Flint Hills Trail -- Rantoul to Osawatomie

In our quest to prepare for the “50 for 50” ride later this summer, today we did a 30-mile ride on the Flint Hills Trail starting at Rantoul. A lot of horses and a lot of horse crap that needed to be dodged. In general I’m not a fan of trails where bikes and horses are sharing the space, but in this socially distancing time the rural trails have a lot less people on them than the paved urban trails do. So we do what we have to do.

That darn missing bridge!

 

Prairie Spirit Trail - Princeton to Scipio, KS

Memorial Day Weekend - Covid edition 

Because we plan to do a 50-mile ride to commemorate a 50th birthday coming later this summer, we need to start preparing our bodies for that, so we drove over to the Prairie Spirit Trail to get in a lengthy ride on a crushed limestone trail.

We parked at the Princeton trailhead.

Happy to see our state post this warning. Sage advice.

To do our part, we had our bandana headbands around our necks so we could pull up our masks when we encountered other trail users.

We headed south from Princeton. Between Princeton and Richmond we encountered a lot of beautiful wildflowers alongside the trail.

And a little box turtle in the middle of the trail. We helped him on along in the direction he was headed.

When we arrived in Richmond, we veered a half-block off the trail to check out the downtown. This was an old abandoned corner bank building.

We headed on south out of Richmond. Just past the underpass of Hwy 59, we encountered this caution barricade.  Fair warning: There were spots from this point on into Scipio that will shake your nerves and rattle your brain.

We turned around at Scipio and returned back the way we came. 

A Boy Scout's Eagle project. Had to take a picture of the adorable bobcat on the sign! 

Pretty trail view. 

When we got back to our car at the Princeton trailhead, we weren't quite to 20 miles, so headed north from there.

Old signal base from the railroad. 

In the last 2-3 miles, he started to get a little hangry so we stopped for a short energy bar break! 

Back to our car.  27 mile ride on a gorgeous 80-degree, low-wind day!

Minneapolis, MN - 52 mile birthday bike ride

NOTE: This post was composed 9 months after our ride, and after the police brutality riots that occurred in May 2020.

Continuing on with our tradition of riding "miles for how many years old we are" for our birthdays, we took advantage of being in Minneapolis to watch one of the offspring run in a cross country race and did the birthday ride a few weeks early while there.

We parked at a park in Robbinsdale and planned to ride the Grand Rounds Trail and some of the River Trail. At some point we got off track. Thank goodness for GPS or we'd have been hopelessly lost!

This map shows the general illustration of what we intended to ride. At some point, we lost our way and ended up cutting across town on the Midtown Greenway. 

I love trails that are marked in this manner. It makes shared use so much more effective. Bikes ride in opposite directions in the dotted line area.  Pedestrians stay on the other side of the solid white line. Things flow so well that way.

Interesting name. We did not venture off the trail to see what the Quaking Bog actually was.

The signage gives a bit of an indication of how much the trails branch off in Minneapolis.

I loved the color and design of this bridge railing!
Picture also shows a winding trail branching off down below.

Bike rental station.

One of the lakes we rode alongside

Here the pedestrian trail was actually separated completely from the bike trail.  Even better!!

Cool picture.

Lots of wonderful art was scattered all around the city.

At some point along in here is where we must have taken a wrong fork because we ended up cutting across Midtown on the Midtown Greenway.

But had we not made that wrong turn, I would have missed out on all the art along this stretch.

Some of the art was gritty and urban, like the trail itself.

Homelessness is obviously an issue

and this underpass mural attempts to put faces on that issue:

This mural also touches on that same topic, bringing awareness to the sharp increase in rent prices in Minneapolis in recent years:

This is a pedestrian bridge over I-55 and is only about 2 blocks from the 3rd Precinct police station riots that occurred on 5/28/2020.

The green line indicates the trail that we rode and where the bridge crosses the interstate in close proximity to the area of the riots.

The next 2 pictures are also taken in this area of the trail shown on the above map. I wonder what it looks like today?

I find it very striking that I felt compelled to capture pictures of these signposts as we continued along the trail, also not far from the riot area. I found them poignant at the time.

Nine months later, I find them prophetic.

Also this one, relevant then. Much more relevant now:

We crossed the Mississippi River.....

..... witnessed the power of the locks and dam

..... and marveled at the size and engineering of the machinery required.

We had decided when planning our trip to check out a restaurant, George and the Dragon, that had been featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. It was mid afternoon before we got there and we were tired and very hungry. It was a little out of our way off the trail but it was definitely well worth the trip.

We had the Bacon and Onion Dip appetizer that was featured on the show. It was delicious!

For beverages, he had some kind of beer and she partook in the house-made root beer, which was very very good. Apparently I got the last of the batch for the day because about 5 minutes after being served mine, a little girl came in asking for some and was told they had just sold their last glass. Made me feel kind of guilty!!

She had a salmon and arugula salad.

He had curry.

The owner made a point to come to our table and talk with us and show his appreciation for dining with them. When he realized we were getting on our bikes after our meals, he even stepped outside to continue his conversation with us. We told him what our bike ride consisted of, that we were from out of state, and that we choose his restaurant because we saw it on DDD. We highly recommend it.  If you're ever in Minneapolis, go share a meal with them!

Still tired, but refueled, we embarked on the last 20 miles of our ride.

Pretty fall colors

More of that great trail marking!

Lake Harriet was quite beautiful!

With an open-air pavilion amphitheater.

It had a very resort-like feel

and boat rentals that appear to have been put up for the season.

After Lake Harriet, I put the camera away and concentrated on just keeping pedaling, as I was starting to feel the fatigue of 45+ miles.

However, I did get the camera back out to snap this picture of the last stretch through the park where we had parked our car. The finish line was in sight!!!

 

Video of our ride:

Roy Griak Invitational Cross Country Meet

University of Minnesota, Falcon Heights, MN

Saturday, September 28, 2019

The next day dad watched -- for the last time in person -- his college senior daughter run cross country.