Kathy on the Paul Bunyan trail
Tabers Historic bait and cabins
Minnesota state bird, although we've seen very few
Jo Ann and Reba
Jo Ann's fabulous house, where we had breakfast
coneflowers along Paul Bunyan trail
August 14th - Bemidji, MN
Here we are at Taber’s Bait and Historic Cabins, where we stayed last night. The cabins have been here since the ‘20’s, one of those old motor-court-cabin places. Tiny and overpriced, but cute. Kathy couldn’t get any cold water in the shower until I re-attached the handle more securely. You can sit on the toilet and lay your head in the sink. There’s an ancient 2- burner stove and fridge in the kitchen, and a table, although I can’t see where there’s any space to actually sit at it. The “closet” is hangers suspended from the rafters; you have to stand on a chair to reach them. No AC of course, but it’s nice and cool this morning and looks like a perfect day for biking.
Yesterday’s was a pleasant, easy 30 mile ride through rolling hills, swamps, and forests. The heat and humidity have moderated, thank god. We crossed the Mississippi twice, tiny little stream that it is up here. It pauses in Lake Bemidji and then runs on south from here. I don’t think I’ll see it again until Minneapolis.
If all goes as planned, we’ll spend the next 3 days on the Paul Bunyan Trail, a hundred miles of paved trail that runs from here south to Brainerd. Then we’ll cut east to catch up with a branch of Adventure Cycling’s northern tier again, cutting into Wisconsin briefly before heading into Minneapolis on the 22nd. Kathy and Bill will head off into Wisconsin then and I will have several days to explore Minneapolis before my flight home on the 26th.
Later, still August 14th -- Walker, MN
This morning, there were a couple of old guys messing around with a boat near our cabin. Turns out they built this boat, somewhere in Norway, had it shipped here, and are just about to embark on a trip down the Mississippi. The hope to get all the way to New Orleans. Here’s a link to their blog: http://www.oldmensriver.com/blogg/index.html
We rode around the north end of Lake Bemidji where we got on the Paul Bunyan Trail, which is supposed to take us clear to Brainerd, over 100 miles. In the town of Bemidji, though, we came to one of those irritating places, all too common on bike trails, where the trail just seemed to stop. As we stood there pondering, here came one of those road angels, offering to ride along with us through town and guide the way
Once out of Bemidji, though, the trail was continuous, smooth, mostly flat and pleasantly wooded all the way to Walker.
Walker, as it turns out, is a major tourist destination. Pulling in on a Saturday night, the weekend of “Walker Bay Days”, at the height of the tourist season, with no reservations, was perhaps not wise. No sign of any place at all to tent camp. The RV places wanted $45 and anyway they were all full. I called the first 5 hotels listed in the visitors guide, and they were all full, at which point I threw up my hands. We were seriously considering just waiting until close to sunset, riding down the trail a bit, and setting up our tents, when Kathy found us a room at the luxury hotel right in the middle of town. Much more than we wanted to pay, but oh well. They did have lattes.
August 15th -- Pine River, MN
Another 40 or so miles of pleasant Paul Bunyan trail today. Forests of white pine, oak, birch, alder, a few hills, a few tiny little towns. Just before we pulled into Pine River, another biker pulls up beside Kathy and begins chatting. We had planned to camp at the local RV park, which wanted $22 per tent, but this nice woman says we can camp in the city park for free, and guides us there. Sure enough, a half-dozen or so nice campsites, flush toilets, running water, what more could we ask? Oh yeah, I want some beer, but the local liquor store is closed on Sunday. The nice woman (Jo Ann) says “what kind of beer do you like? And how many do you want?” and just about the time we get our tents set up, she is back bringing us cold beer! She stays to visit with us for a bit, then takes off for home while we make dinner. Just about the time we’ve finished our dinner, she pulls in again, with an invitation to come to her house for breakfast in the morning! Of course we accept! We manage to build a nice campfire with leftover logs from previous campers and manage to stay awake long enough to enjoy it.
August 16th -- Baxter, MN
We rode to Jo Ann’s house for breakfast this morning, and what a house it is! She says it was the first house built by a white woman in Pine River, in the early 1900’s. They had it moved out of town (amazing, this is a big house!), have lovingly restored it to a beautiful Victorian showplace, and have lived there for 30 years. It is just a beautiful place. As we pulled into the driveway, Reba, a sweet German Shepherd, came wagging and wiggling out to greet us. Jo Ann fed us excellent coffee, biscuits, scrambled eggs with all sorts of veggies from her garden, bacon, steel-cut oats….we did not go away hungry! Thanks Jo Ann!!!!!
Then on down the trail another 30 miles to Brainerd. Wow, this trail really does go all the way from Bemidji to Brainerd, more than 100 miles, all the way paved and beautiful. My only complaint is the lack of camping facilities. Even after consulting with the chamber of commerce and the local parks and rec, we cannot find anyplace to camp within 10 miles of Brainerd except an “RV only” place. So here we are tonight at the Brainerd Super 8. Well, at least we can do our laundry here.
It was quite a culture shock, after 3 days of no vehicular traffic at all, to have to negotiate a mile or so of busy road to get to the hotel. This same busy road is the one that Google has us routed on to get to tomorrow’s destination. We are looking for other options.
Baxter / Brainerd is really all one big town … well, 25000 or so people…separated by the Mississippi river. Our hotel is out in walmartland, in one of those very irritating areas built as if pedestrians don’t exist. We walked a half mile to dinner tonight with no sidewalks, having to cut across lawns and through parking lots to avoid getting run over.
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