The mental energy I allocate to the annual Tour of Minnesota biking and camping adventure takes up a lot more time than just the actual week of riding. I tend to have the topic of navigating trip details turning up in my nighttime dreams year-round. Physical conditioning before the start in June has me thinking about the event during April and May. For weeks after I get home, the energy and emotions of the fun times stay in my head well after real-life distractions have returned in full.

I don’t have any pictures from the great escape I participated in with seven others while in Alexandria. We solved the puzzles to open the locked door with twelve seconds to spare, freeing ourselves from becoming the next test subjects of the sinister Mr. Hyde. Luckily, the guide paused our clock when she had to enter the room to open a lock that wasn’t responding to our correct combination of numbers. Such excitement.

Obviously, the weather toyed with us a bit, getting the roads and trails just wet enough on the first day to cause a soaking spray off our tires even after the precipitation had ended. Later, the storms just happened to magically form directly overhead and linger at length without moving. Maybe we should auction our services to other area farmers who need rain.

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First, it happened in Sauk Centre and then the next day in Little Falls. If you can find the little blue dot pin in the images above, that shows our location each time. At least we were done riding by the time those downpours occurred.

Other random silliness:

Steve posing for me on the enticing relic of a bicycle-powered reel lawn mower. He’s gonna need to move the seat up on that one before using it.

At first, I had no plan of posing as a Viking warrior in Starbuck. Next thing I know, I’m right in the middle of the action between Joseph and Scott. My attempt at a grimace looks suspiciously similar to my usual smile. Also, my version of a Viking verbalization sounded more like a pirate than anything else. I assume there were some pirate Vikings so I was just reflecting that.

After someone gave Jennifer an ice cream sandwich while she was eating lunch, she began eating both at the same time. It was hot. The ice cream was melting. Problem solved.

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In trying to split the difference between authorized tenting location and shade from the sun, a bunch of us put our tents near the school in Alexandria. Lights from both inside and outside the school stayed on all night long. The picture above on the right was taken at 10 p.m. It was still that bright when I checked five hours later after my full bladder woke me. Luckily, bright light doesn’t stop me from falling asleep.

While on a pause from pedaling at a park in Glenwood, I noticed Tom, Rick, and Rod were all leaning back on their arms like I was. We were all mirroring each other. I handed my phone to Rich Gordon and asked him to take a picture. At the same time, Rick moved out of position to take a phone call. Close enough for me.

You can be assured, the week was fun, fun, fun.

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