Day Two 'A Mesozoic What?'

Day Two “A Mesozoic What?”

Today started with a nice big sleepy, ‘How do you do?’. We both slept better here than in Pipestone 
for some reason. It was probably due to the fact that we’d just riden our bikes a fair distance. 
To start reading from the beginning go to this LINK .

We got on the road without much problem thinking and hoping for a breakfast place but there wasn’t 
one; as a matter of fact, there wasn’t anything but road from Avoca to Mountain Lake. 
This turned out to be the hardest day of the whole journey; although, it wasn’t the largest in terms of 
miles at all. 

The fun thing about riding your bicycle across the state is the speed. You’re going around ten miles 
an hour with all of your bags and really tasting life. The smell of summer on a Minnesota county 
highway as you straddle the road between Soybeans and Corn fields will never leave me. For me this 
is the smell of freedom all mixed in with a hot road and the sound of bicycle tires and gears traveling 
across it. Cycling through my home state of Minnesota is an experience I won’t soon forget. 
Meeting her people, seeing nature in all of it’s abundance and groovitude (my own word), breathing 
her air as we cycle through the southern parts has been one of the joys of my life and a truly wonderful 
adventure. 

Having said that I will also say that this day held adventure for us. 

The Google lady took us on about ten miles of gravel roads. In the video you’ll hear me talking about 
four miles and then at the end it’ll seem like I’m exaggerating but at the point I said four miles I didn’t 
know we were about to turn onto another gravel road and then yet another. After a while it sort of gets 
to you. It’s harder to ride so you burn more calories, and work way harder riding in gravel. Elissa has 
a road bike so it was very difficult for her and as it turns out she ended up with a flat when we finally 
arrived in Mountain Lake.

Just before bed in Avoca we’d decided to get an Air BnB in Mountain Lake and it was a good thing too 
because the people whose house it was helped us with the flat, gave us some grilled tater tot hotdish 
(I grew up in Minnesota and never ever knew you could do that. It’s way better than in the oven.), and 
provided a wonderfully perfect country setting to rest our bodies. Not to mention the first shower in a 
few days which was nice as well. We are forever grateful. 

Mountain Lake seems to be a town which like so many other rural towns is slowly passing on. 
The people there are wonderful, the setting is picturesque, but the kids grow up and move away. I 
mean you can’t blame them. The world is a big place full of adventure and when you’re young and 
full of piss and vinegar that’s what you want to see and that’s what you should see. I just wish they’d 
eventually go back so we could keep these tiny towns alive. 

When we got into town we were starving so we stopped at a place called, “King Egg Roll”. It’s right 
on the main drag across the street from the grocery store. You can’t miss it. Oh boy I don’t think food 
tasted so good...well actually we were so hungry we should have used our snow shovels for spoons. 

If you get a chance you should stop there, it's a great place. 

Here is the map for this weeks adventure followed by the video. Please feel free to share this with all of your friends. Lets make this a movement and see where we can bring it.

Here is the video for this week's adventure. 

Peace, Love, and Groovitude

   The Marty’s

Day One The Journey Begins

DAY ONE

The Journey Begins

Hello, I hope this blog post finds you and your family healthy, happy, and filled with Groovitude. 
What follows is a true account of Elissa and my journey across our home state in Minnesota on 
our bicycles. 

Day One, The Journey Begins:

Here is a map of our entire journey. Link

We decided to start on the far Western side of Minnesota in a smallish but very historic part of the country
 called, ‘Pipestone’. It’s named that for the stone which is found there.  The Pipestone National Park and 
Monument is so titled because of its rich and historic significance to the Native peoples of the United 
States. This is where we began. It’s seemed like a significant spot to start because of Elissa’s native 
heritage, so we camped near the park and visited it before we left hoping for good luck. 

If you go please stop at the park and see what we’re talking about. It’s a beautiful part of Minnesota. 

Pipestone had just suffered through an incredible storm and half of the town was without power and there
 were downed trees everywhere. 

We ate at a small restaurant named Lange’s and you could do a lot worse.  It really is THE place to go
 if you’re going to eat in Pipestone. 

We slept okay but it’s always hard to sleep the first day of an adventure. I’m to hyped up and just can’t 
drift off. 

The next day we ate again at Lange’s. Then went back to camp packed up and left. 

We started off at the Casey Jones State Trail which is in three parts. The trail head in Pipestone is easy
 to find and has beautiful and informative signs about the history of the trail. 

We traveled on the first part which was paved and ran between farmer fields, some tree’s, and roads. 
The day was terrific and we were making great headway.  We found a lot of little animals which didn’t 
seem to freightened of us some even followed along. There was this one Chipmunk which I’m thinking 
about who was particularly curious until the camera came out.  

Eventually the pavement ended and we continued on county highway thirty.  Highway thirty was busy
but the trucks, cars, and semi’s gave us plenty of room as we traveled straight east. That part of 
Minnesota has all sorts of windmills everywhere. It really is a treat to stand on an empty quiet highway 
and listen to the tone they make. 

The plan was to make it to a small town by the name of Avoca where we would stay the night. The 
town has just 147 people and is around thirty-seven or so miles from Pipestone.  We figured it would be 
best to try and have a nice easy day to start with. I like starting things with successes which aren’t all 
that hard to get. It gives confidence and eases your muscles into the work. 

When we got to Avoca we found a cute and small rural town surrounded by bean and corn fields. The 
campground was on the outside of town just beyond a beautifully kept cemetery. The ground at the 
campground was much softer than at the Pipestone campground. The sun had been out all day and 
burnt us right through our sunscreen so when we got to the campground we were tired, hot, dirty, and 
did I mention tired already? 
The campground is right on Lime Lake so we were hoping to do some skinny dipping at night but we were 
to tired. There was also some sort spill way between one side of the lake and the other and the current 
would have been way to much. **cue sad face emoji* 

Instead of skinny dipping we ate huge from our stores, drank tons of water, and went to bed. I didn’t think 
we would be able to sleep but we did. We slept great that night. 

Here is a video which tells the story from Pipestone to Avoca. This video is part one and is a bit longer 
than the others will be, but we’ve made it interesting. 

Have a great day and don’t forget to subscribe to our videos and this blog because there are way more 
videos to come in this series. 

Next week we leave for Mountain Lake, get a flat, ride through miles and miles of gravel and curse the 
Google Lady. ***throws fist at the sky***