“Light Showers”

(brice writing)

We were encouraged by the weather report this morning – light showers sounds a lot better than torrential thunderstorms. Our waterproof socks hadn’t dried out fully and our gloves were still soggy, but we put them on anyway and rode off into a steady drizzle. We’re definitely getting better at handling rain; the first few miles are cold, and then after some hills go by we’re too hot, but that’s easily fixed by partially unzipping a jacket.

After awhile this morning we passed by this abandoned schoolhouse:

A passerby told us that his brother-in-law went to school here and is in his early 50s, so it hasn’t been abandoned as long as one might think.

We continued on through a few brief patches of non-rain and discovered what Leif Erickson’s ghost has been up to:

Thanks for keeping the highway clean, Leif! On a slightly related note, the most frequent roadside trash we’ve seen, by far, is banana peels. I’ve seen at least one a day and around 3 most days. Are fruit remains not litter? I’m guessing apple cores get tossed about as often but they’re a lot easier to get far off the road. In the grand scheme it’s a lot better than tossing soda bottles or whatever, but seriously banana peels on pavement just turn into gross rotten leather that we have to avoid. Take ’em home and compost them.

Towards the end of the day we turned to the north and immediately heard loud thunder and saw ominous clouds. Despite the forecast, we ducked into the least structurally sound shelter ever:

and were glad we did because torrential rain and lightening followed soon after:

The shed managed to not collapse, so we continued on our way past some gorgeous hill country:

And now we are in Pelican Rapids at a nice motel next to a hormel turkey packing plant. We’re supposed to get rain through the night but tomorrow will be dry for our ride into Moorhead and our last day in Minnesota!