Adventure time, part 2.

The first night was relentless. I wore pretty much every piece of dry clothing that I had to bed and was huddled up in the feeble position under a very thin blanket I had brought. I felt as though I woke up every 20 minutes or so throughout the night. I would wake up and sit up and scrounge for another sock or something and forget what was going on and lay back down. Eventually I ate a cliff bar around six in the morning which warmed me up just enough to get one solid hour of sleep. I awoke at 7 and could no longer sleep. I got up and got out of the tent, the sun was out, which gave me false hopes of warmth. I immediately started scouring the area for as much kindling as I could find. It was no use, everything was wet. The small fire I was able to get started was not enough to catch any of the logs on fire. We busted out the camping stove and made some coffee quickly and dispatched it even faster.

Cold and wet morning in camp.

Nothing worse than a wet shammy.

At this point, freezing, sleep deprived, and really hungry, Brian and I packed up and hopped on our bikes to ride into town. We decided to take the shorter route that would almost for certain be mostly gravel, it was. There were a few obnoxious hills and a nice head wind just for good measure. I was bonking pretty hard on the way in but as soon as we hit the paved road a tail wind kicked up and we started moving a bit faster. We got into town and I pulled out the phone to see what kind of food options were in the area. The big green savior, Perkins was about a mile and a half away. We set course and pedaled the last agonizing mile and a half to Perkins.

"What would you like to drink?" COFFEE! PLEASE, COFFEE!

I got a giant blue berry muffin and some eggs Benedict with hash browns. I inhaled my food as though it was the first time I've ever had real food. I was still kind of hungry and was considering ordering more but I abstained and instead finished the rest of the coffee. From Perkins we went another couple of miles to Target. We were both still pretty cold, it was almost noon at this point and it was only about fifty four degrees despite the sun being out in full force. We arrived at Target and I went in first. I picked up some food and a cheap sleeping bag.I went outside attached my stuff to my bike and waited for Brian to return. The sun was shining behind the Target which put me directly in the shade. I moved out towards the road a bit and laid down on the sidewalk in the sun, I just didn't even care. Brian finished his trip inside and we packed up and headed back to camp.

On the return trip I started to warm up and the food was kicking in, I had plenty of energy and was started to feel great. We rode back much faster than we had came out despite all the gnarly hills. I have been trying to get the principal of cadence down so I had been practicing that throughout the trip but it really did me good on the way back to the camp. I was flying up the hills and wasn't killing myself, it was a great feeling!

Here I am on the attack.

This hill was about a mile long and the grade increased the further you got up it.

We got back to camp and just kind of took it easy for a bit. We drank some water and had a couple of beers and food. Then we went and sought out the showers again. After the shower we scored a couple more bundles of wood and headed back to the camp site. The day was pleasantly warm at this point and Nerstrand had some really cool walking trails that I was itching to check out so we went for a stroll. There was a ton of wild life all over the place and everything was so green, it was such a great experience. There was a nice little creek running through the park that both reminded us of places we hung out as a kid. A couple miles into the walk we discovered the "hidden falls" of Nerstrand.

Hidden falls.

Peaceful walking trails.

We finished up our walk and the trail let us out right by the camp site so we went and got our fire started. Most of the clothing from the day before was dry now and our spirits were in better shape too. We snacked on some stuff and made some more coffee and started cooking our dinner. I had picked up a fat new york strip steak and Brian had veggie burgers. It was a great ending to a day that had not started very nice.

Temporary housing.

The campsite after our walking adventure.

You can never go wrong with coffee.

Veggie burgers next to a steak...

Cow sandwich.

We finished up our food and beers and called it a night. I slept soundly for most of the night. I did wake up a few times to the sounds of great horned owls hooting and what I can only assume was coyotes howling all night long. The next morning I woke totally refreshed and only somewhat hungry. I ate some of what ever was around and Brian had already made coffee. We got all our stuff packed up and headed for home. We took the gravel roads back to Northfield. On the way some cows looked at me grudgingly as though they knew I had eaten one of their brethren. From there it was pretty smoothing sailing. We had a tail wind for most of the way back. We stopped at El Loro for our victory lunch. We got back and split the last Surly Furious. We parted ways and I went inside and plopped my butt down on the couch and took a stiff nap.

They knew what I was about.

Chips and salsa to the rescue.

I learned a lot on this trip both about the gear I had and about things that would be useful in the future. I hope to make this a monthly thing this summer, even if I have to go solo. Trial and error is kind of the name of the game and this one was much more comfortable than the trip we took to Afton. I had a lot of fun on this trip and I highly recommend trying this out sometime, it is a lot of fun even when it isn't.