Monday, June 21, 2010

Lanesboro and Preston, MN adventure

Hi,

I am in Preston (pop. 1426), MN's library waiting for C. to pick me up with the car.

As you know, we are in Lanesboro, MN, the bed and breakfast capital of MN, (pop. 788) for bicycling (it has 60 miles of paved bicycling trails meandering along the Root River amid 300-foot bluffs).

Our bike adventure started this mornng at Lanesboro, into Preston, about 10 miles along a nice easy bike trail along the Root River. The weather was cool, the ride wonderful. However, there was a trail blocked into Preston so we took a 5 mile ride along County Road 17 into Preston, where instead of bicycling into downtown, we sort of biked into the highway for several miles. We realized we were going the other way & found our way back into downtown Preston (if we only saw the old weathered sign, and the rows of Americana flags leading into town).

We had a nice soup & sandwich lunch at the Sweet Shop in Preston; then back on the trails for 5 miles x 2, because the road was closed. We biked back into Preston where a deluge of rain fell on us. We were ready with our rain jackets and rested under the highway brdige until the storm eased up. We met a nice couple at the rest stop who was going further than us into Whalen. They were familair with the trails and said they were told they can walk along side the road block, or walk along the golf course if the road block was still there. C. rode with them.

I stayed behind with my phone, the bike lock and walked thru downtown Preston where most business seemed to be closed on Mondays. I am here in the library (the librarian was very kind and gave me a free guest pass to use the computers), will do some grocery shopping. and the prinsesa will wait for her ride. We rode 25+ miles to this point.