Day 42: Teenagers Take Drugs Pt. 2 (Parental Advisory Cautioned)

12:37am:

“You Fucking Douchebags! I’ll Kill All of You! Don’t Any of You Try to Touch Me! I’ll Kill You”. A man was screaming at the top of his lungs. His “friends/douchebags” tried to calm him down saying: “Hey man… You really need to sit down… c’mon… let’s be cool and all sit down”. Then after 5 minutes of cajoling him to take a seat… a woman SCREAMS…. TRAVIS DON”T BE A SHITHEAD, JUST SIT DOWN!!!! Which sets Travis back off… DON’T TOUCH ME YOU FUCKING DOUCHEBAG!!!!

2:47am:

No further than 10 feet from my tent a man begins barking orders to “jenny”, also telling her to sit… “Jenny Sit! Sit Down! Sit! Sit! SIT! SIT!!!! My natural thought was that maybe Jenny was a dog… but then I heard Jenny start to cry in a scared whimper… they sat down by my tent and had a “tender discussion” about why she needed to listen to him when he told her to do things. He reminded me of Charles Manson in that regard… But at least he seemed to cheer her up a little bit, right? And what do these people have against standing?

4:32am

A large group of the most blood curdling screams is belted out from their campsite… Maybe Jenny decided to sit, or somebody finally went and set off Travis by touching him… but for reasons unknown everyone was scared as hell and screaming like banshees…

6:30am

I wake up and there is no sound coming from the campsite of the drugged out Blink 182 fans… There are surprisingly few mosquitoes, and a complete lack of morning dew. True, I didn’t sleep too well… but it really was feeling like today was gonna be a great day. I quickly pack up and try to sneak out before the rangers show up to collect the camping fees (If you remember, I burned my payment slip the night before)… I roll my giant, red and conspicuous bicycle into the parking lot, and the ranger is sitting in his struck facing the opposite direction and talking on his cell phone… I quickly mount the bike and slip past him, effectively cheating the State of Minnesota out of $11. I am making no excuses or rationalizations for my actions… I just simply did not want to pay $11 for such a terrible night of sleep… so while I may be dishonest in this scenario… at least I’m not deluded enough into being convinced that it was justified. That’s a plus, right? Anyways… Off we go to begin a 100+ mile day that is going to end in Stillwater, just east of Minneapolis… Oh yeah… I chose Stillwater because back at the cyclist shelter in Monroeville, I saw an advertisement for a couple who house cyclists all year round… I took a picture of the map/instructions on my phone, and upon pulling into Stillwater, I would the picture up on my laptop and try to find their house… this was my plan… kinda flimsy…. But I’m confident it will work out.

So… Off we go!

HWY 61? Why do I know that? Why am I familiar with this road? This is gonna kill me.

It is a BEAUTIFUL morning and I will be following the Mississippi all day along scenic routes! The gentle hills are great… Adventure Cycling keeps trying to take me off of HWY 61 onto the bluffs or onto side roads… but I just ignore it and continue on HWY 61 the entire day… I can’t believe how gorgeous this scenery is… wow… I pass through Wabasha (home of the film Grumpy Old Men) and at a closed gas station, I eat breakfast (cold can of chili) and continue on to Lake City and then to Red Wing… which I am able to reach by noon (50 miles by noon is a good day) so I take a two hour break... and I divide my time between Caribou Coffee and Dairy Queen. If only Caribou’s internet connection could reach Dairy Queen, then all would be perfect… But oh well….

While blogging and looking at maps… it occurs to me that to get to Stillwater would take just as long as it would to go directly into Minneapolis… Huh? Maybe I should just ride into the Twin Cities tonight? I have no route planned and no definite place to stay… so maybe this isn’t the most prudent idea. But… now I’m excited for it…. Yeah… I’m gonna try for it…

Filipe had hooked me up with a place to stay; his friend Nick lives in Minneapolis and would be willing to put me up, but he doesn’t get back in town until Tuesday… so I call up my friend Eric… to see if maybe he had found an apartment yet, and to see if it would be possible for me to stay in that apartment… and in fact he has! He says I can crash with him… OK… so that works out… but I can’t seem to find a good rout e into the city… it’s approaching 2:30 and I need to get back on the road… I familiarize myself with some of the Highways and decide to just wing it…. It should be about another 50 miles of riding and I have about 5 hours of sunlight left….

Right out of town I have to climb into higher ground, which is always an annoying way to start off an afternoon. But once I reach the high ground it flattens out pretty well… I maintain a consistent speed, but I can’t seem to find anything to listen to on my Ipod….

Oh wait! The Bob Dylan album! HWY 61 Revisited…. That’s why I know this road…. Okay.

As I approach Minneapolis, my humble route 55 turns into a massive freeway and I know I need to get off before I get myself killed. I find a road that runs parallel for the most part and head north on some very hilly/scenic backroads into West St. Paul. I ride through West St. Paul for what feels like hours before I see the capitol building looking in the distance and head towards it…

WOW…. The view opens up from behind the trees and I cross this Major bridge which has a sever downward slope and takes me right into the heart of St Paul… “what a cool city” I think to myself as I go flying at 35mph (that’s fast for a bike) down this bridge. At the end of my bridge I run straight into ONE OF THE STEEPEST UPHILL CLIMBS I HAVE EVER SEEN…. Dammit…. Why didn’t the just make the bridge flat and have it connect to the top of this hill?

The sun is setting quickly, and I am moving very, very slowly up this hill…. So I wouldn’t really have to time to sightsee on my way to Eric’s place. St Paul seems kinda fancy… and when I cross into Minneapolis… it seems like it’s “not so fancy” neighbor... Kinda like Twin Cities where one twin went to Med School and the other decided to become a Mechanic… of course I’ve only been here a half hour… there’s probably more facets to the city than what I’ve just seen. It’s nice though…

I find Eric’s place in the south side of town after passing about a million authentic looking Mexican food places on the way… which gets me excited. His place is a nice, old, two story house… I really like it… but most of all I just really like sitting down in a chair… We go to “Northeast” section of town for dinner at this Tiki-bar which was pretty great… I am so tired already that I get slightly incoherent after one not-that stiff, very tropical drink, served to me in a skull-cup. Back to Eric’s house, He puts on a Johnny Cash record and I fall asleep on the floor with my clothes on, without a pillow, sleeping bag, or air mattress. But it feels really good. Today was my favorite day of riding on this entire trip. Can’t imagine things getting much better than they were today.