law and 3 of our grandsons.  We have taken a bike ride with them so haven't totally given up on bicycles.  We are very blessed to spend time and enjoy each other's company. We have learned that it is fun hearing other peoples' stories, seeing the countryside change from oceanside to mountains to plains, and seeing a variety of birds, trees, plants and flowers.  We didn't take this trip to find ourselves but rather to experience this world around us.  We also have found many friendly people as we traveled across this vast country.   Blessings to all,   Jim & Kay 

Last night, somewhere between 11 and midnight, a group of people arrived at the campground, and settled at a campsite almost across from ours. Thet were a bit loud and having a good time for quite a while. It also started to sprinkle slightly. We fell back asleep but then at 3 am it started to thunder and to rain harder, so first we took the heavier objects out of our tent and carried them over to a picnic shelter, and then carried our assembled tent with sleeping bags and sleeping pads in it to the picnic shelter. (We had put our bikes in the shelter before we went to bed.) We got up at 6 but it was still raining and thundering, so we waited until 7 to get up. We dallied around until about 9 when we didn't hear any more thunder and the rain had mainly passed.   In the next town, Avoca, we stopped for hot cocoa and a snack. We started talking with lady buying gas who had lived in Muscoda or Avoca most of her life. While her husband was in the military, they had the...

The bed must have been soft as we slept in this morning. The staff, especially the front desk at the Super 8 were friendly and helpful, both last night and this morning.  We decided to go to the Fort Crawford Museum as it had been recommended to us and it was already closed when we went by it yesterday, and it was only a short way back. It also had a fun staff person describing the fort as well as other history that has happened in the area. It was active from a little after the War of 1812 until the Civil War. Some famous people who were stationed here: Zachary Taylor, future president; Jefferson Davis, future president of the Confederacy; and Dr. William Beaumont. He was an army surgeon who when he was stationed at Mackinac Island, treated a patient with a stomach wound from an accidental shooting. The patient survived, but the wound formed a fistula into the stomach and never healed over. So Dr. Beaumont did studies of digestion and GREATLY increased knowledge abo...

 Today we had a pleasant breakfast and enjoyed chatting with our Warm Showers host.  It was a beautiful day with normal humidity.  We got about 3 miles out of town and a heard a voice say, “Jim!”  Our host had meant to take our pictures and had forgotten so tracked us down and got us live on the road.          We got to ride on the Golden Road today! Today was a shorter day mileage-wise, but we had more and bigger hills, as we were in the part of Iowa that was not crossed by the last set of glaciers. So we often had beautiful views. We came across a church building perched on a hill, then with a lot of steps up to the original doors.  We sat on the steps and had a snack while looking over the countryside.  Just beyond, was a corners called Gunder, and after going around the corner, we saw a sign on a building “Home of the Gunderburger.”  We had heard about the Gunderburger from our host and the place had...

https://ridewithgps.com/trips/96323322 Last night we slept in a pickup camper so had to be careful getting out of bed as the bed was in the space above the cab.  Jim woke up well  before sunrise and noticed a beatiful red moon about ready to descend below the horizon.  Today was a beautiful summer day starting out slightly cool with not a cloud in the sky, then in the afternoon, lots of fluffy white clouds.  The countryside had smaller fields and it became more rolling so we had some beautiful vistas. We had lunch in New Hampton and someone who is going to be riding RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) started chatting with us, then asked where we were heading and  what was our route.  He and the owner of the restaurant spent a bunch of time explaining a new route that would take us on less-busy roads.  We did fine until after we rejoined our original route. A road described as paved turned out to be gravel so we backtracked 1/2 mile...

https://ridewithgps.com/trips/96225878 There was a thunderstorm early this morning, so we weren't in a hurry to leave and left about 8:40 after a great breakfast of baked oatmeal with Karin and Pastor Jason.  Shortly after leaving, a light drizzle began, which we rode in for about the next 20 miles.  We again rode through a lot of very productive farm land.  We had also heard from Pastor Jason how their country church building is kept unlocked, and how they will see people stop there to use the restroom or borrow a book from the library.  So we found that to be true twice today.  After the rain stopped, we twice had partial rainbows on the top edges of clouds like a sun dog located below the sun instead of on either side.   We also had a wind from the WNW and the majority of our route was straight east so we had easy pedaling most of the day. We stopped at Fossil and Prairie Park where clay had been mined and used to make bricks and cl...

Today was spent staying at Pastor Jason & Karin's home and worshipping at Kanawha & Wright Christian Reformed Churches.  Pastor Jason was a guest preacher at the Kanawha church. When someone we were introduced to found out we were bicycling, he said, "I saw you at the store yesterday," which was in a town 10 miles away. Then we headed back to Wright for the service there, so we heard the same sermon twice, which was on reconciliation and how sin has created the need for reconciliation with God and others and it is God that makes it possible for reconciliation to happen.  The songs were different at each church, which gave us variety in our worship of God today.  We have had many good  conversations about family and faith while we were here.  We spent the afternoon having fun going over maps and working out our route to Madison, WI, and have a couple of Warm Showers hosts liined up for the trip there.  Had fun at Pizza Ranch where we met ...

