Day 29: Mankato, MN to Kasson,MN

The evil gravel hill bites again... I've heard stories from my friend Jess about the gravel hill by her house. Well I had the pleasure of trying to ride down it on my skinny tires. The thick gravel and dirt is tricky and hard to ride down. So tricky that I crashed! Not too hard, but I did bend my handlebars and scrape up my knee. Marc's a pro and made it down the hill with no problem, even pulling the trailer.

After Marc straightened out my handlebars, we were back on the road. We had mapped out a ride that headed south out of Mankato and then east across the southeastern part of Minnesota. We hoped to make it to Rochester or beyond by the end of the day.

It was a long day of riding! We ended up changing our route twice today. These detours caused us to zig zig all over, of course adding unwanted extra mileage. (Is extra mileage ever wanted?) The first detour was our choice as we discovered (a little too late) that there were no hotels on our planned route. We choose to go back to our route along 14. That was the first mistake! Hwy 14 was a mess - heavy traffic with the worst shoulder of any road we've been on. It was full of potholes, cracks, etc. Almost impossible to ride on. Of course the traffic was so heavy that you could not ride on the road so we were forced to bump along on the shoulder for the next 15 miles.

When we reached Owatonna, we decided to take a different route to get off Hwy 14. That route was wonderful - A nice smooth, quiet road. Unfortunately, the road ended after about 12 miles and we had to detour back down to Highway 14. ARGH! So not only did we add about 5 miles, we still had to go back to 14.

We finally rolled into Kasson around 6:45. Marc met a man in the parking lot that was riding cross country from Pennsylvania to Oregon. He was riding with his 2 daughters and his wife was driving the Sag Wagon. They were able to exchange road condition info, etc.

Marc finally got to try a Minnesota beer tonight at dinner. Shell Beer is made in New Ulm and they had it on tap at the local restaurant in town. It was a good amber type beer. The restaurant also won points with me as they had about 10 choices of pie! I had the Raspberry Bavarian Creme Pie. Yum! It was as good as it sounded with a creamy custard filling and raspberry topping. Definitely homemade and as good as a Bavarian Creme Donut.

Well its 10 PM and Marc's asleep already, I guess I better join him. We didn't make our destination of Rochester today to we have a 90+ mile ride for tomorrow. They are also calling for 20 mph winds from the South. To bad we are headed East.