Good Bye ND & MN; Hello Wisonsin

We loved ND, they are at the top of our list for friendliest. People honked, gave us high fives and truckers waved. When were sopped for grocercies someone always struck up a conversation qsking qbout ut trip. Besides friendlyness, the state was really pretty with hills, farms,cattle, valleys and numerous unexpected wetlands. We even saw pelicans! MN was also very beautiful with large acres of farm lands and small towns. One day we decided to disregard the detour signs and precedded forward thinking they would surely stop us if we were not supposed to be there. Not; no one stopped us, it was about 5 miles with big trucks hauling material, loose squirrely dirt and heat & sun penetetrating down; needless to say it was narrly but we made it through even ifwe had to push our bikes at times! Some of the highlights of MN were Pelican Rapids with the largest pelican statue in the world and a very cool pedestrian suspension bridge over a large lake in town; Bowlous & Jordie's Cafe w/incredible pie selection (pieces were several inches high) and air conditioned bathrooms for their city park camping; and then there was Don Olsen's adventure cycling bunk house! Don is retired Army and now lives on the family farm. He converted his old barn into a bunkhouse for cyclist - it too has air conditioning, 3 room with wooden bunks, kitchen area w/microwave indusreial size toaster oven, hotplate, toaster and coffee maker, plus all kinds of snacks, frozen foods at ridiculously low prices and free eggs, butter, milk and jam. He saw a need a number of years ago when some cyclist requested to camp on his farm. His house is right on the root. He also has outdoor solar shower, and outhouse. He gave all of us (2 women we had been trave.ing with also stayed there), a tour of his 100 acre farm in his van. It was quite a wonderful stay. He said he wantedto give back and really enjoyed all the cyclist. He takes everyones pictures and post on the wall, we saw several cyclists we had met earlier who were traveling east to west that had stayed there. Another wonder of our trip!