July 2, Itasca State Park to Bemidji

 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 sunshine today day with moderate temperatures, a nice day to be out biking. Also had fun just looking how the Mississippi kept getting bigger in size, as we crossed it a number of times today. Saw probably 10 dead turtles yesterday and probably five or so today while we had seen only one or two the rest of the trip.



  Mississippi River pictures
We told our Warm Showers host we'd arrive about 4:00 but got to Bemidji about two so we went to the local museum and learned about some of the history of the town and area, about logging, that they had a really good high school football team in the early 60s with 35 games without a loss, and about an Ojibwe chief that was a very reasonable person.  However the US government and logging companies and everything really cheated the Ojibwes out of a lot of property and treated them poorly back in the late 1800s to mid 1900s. 
 We had a fun time visiting with our host, she did archaeological surveys to rule out historic sites prior to doing new construction in North Dakota,  then has been working for a  food pantry for a number of years. She invited a few friends over for a meal and the 7 of us had brats, chips and salsa, potato salad, spicy melon balls and great conversation.    


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