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So Pastor Bob calls Cormac and says sure thing, we are welcome to hang out at the church to stay out of the rain. We then spend the afternoon talking to Pastor Bob about a whole range of things, many about pastoring a church, and relaxing in the Youth Room. Pastor Bob is so so kind and generous, offering us a shower repeatedly at his family's house - apparently he thought we needed a shower more than we did:). And then he took us out to dinner and set us all up to spend a comfortable night in the youth room. The kindness of Grace United Methodist Church had a big impact on our time in Fergus Falls. Thank you, Pastor Bob, and peace to you and your family.

We leave Fergus Falls on the 16th of July excited to start the Central Lakes Trail, which heads Southeast through Minnesota and connects to the Lake Wobegon Trail. This is when the sun was shining, we were flying with a tail wind, and I look around at the land and hear the quiet and think, I like Minnesota! We enjoyed a full day on the trail, camping that night in a town park in Albany, MN (mosquitos!!!). The next day we biked to the trail's end, in St. John and then spent some time at the St. Michael's University there, using the internet to figure out how to get from there to Minneapolis. Very nice people at the university!

So to fastforward a bit just to get up to date, we biked to Baker State Park on the 17th and stayed there - nice but pricey for a campsite ($18.50). And then headed into Minneapolis the next day only to get rained on as we were passing a movie theatre and so we decided to catch a movie. Lucky for us, because Jane Carlsen Kay and her friend happened to be getting out of a movie at the same time as we were and asked us about our trip and where we were staying...
Yep, we ended up staying with Jane and her family - Gene, her husband and Emily and Jessie, their daughters! We actually even stayed for 2 nights - that's how wonderful they were:) THANK YOU JANE, GENE, EMILY & JESSIE - for the bed, the food, the laundry, the shower, the company, the bike into minneapolis, the run in the woods, conversation, box wine...Cheers to new friends.

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It's Thursday, July 23rd and we are currently in Portage, Wisconsin. We will be in Milwaukee tomorrow evening to get on a Ferry to Muskegon, Michigan! We are amazed, honestly, at how much we have biked already. Including today we have done 39 days of biking, and have been on this journey longer than that. It's about every 4 days or so that one of us, and generally both, begins yearning for home, for the comfort of a consistent place to put our head down and wake up or simply for a kitchen to cook a variety of food in. We have envisioned our new apartment many times - figuring out what colors to paint the walls and how to arrange the furniture. But overall we are just enjoying this chance to explore the country by bike. We know that come October we will be thinking about traveling again...