What a wonderful day!
After a good breakfast and enjoyable conversation with three other couples who were staying at the B&B, I took off on my bike and was soon on a bike trail that started in downtown Mankato and went for about 45 miles, to Fairbault, MN. After days of riding on the roads, this was a welcome change: an asphalt bike path running through forests and farmlands, past lakes and wetlands, quiet and peaceful, with plenty of shade and with rest stops at small towns along the route. And lots of people to ride with and talk to. I particularly enjoyed meeting a group of seven or eight retired couples from Sleepy Eye, MN (a cute little town that I had passed through a couple of days before) who get together twice a week for a bike ride and have one "major event" each year (this year a bicycling trip along the C&O Canal, ending in Washington DC for the 4th of July; next summer a trip to Germany). I didn't get a picture of this group of people, but here is a picture of the route.
At the end of the trail, Paul was there to meet me. Paul and Giovanna (see photo) are the parents of Lars, who biked with me on Day 9 of my trip, along the Columbia River just outside of Portland. I had never met them before, but they had called the day before and invited me to spend the night with them in Northfield, MN, and Paul had decided that he would escort me, by bicycle, from the end of the bike path to Northfield, a distance of about 15 miles. It was great to be able to ride with him, and he is quite a cyclist! He is many years my senior, I'm sure, but he is really fit -- he has a resting heart rate of only 39 bpm! To make things even better a friend of Paul's, Chris, had driven Paul and his bicycle to our meeting point, and then Chris transported all of my baggage in his car so that I could ride unencumbered for 15 miles -- a real treat for me.
Paul and Giovanna, incidentally, are both retired math professors and very interesting to visit with. Lars did a great job of picking his parents!
To top of a great day, that evening we enjoyed very good Chinese take-out, and watched Michael Phelps win his 8th gold medal and watched the great Jamaican sprinter, "Lightening" Bolt, set a world record in the 100 meters while he looked like he was just coasting through the race in a nonchalant fashion!
The one disappointment of the day was finding out that Kurt G., who had been planning to ride with me for a day or two next week, would have to cancel out due to family commitments. I had really been looking forward to riding with Kurt, and hope that he will be able to join me later on. Otherwise, he'll need to come to NYC for a ride.
P.S.: When I was leaving Mankato I stopped to look at the sculpture of a large buffalo in a small park called Reconciliation Park. I asked someone how the park came by that name, and he explained that the park was the site of the largest mass execution in U.S. history: the hanging of 38 Sioux indians by order of President Abraham Lincoln. Read up on the whole sad history, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dakota_War_of_1862
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