Bemidji to Bena, MN

Thursday, September 4, 2003
Distance Cycled: 46 miles
Total elevation gain: 535 feet

We left our motel and headed for the statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. While we were there, Ann went into a tourist information office. Mary Kay followed and got information about our route and places to stay during the night. Larry Young and Cindy Habedank, walked up and asked us questions about our trip and then took our picture for their web site at www.visitbemidji.com. As we were leaving Cindy gave us each lapel pins shaped like MN.

As we left Bemidji we detoured from our route to see where the Mississippi River leaves Lake Bemidji. From there our route when straight east and crossed the Mississippi River again. We stopped for lunch in Pennington, MN. Pennington consists of a couple of houses and one gas station. We ate snack food, sitting outside the store. We then went south, crossed the Mississippi River again and turned southeast on Hwy 91. Then the fun began. Where to stay for the night? We wanted to get far enough along so the next day would not be a killer ride but we needed a room and a place to eat. We ended up at a place called Judd's Resort,

even though they could not feed us. So we will need to ride our bicycles 2 miles to food. The beds are lumpy, at present there is no hot water, and I have already killed at least 20 flies. Well, we have to have at least one place like this in order to appreciate other places. We ate at a restaurant called Big Fish, about 2 miles down the road.

We all ate Walleye fish. The ride to and from the restaurant was very flat and it was easy riding without all that weight on the bicycle (We removed our paintiers and our computer before riding to supper.) We had hot water when we got back and I took the first shower. Followed by others while watching the Tennis Match on TV. We had a good nights sleep as the five of us shared a three bedroom cabin.