Biking - Camping Lake Louise State Park

 

This year's first biking-camping trip. Bud and I went further south (almost to Iowa) this spring to camp at Lake Louise State Park and cycle the Shooting Star State Trail.

Lake Louise is about 1 1/2 hours south past Rochester. We were the only tent campers in the park! The tent camping is split into two sections that are right next to each other. One is closer to the Upper Iowa River. Both are open but surrounded by large trees. There is a pit toilet near the tent area. There are nice showers and bathroom facilities just down the gravel road at the RV site.

We arrived in bright sunshine and warm weather. After quickly getting set up, we jumped on our bikes to explore the closest town, LeRoy. The bike bridge to LeRoy is being repaired and the detour is not marked but an easy ride over the road bridge. Not much to see in LeRoy. There is a hotel with a restaurant. There is a bowling alley down the street.

Back at camp we thought we would eat out on our first night. Having seen what LeRoy offered we drove in the other direction toward Austin, Minnesota. There are 3 towns - Taoli, Adams, and Rose Creek. There were no places to eat at any of these towns! Taoli has no restaurants. Adams has one that is only open for breakfast and lunch. The one restaurant in Rose Creek is not open on Mondays. 

So back at camp, Bud fixed us a dinner of chicken and rice. It was very good.

Tuesday, we biked the Shooting Star Trail on an out and back to Adams - 24 miles total round trip. We had lunch at Bubbles Cafe in Adams. It got busy with a good lunch crowd (makes sense since it was the only place to eat for miles!)

The trail follows the Upper Iowa River for the most part. It isn't a big river and more like a creek. We passed near newly planted fields of corn and soybean and a couple of pig farms. We also passed through a huge solar farm under construction. There are lots of wind turbines down here, too.

The Shooting Star Trail is very, very flat. Yay!

Back at camp we showered and put away most of the gear as storms were forecast. We headed to LeRoy and the Sweets Hotel for dinner. The hotel has a large restaurant, and the food was very good. It is an historic looking hotel with lots of wood and an old-world feel.

We got back to camp just before the rain started. And rain it did indeed. There was a long enough break in the weather for me to go to the restrooms to brush my teeth. On the way back I got to experience an incredible firefly show.

The rain turned into a big-time storm with lots of lightening, thunder, and rain. The field we were camped on turned into a pool of water but luckily or due to our preparations, we only got a little water in the tent. Wednesday when we checked the weather app, we saw that over 1 inch of rain had fallen!

Wednesday morning, we dried everything out, packed up, and headed home with a stop in Rochester to ride the Douglas State Trail. Either I was a bit worn out from Tuesday's ride or the trail was steeper, but I pooped out about 7.5 miles, so we turned around and rode back to our start. It was also very windy.

This was another really good trip and many thanks to Bud for all the food and preparations. We highly recommend the Shooting Star State Trail as it is very flat. We saw a variety of animals and flowering plants.

When you watch the video, the first audio you hear is of the songbirds that were all around. I recorded that from inside our tent on Tuesday morning.

Video link here.