Less Weight = Easy Hills

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[The Minnewaukan Museum - a very cool stone building with a tower]

[Guido is reliving his favorite scene from the Hobbit. See ya wolves!]

[Guido and the man from Spirit Lake]

[The encroachment of Devil's Lake]

[Continental Divide - 1619 ft - what a climb...and what a tan line!]

This morning Ben and I had the good fortune of loading our packs into his parents' car for the journey from Minnewaukan to Cooperstown. We left Minnewaukan in good spirits - a fitting departure for a town whose name means Spirit Lake. On our way out we stopped to snap a few photos. One photo clearly shows the threat posed by the ever expanding Devil's Lake. Apparently it has risen over 25 feet in the past decade+ inundating roads, farms, and houses with salty water with high sulfur content. As a result, our route was moved further south than originally planned to avoid both road contruction (they are trying to raise the roadways to keep them clear of water) and also impassable flooded roads. We rode south on highway 281 for about 50 miles with a pretty stiff cross wind out of the west. For the first 20 miles we also had to deal with the constant passing of large gravel-hauling semi trucks on a road with no shoulder. These were not the best riding conditions. Luckily the semi traffic died out just before we had our arduous climb over the continental divide (this is sarcasm, it is very flat around here, but we did apparently go over the continental divide). We stopped at a bakery in New Rockford for our second breakfast (although our first with Ben's parents) where we met the town mayor as well as a state senator. They were very friendly and wished us well on our trip. From New Rockford it was a striaght shot south about 16 more miles and we finally turned east. With the wind at our backs Ben and I covered the last 47 miles in about 2.5 hours that included a lesiurely break at a public school in Glenfield where I was reminded of the magic of lying in the shade on a warm, breezy summer day. When we arrived in Cooperstown we found the city park, called Ben's parents to have our luggage delivered, set up camp, and then had a nice shower in the very smoke-smelling motel room where Ben's parents are staying (they're not very happy about the smell). Our prayers have been answered as the city of Cooperstown has a Pizza Ranch. So I'm going to go pig out now. Bring on the desert pizza!