Land of 10,000 Lakes

Walker to Baxter, Minnesota. Monday, June 14, 2021

Was this ever a delightful day. I spent the entire day on paved bike paths, principally the Paul Bunyan State Bike Trail. Except for a few tree roots, and occasional construction, it was in great shape. Add a strong tailwind, and I was on Easy Street once again.

Almost easy. Today I learned a lesson about not getting too cocky. People often ask me, “what about flat tires?” and I brag about my Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires, heavy and slow (just like me), but absolutely puncture-proof. I can’t remember the last time I’ve had a flat tire. Well now I remember.

I’m whizzing along a deserted stretch of bike path, when suddenly my back wheel felt squirrley. Within a few seconds, the tire was completely flat. I had to wheel it to a place with a little shade and not too many bugs. Right away I found the culprit (a blessing, actually, as it is often difficult to figure out what made the tire go flat) and pull out this little half-inch long piece of nastiness, which I can’t identify.

Sorry the picture is blurry, but I was really puzzled, I wanted to make sure I didn’t roll over something like that again. It was easy to partially remove the tire, pull out the tube and find the hole, but the patch I put on didn’t work, so I had to remove the entire wheel anyway and replace it with a new tube. The whole process wound up taking an hour and a half, since my little frame-mounted pump takes forever to fill these big tires to 85 psi, and by then the bugs had found me. Well, only one flat in over 2,600 miles, I guess I can’t complain.

With the delay, I had to stop for lunch before I hit a sizable town, and the little hamlet of Backus only had a saloon, which served burgers. A heavier meal that I wanted, but it was fun to attract a crowd of bar-goers, and bask in the attention. Here I encountered the only other bike tourists of the day, they were headed north to Bemidji, my tailwind was their headwind. My heart went out to them. I later heard from one of them, Ron.

Something weird happened after that unusually heavy meal, I felt crazy sleepy. I’m serious, my eyes were drooping, I would almost doze off and then awake with a start as my bike started to swerve. This had happened to me only once before, back in 1975 when I biked all night to get to Cape Cod. I’ve heard of falling asleep behind the wheel, but this was ridiculous. I had to find a bench and take a catnap. I can only imagine what passing bike riders were thinking.

I think I only dozed for a few minutes, but the effect was remarkable, I felt wide awake and more energetic than ever. Decided I could go an extra 15 miles. The weather was just delightful, and the route threaded through many of those legendary 10,000 Minnesota Lakes. Sapphire-blue, stunning, but not much to photograph, since the land around them was so flat. I looked in vain for Mia, the iconic Native maiden from the Land-O-Lakes butter box. Just as well, I had forgotten my scotch tape and my X-Acto knife. You degenerate baby boomer boys know what I’m talking about.

I got a funny comment from Patsy, the owner of an ice cream shop in Pequot Lakes. She thought I was a construction worker, or perhaps one of those pipeliners. I realized that my cycling jersey (see previous post) does kind of look like what construction workers wear. Yeah, but do they wear those shorts?

The extra 15 miles took me to Baxter, a suburb of Brainerd, Minnesota, the principal location for the classic 1996 movie Fargo. No campgrounds here, but the Comfort Suites was affordable, and had the most elaborate indoor pool I’ve seen so far.

In another Ain’t That America moment, the Arby’s across the street was closed except for the drive-thru. I had to walk up to the drive-thru window and order, then walk to the next window to pay, and a third window to get my food. The cars in line behind me looked at me like I was from Mars.

I had to watch Fargo, of course, because that’s just who I am. I learned to my disappointment that the iconic Paul Bunyan statue from the movie was just a prop, no point in looking for it tomorrow. Rats.

Distance 62 miles, 2,642 total. Time 9 hours with stops, flat tire, and catnap. Elevation gain 539 feet.

©️ 2021 Scott Luria