Tales of three angels

For the most part, our adventures are about riding, camping, and the people we meet...here are a fee of our stories: We were riding through rural farmland in minnesota when we saw a tractor pulling a wagon with something really big, a large tree trunk, perhaps? It was coming from a side road out to the road we were on. It pulled out on the road in front of us and it became obvious just what it was: a wagon loaded with manure! (you've heard of 10 pounds of s**t in a 5 pound bag? This was like 10 cubic yards!) As the tractor and wagon bumped along, one wheel on the shoulder, one to the outside, the contents kept falling out. It was about 95 degrees and it smelt like you-know-what. We did not want to pass it and we really didnt want to slow down so I thought of my mother's guardian angel. You see, my mother's guardian angel used to find us parking spaces so i figured she could get this manure wagon to turn off SOON. She did, it turned, and we were on our way on a clean shoulder! Second: our maps indicate places to camp and, occasionlly, "biker only accomodations." At the end of a 70-mile day we rolled into the bicycle bunkhouse and were amazed and overwhelmed. Donn Olson retired from the army and came back to the farm where he grew up. After he realized he was on the Northern Tier bike route and that lots of hot, tired bikers were passing by, he decided to open up his farm to bikers. His facilities continue to evolve but what we found was an Air Conditioned barn with separate bed rooms, frig, microwave, free bread, butter, eggs, jam, and other foods at ridculously low prices. There was a solar shower and photos of all the bikers who stayed there. We saw pictures of several of the folks we had met. Donn is a character and a shining star of our ride. Third: we have left the mapped route and are headed toward Chicago, which means we have to navigate across Wisconson. A bike shop in Stillwater, MN, told us we should go to another bike shop in Hudson, WI, to get Wisconson info. So we went to Art Doyle's shop, told him what we were trying to do, and he was SOOO helpful. He explained WI's geography, then showed us the map set that catagorizes all roads as to their suitability for biking, gave us his viewpoint on routes (he is a go-fast road bike guy while we are loaded tourers), then he gave us the $20 maps as his contribution to our adventure. After we studied the maps and considered alternatives we decided to ride a ways down the Mississippi then do 100 miles of rail trails, 40 miles of road,40 miles of rail trails to Madison...the (maybe) center of American bicycling. FroM there we would figure out how to get to Chicago. Given our decision, Art mapped out the best way to ride out of town to the river...and i mean mapped. He used Map My Ride and printed out the route for us to take with us. Riding, camping, people; some are awesome, some provide a contrast so we can appreciate the rest.