Last Day in Civilization

For the past three days, I’ve been hanging out in the Twin Cities soaking up sun, wind and a vibrant metropolitan area. It is the last one I’ll see on this trip, unless you count Billings, Montana or Reno, Nevada. Billings is 1000 miles from here. Reno is 2200 from Billings. I reported on my trip to the Twins game on Sunday - an 11-0 pasting at the hands of the White Sox. Not much to cheer for there. I went to dinner afterwards with Courtney and Will and then they kindly drove me back to my shithole hotel with a stop at the grocery store for some milk and cereal. The hotel breakfast was bread, mini-bagels, and/or Eggos. That’s it. The coffee machine was broken, which I didn’t care about because I don’t drink coffee. The juice machine was unplugged. There was butter and jelly for the bread products. I came down Monday morning to see if they had anything I could use for my cereal. They did not. No bowls. No spoons. I took a styrofoam coffee cup and a plastic fork, returned to my room and poured small amounts of cereal and milk into the cup. I was making a mess trying to scoop cereal out with the fork so I gave up on that and just slurped the cereal down. It was pathetic. From there, I rode up to the University of Minnesota, did a little shirt shopping, got a pretty bad gyro for lunch, did some more shirt shopping, returned the first shirt I got and then landed at a Starbucks. For the first time in my life, I actually sat in a coffee shop (with an iced tea) and did some work. I had some scholarship applications to review. I felt so young and important. Neither feeling lasted very long. When I was done, I rode over to make my last social call of the ride. Will Sutton and his wife, Linda (Christianson) have a beautiful condo along the river in Minneapolis. I also had the pleasure of meeting their daughter, Lydia, who joined us for dinner. Will is one of my oldest friends, going all the way back to middle school.

True story - Will and I were driving home together between mid-terms during our junior year in high school. I was driving my mother’s station wagon and the roads were snowy and icy. I was going too fast and failed to successfully navigate a corner, plowing through a snow bank and ending up in someone’s yard. After several failed tries to push the car out - and doing some inadvertent damage to the yard - we went up to a friend’s house and called a tow truck. Right as we got back to the car to wait, my sister drove by, and made me get in her car so I could go back and take another mid-term that afternoon. I had planned on skipping it, citing car trouble, but she would have none of it. The tow driver showed up after I left and towed the car to Will’s house where Will had to pay for it - $23. I still remember that and I still feel bad to this day because I believe he paid for it with his silver dollar collection. I can only assume I paid Will the money back but I couldn’t pay him in silver dollars.

I left their place this morning and had to make one more stop. I had to go to Scheels again and get a new chain. It was only 15 miles from Will and Linda’s place to the store in Eden Prairie but it felt like every bit of 50. I was riding straight into a 20-25 mph wind the whole way. I was downshifting on downhills. Picture a hand dryer in a restroom. Now turn that up as high as it can go and point it directly in your face. Now make sure it’s 90 degrees outside so the wind feels a bit like a furnace blast. When I left the condo, I had thoughts of making the quick stop for the chain and then riding another 40-50 miles or so to get a bit ahead of schedule. Those thoughts shriveled up like a raisin before I was 6 blocks from the condo. I had as long, lazy lunch, found a hotel across the street, checked in and dumped my stuff, then went up the bike shop. I was done by 3:00. I went and saw Thor at the theater in the nearby mall. A far better use of my last moments in town than anything else I could think of.

I lied in my last post. I thought I was done with the Mississippi but it runs such a crazy course through town, I ended up crossing it twice more yesterday, bringing my total to 10 (6 on the bike). This IS the last time.

Will, me and Ami with the photobomb

Yes. That is a Ferris Wheel inside a sporting goods store.