Southern MN Bike Trip Day 1: 6/20/23

 Southern MN Bike trip day 1: 6/20/23

Well, we’re off and running on another adventure. Took off around 9:30 this morning from Minneapolis bound for “High Island” County park in Sibley county with Dad, Greg, and Andy. This was at least in part to celebrate my Dad's retirement and health, but also simply because we haven't done it together before and we all loving doing it. 

It is always awesome to exit the city via bike and this time was no exception, albeit a little bit more detours than normal. Biked the Greenway out to Hopkins with zigzagging a little here and there and then had to hack random streets down to YoYo Doughnuts, our first stop of the day. Lots of light rail construction going on. Kind of a bummer that in a couple years, you’d be able to roll right down to Chaka with minimal turns. What can ya do. 

YoYo didn’t disappoint. Great pit stop before hitching back up with the trail, at this point called the “Great River Bluffs” trail. I’d taken this trail a couple of times on long runs, but it’s much less familiar than the trails we took before it. Great scenery once you get past the highways though. A nice canopy of trees and some great views once you get closer to the Minnesota River.

Grabbed some lunch in downtown Chaska at a great Mexican restaurant. Chaska was really nice. Cool old homes and a nice downtown. The trail between Chaska and Carver was sweet as well. It butts up against the wildlife refuge but still had a sizable buffer to the road next to it. Got our first closeup of their river as we entered Carver and then left trails behind for a while in exchange for roads. 

Nice rolling country roads with the bluff on one side and intermittent farm fields and marshes. We also accidentally ran into “East Union” which was where Gustavus was located for a short period of time. One of the buildings was still standing and had a plaque, which was pretty cool.

More or less a headwind for this stretch and plenty of large hills. Belle Plaine came up fast enough though and we crossed back over to the east side of the river to grab some groceries for dinner.

After another pit stop at Dairy Queen before leaving town (frozen hot chocolate FTW), we set off for our last leg of the journey. 14 miles until the campsite.

The road out of Belle Plaine was also awesome. Gentle hills and little travel with great views. We passed a lot of time identifying birds or trying to think about the calls we didn’t. Crossed back to the west side of the river at Blakely and had a few more miles along the river flats before cresting out of the river valley up a massive hill and then onto the campsite.

The county park is great. It’s small, maybe only 600 acres, but there’s only 4 other parties here beside us, but it’s a nice, open grove of trees and has a great overlook of a farm field and bluff country.

There is water, although it is hard as heck to pump up. Definitely a 2-person job or more. We had a fantastic dinner of brats, baked beans, and fried peppers along with a Shokopee brewing Hefeweizen and some chocolate for dessert.

Dunked in the creek after dinner, which was quite refreshing as well. Sandy, for the most part and deep enough to comfortably dunk under.

All in all, a great first day.

62ish miles biked in total.