Leaving the Mississippi behind

(susan writing)

Yesterday we crossed the Mississippi one last time, on Morrison county rd 26 between Royalton and Bowlus, Minnesota. The river is still wide up here, though not as gargantuan as it is down along the bluffs along the state border. We camped across the road from the river last night at Charles Lindbergh State Park, where the Lindbergh family had a summer home and engaged in some gentleman’s farming.

Yesterday was our last day of nice weather for a while. Storms hit last night–we stayed nice and dry thanks to our REI Half-Dome2 tent, which we highly recommend if you’re in the market. Today things are a bit dicey because there’s only one town in between our starting point and final destination and there’s flash flood warnings, big storm systems to the south, and rain showers all around. We’ve managed to avoid the big storms by staying north of the mapped route but got hit with some solid showers just before we hit Long Prairie, the one town along the route today. So we’ve been sitting at the restaurant here in town for about an hour and a half now, watching the radar and waiting for a chance to go. The problem is that there is a meteorological force field of sorts between here and Parker’s Prairie, a big storm system that’s moved up and hasn’t seemed to move on. The ol timers a couple stools over from me are talking about the hail they had out at their farms this morning. It’s not pretty. Cross your fingers for us.