PRELUDE
To prepare for this bike ride, Gordie biked approximately 1050 miles! He started doing 35 miles twice each week and progresseed to two 80 miles trips. Now the "easy and fun" part starts!
Friday, July 21--75 miles--Bailey Nursery to Wasioja
Gordie, John and Hendri Grant left the office at 7:30 a.m. with a great send-off from the Bailey employees. Law's Nursery hosted a nice continental breakfast and the group (Gordie, John, Hendri, Paul Morlock, Rod Bailey, Tim Powers, Stan Hokanson and Paul Lorah) took off at 9:15. The first mile was miserable! It was a classic example of "how not to start a bike trip"! Gordie had a flat tire, the chain fell off Tim's bike and Stan's wheel wobbled so badly that he almost lost control. However in a very short while everything was fixed and they were on their way to our farm home near Wasioja,without another mishap. It was a glorious day--temps in the 70's,no bright sun, a tailwind--perfect conditions. We traveled through rolling prairie with a few hills tossed in for a challenge. Some of the things we noted along the way were: gas was $2.89 in Hastings--crops were very marginal except those with irrigation--however they improved as we headed south --lots of wild parsnip from Cannon Falls south--prairie at our farm was blooming beautifully. One of the strangest/funniest things that we saw was a flattened possum laying exactly on the white line of the road and the highway painting crew had recently painted a stripe across the flattened possum while painting the road!The great day was capped off with around 30 nursery friends for a cook-out.
