Day 48: Minnesota I Love You, But You're Bringing Me Down

Saturday...So I wake up at 7am and quickly pack up my things so as not to be seen. I would make a terrible criminal… I am a nervous wreck while trying to sneak away from the watchful eye of the Sauk City Campground Manager. I've only stolen one thing in my life... and it was an orange rag worth 40 cents at Target... I only needed 1 rag, but they only came in packs of 20... I knew there was no way they'd let me get away with buying one, so I hid it inside the shopping cart so it would go undetected... I was a nervous wreck.... sweating bullets... totally not worth the effort... I get shaky just writing about it. But long story short... I'd be a terrible criminal.

I swing by a Hardees, whose breakfasts are still unbelievable. I’ve noticed that people are much chattier in the mornings, but it seems like the further I ride the less encouraging the comments get… This morning was… “You’re never gonna make it in this cold weather”. Thanks…

The trail I am riding runs through Sauk Centre and continues on all the way to Fergus Falls (75 miles away) and it’s PAVED! 75 miles of paved trail… I’ve never seen anything quite like it… it’s actually the longest paved trail in the United States. It is supposed to rain all day… but on a paved trail…. I’ll deal with it. Well… it starts raining shortly after I begin and it doesn’t stop…

About 2 hours in… I run into Roger and …. Someone whose name I can’t remember… They were just coming off of a local ride and were really nice. We rode together for about a half hour… I would have pictures… but as you’ll find out in a few paragraphs… I broke my camera today.

I run into Jeff from MnTrails.com and he wants to take a few pictures of me and interview me for their online magazine. I looked over their website in planning for this section of the trip... it's really nice. I am really flattered, but feel a bit silly having this guy take pictures of me. He's a super nice guy. He tells me that I will LOVE Fergus Falls...

I finally make it to Fergus Falls after about 5 hours of riding in the rain. Maybe it's the weather... but it's one of the most depressing towns I have EVER seen. Everything is closed, or out of business... Except a very large "scrapbooking center. I stop in a thrift store and look for some winter gear, but its kinda deplete of good cold weather clothing. I look for a place to stay and find a KFC buffet on the North Side of Town. There is a baseball dugout near the college… but I am pretty sure it gets locked at night… and so I’m kind of without a place to stay… After 3 trips to the buffet… I decide that since I have another 3.5 hours of sunlight, I was gonna continue on up to Pelican Rapids (25 miles away) where they have a city park that allows camping… it has a pavilion, showers etc…

What I didn’t know was that while I was inside eating… the wind had changed direction and was now an INTENSE headwind that would blow stinging cold rain into my face for 2 hours. Also… I got about 3 miles into my planned route when the road turned to mud… It would turn back into pavedroad about 1.5 miles later… and so I decided to traverse it. Well… it was tricky to say the least…. The rain had softened it to a point where it was near impossible not to fall over… I unclipped from the pedals and SLOWLY pressed on. I hit HWY 59 and the shoulder was gigantic… except the HEADWIND was horrible, and the rain picked up just as the temperature was dropping, causing me to get absolutely soaked and thoroughly frozen. By the time I reached Pelican Rapids… I had somehow broken my camera (water damage) and I was shivering cold… I got to the park and ran straight for the warmth of the bathroom… but had no dry clothes to change into… Still raining, freezing… this plan backfired… so I once again wussed out and got a motel… I crank up the heat all the way at the Pelican Motel and watch reruns of Law and Order for hours. I am so enthralled with my own sloth, that I forget to catch up on my blog. I am blowing through money waay too fast. It's been a hard day, so I decide not to think about money until tomorrow, it would just bring me down.

PS - Pictures are included now... as you will find out in tomorrow's post...The camera is working again.