Last night, we did have a great view of the fireworks show.   We didn't mention this yesterday, but the giant Idaho potato was also in town for "Giant Days."   We each got a free package of instant mashed potatoes, so we ate mashed potatoes mixed with gorp for breakfast.   We had a disagreement over which roads to take as we were no longer using the Adventure Cyclng Route, a busier road or a quiet one where it was more likely we would run into gravel again?  We traveled through very flat lands with just mild rolls to it that is very  productive and had a mild head wind.  Oops! Jim had rinsed out his shirt and was drying it but didn't tie it well enough to the bike and it had fallen off sometime during the 11 miles we had pedaled so far.  So goodbye shirt. We didn't pass near a store for about 40 miles and then got a quart of chocolate milk which tasted so good on a hot day. In Kanawha while Kay was using the restr...

A guy came by our campsite last night on his electric bicycle and stopped to chat. He and his wife are traveling around and taking rides on various rail trails and invited us over to see their camper van. They got a large cargo van, had windows put in, then designed and built the whole interior themselves: mosquito netting for the doors & windows, refrigerator, sink, gas stove, small toilet and many clever things to make good use of their space. It is designed such that they can put both her electric trike and his e-bike in the aisle while driving so they do not have to be carried on the outside of the vehicle. This was a lot of fun to see but did lead us to get to bed a little later than desired. Sometime during the night we heard a noise—something was getting in our panniers/food. We discovered that it was a raccoon and had unzipped the panniers and removed some gorp. It worked the pannier zipper properly but tore open the bag rather than opening the zip loc. We chased it away an...

The church that opened up restrooms and water for us.   If look close banners at front of church say "live simply that others may simply live" A guy came by our campsite last night on his electric bicycle and stopped to chat. He and his wife are traveling around and taking rides on various rail trails and invited us over to see their camper van. They got a large cargo van, had windows put in, then designed and built the whole interior themselves: mosquito netting for the doors & windows, refrigerator, sink, gas stove, small toilet and many clever things to make good use of their space. It is designed such that they can put both her electric trike and his e-bike in the aisle while driving so they do not have to be carried on the outside of the vehicle. This was a lot of fun to see but did lead us to get to bed a little later than desired. Sometime during the night we heard a noise—something was getting in our panniers/food. We discovered that it was a raccoon and had unzip...

The church that opened up restrooms and water for us.   If look close banners at front of church say "live simply that others may simply live" A guy came by our campsite last night on his electric bicycle and stopped to chat. He and his wife are traveling around and taking rides on various rail trails and invited us over to see their camper van. They got a large cargo van, had windows put in, then designed and built the whole interior themselves: mosquito netting for the doors & windows, refrigerator, sink, gas stove, small toilet and many clever things to make good use of their space. It is designed such that they can put both her electric trike and his e-bike in the aisle while driving so they do not have to be carried on the outside of the vehicle. This was a lot of fun to see but did lead us to get to bed a little later than desired. Sometime during the night we heard a noise—something was getting in our panniers/food. We discovered that it was a raccoon and had unzip...

Update put off until tomorrow will fix July 7 as well    https://ridewithgps.com/trips/96026657

We began the day a little slow which was ok as we had less miles to go, so we didn't get on the road until after 9. It was a humid day with some clouds but low chance of rain when we checked the weather in the morning.  The first 9 miles or so were quite busy, as a detour for the US highway on the other side of the river had put a lot more traffic on the road we used.  Once we were off of that road we had quiet roads with mild hills and light wind.  In Amboy, MN, we stopped to get some chocolate milk and Kay checked weather app as clouds looked a little nasty, and found out it was about to rain hard. We found a picnic shelter a couple  of blocks away and in about 5 minutes it began to rain heavily along with some thunder (not as bad as yesterday but still quite hard).  We watched rain and finished yesterday's blog and after about a                    Our shelter from the storm  We continued on our ride and t...

