Riding Day 36 - Sights and Sounds and Smells of Home

We awoke this morning to the sound of steady rain on the roof of the RV. It was light, but persistent, and any rain sounds pretty strong on this roof. By the time we had dressed, breakfasted, and packed for the day the rain had abated somewhat, but was still coming down, so we put on our rain gear and headed down the bike path from our campground toward the town of Walker.

By four miles the rain had stopped, and by four miles after that we decided it meant it, so we shed our rain clothes, which by that time were wetter on the inside than they were on the outside, and proceeded eastward down Highway 200. (Interestingly -- or perhaps not -- Montana 200 becomes North Dakota 200, which becomes Minnesota 200, and we've been following it for 12 days.)

The remainder of the day was uneventful and beautiful, in a low-key way, under mostly overcast skies. Almost the entire day was spent in easy undulations, with pretty thick forest on both sides of the road. Occasionally the trees would part and we would get views of a lake, but we knew that there were far more lakes hiding in the woods. From time to time the road would flatten out and then often the forest would open up to immense brushy areas, almost certainly swampy. At the edge of one of these, a sign announced that Hill City Real Estate was offering 80 acres for sale. The sign didn't say how much of it was swampland.

The whole landscape made me feel right at home. Although I've never been in this part of Minnesota, it's very reminiscent of my growing-up years in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and Wisconsin. The sights and sounds and smells are almost all as I remember them. The woods are mixed hardwoods, softwoods, and conifers, with lots of poplar, birches, maples, pines, spruce, balsam, and a few tamarack. There is far less red cedar than I expected. The roadsides are thick with a variety of clovers, dasies, Queen Anne's lace, black-eyed susans, and other flowers whose names I don't know. Milweed and mullen are thriving, as is poison ivy. There is also a fair amount of fireweed, which is not a plant I remember from childhood, but which I'm happy to see because it so dramatic and colorful, and because it reminds me of Alaska.

We haven't seen too many animals, but the bird songs and calls are ever-present, with the scolding of the blue jays and woodpeckers dominating. Unfortunately, we've seen more dead deer than live ones. And once there was a fresh pile of bear scat right in the shoulder of the road.

After 72 miles of riding we crossed the young Mississippi again and rolled into Jacobson. Of the two nearby campgrounds, both primitive, with no RV hookups, we rejected the closer one because of the swarms of black flies. So we are in Hay Lake Campground in the Savanna State Forest. Getting here entailed four miles of dirt roads, so we loaded the bikes onto the rack on the RV and Cindy drove us in. Tomorrow she'll drive us back to pavement, where we'll head for Wisconsin.

Shortly before arriving in Jacobson we passed milepost 190 on Hwy 200. It seems like just yesterday we passed milepost 400 on Hwy 200 in North Dakota. The miles are disappearing beneath our tires, and Maine is getting ever closer.