Goodbye, Twin Cities

Since Friday, we’ve been hanging out in the Twin Cities, where we have a bunch of friends. To prove it, here’s a picture of one of them, Sean, with Brice on the Stone Arch Bridge today, with one of the two cities in the background:

Here we’ve had a great time visiting friends and also stocking up on provisions, including the giant bag of cheese powder and box of Clif Bars we had shipped to Sean and the 50 feet of cord and one of Sean’s old ‘biners for making bear bags.

Tomorrow we’re heading out in the general direction of Moorhead, MN/Fargo, ND. We’re starting off going straight north, forging our own path back to the ACA route, and then following ACA west. Tomorrow night we should hit Milaca, followed in order on successive nights by Charles Lindbergh State Park (outside Little Falls), Parkers Prairie, Pelican Rapids, and Moorhead on Friday. Following that is a long hard slog across North Dakota, which I’m (Susan) really hoping is a more awesome state than everyone who’s every driven through there says it is. We’re going to start a new approach to rest days, since we really don’t have friends or family well-spaced throughout the rest of the trip like we have had so far. We’ll take more frequent one-day breaks based on wind forecasts, rather than more farther-spaced longer breaks based on people we want to see. North Dakota will be a test case for that strategy, which I’m hoping works out well. Not sure what we’ll do if we’re forecast for like 5 successive days of 30 mph headwinds, which sounds like may be possible in the state. Wheeeeeeeeeeee