A quick summary of the trip. We drove up to Akeley, MN on Wednesday, May 24 (the Wednesday before Memorial Weekend) where we spent 2 nights at a private campground, Akeley City Campground on the 11th Crow Wing Lake. It is a really nice site with RV and tent camping. We were the only tent for the first night.
The campground is next to the Heartland Trail, one of the first in the country rails-to-trails. It is a really well maintained trail and like our previous experience on rails-to-trails, it was relatively flat and straight.
We jumped on our bikes as soon as we got our campsite set up. It was a cold first ride.
Wednesday night we ate in Nevis, the town just west of Akeley. Had some good barbecue. Back at camp, Bud tried some fishing off the public fishing pier next to our campground.
The second day was warm and sunny. We had breakfast in camp and then biked to Walker, MN. We stopped at a coffee shop in Walker and headed back via the "scenic" route...which meant lots of hills and turns. This took us onto the Paul Bunyan Trail.
Bud has an electric bike...I do not! I did a pretty good job of keeping up. I think I gained an inch on my quads. We finally encountered some other bikers.
We drove back to Walker for dinner as there were more options.
Friday, we drove to Cass Lake to get a tent site at the Chippewa National Forest park outside of Cass Lake. We found a beautiful site but there were LOTS of mosquitoes. Lots of mosquitoes brought out LOTS of dragonflies. It was fascinating and we really appreciated the work dragonflies do. There were also LOTS of ticks...horror movie LOTS!!
We were expecting the campsites to be busy (Memorial Weekend) but there was only one other person there when we arrived. By the time we left on Saturday, there were 3 other families camping.
We took the Mizigi Trail around the lower portion of Cass Lake. It passes through a section of the Chippewa National Forest that has mostly been harvested and re-planted with pine trees. The bike path is completely covered with pine needles and cones. And there were millions of dragonflies!!!
We ate dinner at Stoney Point Resort, the only place close by.
We returned to the Twin Cities on Saturday. We drove back through Federal Dam, Emily, Crosby, and Mille Lacs. It was a great adventure.
Click here for a video (best viewed landscape). The "music" you will hear is a recording of the many songbirds that serenaded us in Cass Lake.
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