July 6, Wednesday, Crow Wing to Koronis Regional Park, Paynesville MN

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 few white birch trees in one spot, and suspect that this is the last ones we will see on this trip. The last 20 miles was on county primary roads. We had some traffic when the detour for the closure of a major read followed the same road we were traveling on, so we were very thankful when the detour turned off and it became a very quiet rural road again. We had beautiful views of farms and fields; here you can see six or so farms in one view, compared to Montana where you see one or less. We are staying in the campground of a regional park, with birds singing and occasionally a woodpecker pounding away, including the post of the emergency siren.