The humidity that had been plaguing us since Winnipeg finally dissipated today, and the cooler temperatures were a most welcome change. We also started the day off right with a huge and delicious breakfast (perhaps the food highlight of the trip so far) at a place called Sandy’s, recommended to us by our Montana friends in Sioux Narrows. I had the eggs benedict (thank you Kelton) and Caroline indulged in some fresh-caught wall-eye, which was spectacular.
Bellies full, we headed south-east towards Duluth. The landscape in northern Minnesota is still considered Canadian Shield, and highway 53 runs alongside the Voyageurs National Park, so we may as well have been Ontario as we cruised through the usual bush-and-rock fare. This is prime recreation land for hunters and fishers, so the main services along the highway are bait-and-ammo shops. The men who frequent these shops tend to think us a bit crazy, it seems, for wanting to bike such long distances when we could be staking out a deer or a moose, or reeling in delicious wall-eye. They may be right.
We did meet one other long-distance cyclist today, who turned out to be a fellow Canadian. He was a retired Winnipeger who had joined a friend for part of a cross-Canada ride in order to provide him a bit of companionship through the desolate stretch between Fort Frances and Thunder Bay. There, the friend continued east, while the fellow we met crossed the border and rode south-west along the shore of Lake Superior, and was on his way back to Fort Frances to complete the triangle when we ran into him.
Our destination today was the beautiful Pelican Lake in Orr, Minnesota, where we camped at a fishing resort called Pine Acres. We always attract a bit of attention at places like this, where we stand out like a white guy in a Philippino religious parade (see our 2007 Asia Trip blog for that story – oh wait, we didn’t blog about that trip). Somebody even gifted us with four cobs of fresh corn – perhaps the most cumbersome and bicycle-tour-unfriendly vegetable of all. It’s the thought that counts.
Stats:
Avg. Spd.: 16.0km/h
Mx. Spd.: 36.4km/h
Halfway point: Achieved (odometer reading: 3248.2km)
Cobs of corn eaten: 0
Cobs of corn we will dutifully be hauling on our bikes tomorrow: 4
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