Mahnomen, MN to Itasca State Park

Tuesday, September 2, 2003
Road Miles: 52 miles
Total elevation gain: 1505 feet

Today we left the Shooting Star Casino, at 8:45 after eating breakfast and headed east to Itasca State Park. For the first 13 miles we had a strong side wind. At one short rest stop, I looked at Gary's rear tire and asked him if he knew that it was flat. I will not repeat his statement although I usually use the exact same words. I put our tandem recumbent on its kickstand and helped Gary to change the tire. We were just about finished when a strong gust of wind occurred and tipped the Rans on its side. Except for some bad language from me, the only damage was a broken mirror.

We finished fixing the flat on Gary's bicycle and picked up the Rans and were on our way again. The wind direction had changed and instead of a cross wind we now had a very strong tail wind. We rode into Zerkel, and stopped for a quick snack, or lunch. There was a picnic table outside of the gas station, and we ate food from our packs. We almost flew the remaining miles to Itasca State Park where the headwater of the Mississippi River is located. We stopped at the headwaters and took pictures of our bicycles with the rear tire in the river.

Then Becky and us took the long way around to get to the Douglas Lodge where we are spending the night. On the way we saw the tallest (121 feet) White Pine and the tallest (120 feet) Red Pine tree in Minnesota, both trees are over 300 years old. We saw an Eagle soaring above some Pine trees and climbed a fire lookout that allowed us to see an enormous panorama of trees. It was a beautiful ride through the trees some of which were already changing color to a bright red.

We reached the lodge and got our bicycles to the second floor for the second night in a row. I hope that we will have a ground floor room tomorrow. We ate a good supper and then returned to our rooms to get another good nights sleep.