Day 27: And I Would Bike 500 Miles, and I Would Bike 500 More

Prescott, WI to North St. Paul, MN

Stats!
Miles biked today: 42.6
Total miles biked on trip so far: 1017.8
Max speed: 31.0
# of 31st birthdays: 1 (Dean!)
# of bikers that got Deutsche Tagged - 2


Today's blog will be hosted by an owl wearing a tie.

Dean started out this morning in a terrible fix. Well, today is his birthday, and that is great, but he still had a broken spoke, which resulted in an out-of-true wheel, which meant that the brake was rubbing the wheel for the entire 30 miles it took us to get to the nearest bike shop. BOO.

Not to mention that the first 15 miles were extremely hilly, which was even harder on him for biking, and it was another really cold day. Brrrrr!

We stopped in Afton, MN (there's just something about towns named Afton and difficult bike climbs) for our second breakfast, and decided to once again go off-route to try to get to the bike shop sooner, and with fewer hills. I think it worked!

When we were almost to Stillwater, MN, we hit our 1,000 mile mark. We celebrated with a ridiculous photo and a loud, slightly altered rendition of the song by that Scottish band, "500 miles," or something like that.

1,000 miles! We did it!

We finally made it to Stillwater, and it was a really cool town. I am definitely adding it to my "places I'd consider living," list, and bump it right up to the top. It was really cute and had a nice vibe. Kind of like a mini Portland on the Mississippi.

The bike shop (called "The Bikery") was up the biggest hill of the day. We walked it. It was huge. But it was also a bakery and coffee house. We had a slice of strawberry pie while the guy worked on Dean's bike, but the whole thing took a very long time, and we worried that we wouldn't make it to Minneapolis. Add to that the fact that every affordable motel in the Twin Cities area was booked, and things were looking grim.

We finally found a hotel with availability that wasn't insanely expensive, and was only a few miles off our route, in the twin cities suburb of North St. Paul. We had a REALLY enjoyable ride after Stillwater along the Gateway Trail. It felt like we were just out for a fun bike ride.

Once we made it to the motel, we immediately grabbed the bus into downtown St. Paul to hit Deutsche Tage (German Days), a German festival with beer, brats, and music. We figured Dean's birthday merited a little extra celebration. It was a really fun time.

Despite some early snags, this was a really great day. Happy birthday to my love, Dean!