Week 7 Overview & Highlights

Total Miles to date: 1,875

Weekly miles: 289

Route Overview: We left St. Cloud on bike paths to Clearwater, then Mn 75, 38, and 12 to Dayton. We took county highways through Anoka to Hugo and Scandia, then the horrible US 8 into St, Croix.Goodbye Mn.  We rode the Gandy Dancer trail to Centuria, then Co I and side streets to North Lake. After Cumberland we took Co B to Haugen, then several Co roads to Summit Lake Campground. We changed our route a little and took Wi 70 all the way to Park Falls. There was an option for the Tuscobia trail, but it was loose gravel and an ATV track. They love their ATVs in the summer and snowmobiles in the winter here.

Week 7 Highlights: Two great warmshowers hosts this week. Scott and Jennifer, in St. Cloud, live in this beautiful old 2 story house in the suburbs. We changed the day of our stay at the last minute. Jennifer’s daughter Abigail made a huge dinner for us the night we were supposed to come. Luckily we were able to eat leftovers with them and Abigail’s partner Charlie. We had a nice conversation about politics in Minnesota, very interesting. The next we stayed with Bill and Sharon and their daughter Mandy. Their actual house is being restored after a fire. They shared their current rental house with us. They do a lot of hiking, so we shared our stories of the different adventures. They have an outdoor stage on their property where a local group puts on plays in the summer. We went and saw Matilda, a pretty professional production. We normally just ride, eat, and rest, so this was a nice change.

We’ve had some hard days on this trip, but last Wednesday was the first really discouraging day. It was so hot!! We had to stop at a bike shop, so that meant we rode later in the day. We stopped at several cafes to get out of the heat. We got to a campground, but Bill told us how great the interstate park was, so we decided to push on. We had to ride on US 8 for a while, so much fast traffic. We finally got to Taylor’s falls, and realized that the campground we wanted was a ways behind us. No problem, there are 2 campgrounds right across the river in St. Croix. However, to get to either of them involved a lot of climbing and backtracking. Neither of us knew what to do, or wanted to make a decision. 

Very hot, tired, and frustrated, Bliss noticed a water adventure place close by. No one was there, but she called the number and the owner said we had his blessing to camp on the property. For dinner Bliss had chocolate milk and cheetos, Robert had a Naked Green Machine and a Dr Pepper. We were not feeling great that evening.  

In the morning we rode into Interstate park and walked around the potholes and had a great view of the St. Croix river from the cliffs. We also rode a nice segment of the Gandy Dancer trail, and we were able to pretty quickly get over our grumpiness.

The bodies of water in Wisconsin are still pretty murky. We camped at North lake campgrounds, it is a seasonal RV park only, but the owner, an older man named Charlie saw how pitiful we looked and said we could stay. Well the lake access wasn’t the cleanest, but we were desperate and hot so we got in for a little bit. We got our first real rain this week, such a nice break from the heat, it was kind of welcome. At Summit Lake campground we had to pay for showers, but it was worth the 75 cents.