The church that opened up restrooms and water for us.   If look close banners at front of church say "live simply that others may simply live" A guy came by our campsite last night on his electric bicycle and stopped to chat. He and his wife are traveling around and taking rides on various rail trails and invited us over to see their camper van. They got a large cargo van, had windows put in, then designed and built the whole interior themselves: mosquito netting for the doors & windows, refrigerator, sink, gas stove, small toilet and many clever things to make good use of their space. It is designed such that they can put both her electric trike and his e-bike in the aisle while driving so they do not have to be carried on the outside of the vehicle. This was a lot of fun to see but did lead us to get to bed a little later than desired. Sometime during the night we heard a noise—something was getting in our panniers/food. We discovered that it was a r...

https://ridewithgps.com/trips/956 It was cloudy when we got up-and still plenty of mosquitoes around. It was a cool morning, so needed to wear a jacket at first. But that made for great pedaling, the pedals just seemed to fly. We crossed the Mississippi near a military reservation that had beautiful stone walls and gates. When we got to Little Falls, the river was right next to us, and we crossed the bridge to see the water pouring out of the dam. After Little Falls, we passed the boyhood home of Charles Lindbergh. We met up with the Soo Line Rail Trail, and first took it the opposite way a short distance to where it crossed the Mississippi just downstream from another dam. The water pouring out of the gates of this dam was even more dramatic with how high it shot up and roiled around, stirring up the waters. After a few miles, the rail trail became the northern spur of the Lake Wobegon Rail Trail. We went through beautiful tunnels of trees and through a covered bridge. We saw a...

After leaving our campsite we stopped in town at a small cafe for breakfast and had some good pancakes and oatmeal and french toast.  Then back to the Paul Bunyan trail.  Today we saw bicyclists, walkers, joggers and a few electric bicycle users; many more trail users than yesterday.  The area we went through is full of lakes with many cabins and houses on them and the small towns often had a row of restaurants and shops catering to the tourist/vacationer trade.  We stopped in one town's city park and it had an ice rink area that for the summer had a couple of pickleball courts on it. We chatted with someone there about recumbents, he's had a short wheelbase one and recently got a better model, also short wheelbase.  When by a marshy area, looked down and saw 2 trumpeter swans with 4 cygnets. The parents kept a watchful eye on us, while the young ones unconcernably stuck their heads under the water and fed on the vegetation.  In Brainerd, we det...

Our warm showers hosts fed us steel cut oats with homemade maple syrup for breakfast which tasted very good.  We started moving around eight and headed to the Paul Bunyan trail, a paved rail trail that extends for miles and miles.  So on it we had just slight ups and downs except for a little bit of hills around Walker. A lot of the day was running through jack pines, white birch and poplar trees and also by bogs, swamps and lakes. We saw all kinds of flowers along the trail, especially in the more open areas, birdsfoot trefoil, some kind of purple bellflower, red columbines, various daisy-like flowers in white and yellow, red clover and others, many we didn't know. Only saw a couple clumps of lady slippers, though. We saw a deer and fawn cross the trail a ways ahead of us. Notable birds were a pileated woodpecker and a ruffed grouse.  After starting on the trail, we were surprised to see no trail users for a number of miles, especially on a holiday, maybe everyone was sl...

https://ridewithgps.com/trips/95498526

We headed off this morning to a restaurant our Warm Showers host had mentioned, but just got some good-tasting muffins as they were busy and so we could make it to First Presbyterian Church on time. Found out that it was the very first church in Bemidji.     Like many small congregations, it was struggling with how to reach out to young people. Afterwards, we headed to a grocery store for lunch; we had to check it out as it had the same name as our son-in-law's family name! We went to the 4th of July parade and a fun time watching fire trucks, politicians, old cars, big trucks and the one marching band.  After the obligatory tourist visit to Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox, we headed around Lake Bemidji, crossing the Mississippi twice, at both its outlet and inlet. Kay stopped to look at a Baltimore oriole and then Jim noticed a bald eagle perched high in a tree in that same place. On a recommendation, we went to Bemidji State Park and walked the bog trail which had...

 https://ridewithgps.com/trips/95274975 Our stay last night was a typical campground  experience with some dogs barking, campfires, and kids riding bicycles. We slept well, got all packed up this morning, and rode about 2 miles to a trailhead and took a  two mile hike along Lake Itasca.  Had some beautiful views of the lake, walked through some beautiful red and white pines, and heard a lot of fun birds but were tormented  by mosquitoes for most of the hike (they probably were just trying to survive). Discovered there was a cafe at the visitor center on the north end of the park and had breakfast there and then chatted about recumbent bicycles with some bicyclists. Late morning, stopped at a bar/restaurant to have a snack. Some patrons there started chatting with us. One woman who estimate her age about 30  suggested we should be doing TikTok because we could make lots of money by talking about our adventures. She was also very impressed by our age. We had ...

 Woke up to a heavy dew on the tent but with the pleasant sunshine and breeze and setting it on a picnic table for a while it got mostly dry  We had a tailwind for 2/3 of the day's ride. Today the landscape noticeably changed; we started having deciduous woods on both sides of the road. Kay noticed a clump of beautiful pink and white lady's slippers along the road and stopped to take a look, then noticed yellow ones just beyond them. We saw them regularly along the road for the rest of the day.                                                                   Stopped at Strawberry Lake convenience store for some hot cocoa and a cookie and had fun talking to the proprietor. She's been married about 15 years and her husband's a crop and beef farmer.  The last 15 miles before the park, traffic was somewhat busier...