Day 3- 83 miles Watertown, SD

We stopped by Bill's Grocery store in the morning for some nourishment and Bill gave us each a t-shirt with his store's name on it. He then gave us free purified water and preceded to be an excellent fellow. He wants us to email him a picture of us wearing the shirts when we get to Portland so he can put it up on his store's website. We also talked to a guy working produce about his bike journey to Glacier National Park. If such a thing as Minnesota nice exists, it is alive and well in Montevideo.
Our first stop of the day was in Dawson, MN. I was born in this town, and don't think I've been back since, at least that I can recall. A home coming of sorts. My family has some friends we tried to visit who live near the South Dakota border, but after an hour of searching long country roads we couldn't find their house, so we continued west. Once I got service on my phone, I gave them a call, and Mary drove out to bring us some water. Very nice.
The ride from the SD border to Watertown tested our might. Headwinds up a gradual incline. Once getting to Watertown we searched for a place to lay our heads, but couldn't really find anything. So, we asked some locals - an important thing to do since they obviously know more about their town than we do. We found out there was a campsite about 5 miles out of town. It was getting late, so we checked it out and hit the hay.

Day 2 - 82 miles Montevideo, MN

after breakfast we set out down the 7 until we heard there was construction, so we took a long detour to Hector, MN and picked up the 212 all the way to Montevideo. The ride down into the Minnesota River Valley was our most scenic yet. It was nice to have some down hills we could coast along hitting a high speed of 29 mph. In Montevideo we found a Clean Water Council meeting breaking up and talked to a guy named Patrick who told us where we could stay in town and printed a map of south Dakota for us. He had just driven through last summer and gave us some tips on our route. nice guy. We stopped by the grocery store, then found the camp site in town. We ate some food my brother Tyler made for us called "Broke Jaw Slop" in honor of his friend and his broken jaw. Tonight was our first shower and it felt great. We slept beside a river. I saw bats and Aaron saw an owl. Creatures of the night.

DAY 1 - 72 miles. Camped outside Hutchinson, MN

After Aaron and I foolishly left our lady friends monday morning, we were given a send off by our pals Joe and Juri. Joe rode with us to Hopkins. The ride was good. We ate lunch outside St. Bonafiscious. Shortly after disaster struck, and I learned an important lesson in the necessity of screw tightening. My rear rack fell backwards, but stayed attached at the bottom. While I searched the highway feeling dumb and looking for a missing piece, Aaron rigged my rack back up in a way that would have made MacGyver proud. It's still holding tight like a champ three days later. We checked in at a nice bike shop in Hutchinson and they repaired some cable housing for me and directed us to a spot to camp nine miles down the Luce Line trail. Thanks, guys. After setting up camp we ate way too much velveta shells and cheese mixed with chili. All in all it was an excellent and educational first day.

BON VOJAGE

Gear

What gear, gos where.

Front right pannier...

Front left pannier...

Back right pannier...

Back left pannier...

Back rack

Front rack

The weather

Everything is looking good for the first stretch of roads.

This is what Watertown, South Dakota is looking like.

Tue
May 18

Mostly Sunny

72°
48°

0%

72°F

Wed
May 19

Sunny

72°
50°

0%

72°F

Thu
May 20

Mostly Sunny

72°
53°

10%

72°F

Check that list

My lists are all checked off, and the clock is ticking.
One day left.
My anxiousness is setting in, yet I feel confident with my piles of gear.
Today I did a bit of last minute shopping at Target and Home Depot. I purchased a little garden shovel that I feel will come in extremely handy. (digging fire pits etc.)
Today I also discovered how hard it is to plan for cooking on the road. I found myself reading food labels, looking for foods with high protein and calorie content.
I will try and keep a detailed update on our consumptions during the ride. If anyone has any good ideas, please feel free to drop a line.
As of right now, my grocery bag of goodies consists of: