Who's Your Daddy? Mr. Wind
Sun May 4: St James to Worthington MN: 62 miles; 64 at 1:30, sunny, headwinds; 9:20-4:40This morning ranked as one of the most brutal rides I've endured. On flat terrain and windless days last year, I averaged as high as 17.5 mph for 2.5 hours. My first 90 minutes today, the headwinds held me to only 9.3 mph. Not since 2002 have a had that hard a time making miles.
While I ate lunch in Windom, the winds finally lessened slighly, and I averaged 12.2 mph the rest of the way into Worthington. It shows that everything is relative - after my struggles for a day and a half, the afternoon felt like I flew down the road.
For the night, I'm ensconced with Rich and Kris Besel (Rich had arranged for my previous night with his parents). Once again, I found a family with whom I connected immediately, like we'd been best friends for years. They had Joachin (a German exchange student) staying with them, so we showed him my Africa DVD and their DVD of a trip to the Utah national parks and of rafting down the Grand Canyon. Later, Rich told us the story of his father's and grandfather's immigration experience in Ellis Island in 1923.
Place names: This morning I biked by the town of Mountain Lake, but I didn't see either. (The lake is even too small to show up on road maps.) Maybe they named it that because Flat Featureless Farmland was already taken? And I'd love to hear how they named the town of Sleepy Eye.
posted by Glen @ 6:53 AM
1 Comments:
Hi!
This is Kari, the reporter who interviewed you this morning at the Worthington Middle School.
I take it no one warned you about the wind here in southwest Minnesota. We're already getting a reputation for being the Saudi Arabia of wind energy, as you may have noticed (with all the windmills about). In fact, it's so windy here, our local lake will be the site of the National Windsurfing Championships this year.
I believe it is one of the windiest lakes in the world.
I would apologize for our wind, but it's such an asset to the area it would only be a half-hearted apology.
Thank you for your presentation at WMS, in any case, and good luck on your journeys!
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