Even More Great People

Post for May 22, 2021

Met, Matt, and Renee

Last night and this morning, I thoroughly enjoyed talking with my new friends Matt, Renee, and their kids. I very much regret that I forgot their daughter’s name, but their son’s name is Adam. The entire family goes on bike tours together and on their own, in addition to enjoying the outdoors in other ways.

In August, Adam is going to cycle from Glasgow, Scotland to somewhere in Europe.

Their son Adam

We spent hours sharing cycling stories, laughing, and enjoying the wonderful meal they provided. Their neighbor designed the Minnesota portion of the MRT, so I’m looking forward to seeing all of them when I get back.

I left their place around 9am, so I could cycle about 15 miles and join my cycle group at 11am. My group was going to cycle with me from South St. Paul to Hastings, which follows the MRT.

Unfortunately, my 15 mile ride to join my cycle group was blocked for construction.

I looked for a way around it when another cyclist offered to help.

A Cyclist-Trail Angel who helped me around a detour.

He found some fast and scenic routes that took me to the place I’d meet my cycling group.

For about a year, I’ve led rides with my cycling group, so it was fun leading another ride with them. But this time, I had to lead from behind since my touring bike is a lot heavier than their road bikes, even after some of them carried much of my gear. I’ve enjoyed cycling solo for the last couple of weeks, but it was great seeing everybody again. I enjoyed catching up on what they had been doing since I was away, an as usual, we laughed a lot.

We had a nice lunch in Hastings by the Mississippi River. I decided to stay in Hastings for the night and take the next day off since my legs needed rest. I admit that I felt a bit sad when they cycled away. We’ve cycled together for 100s or 1,000s of miles, so it felt odd to stay when they left. But after they cycled out of sight, I returned to “solo cycling” mode, which I love.

I found a low-cost hotel and spent the night and next day relaxing, like writing long emails to friends, writing in this blog, and planning my route for the next few days.

The song for this post is One of These Days. It’s about writing a long letter to all the good friends we’ve met, one of these days.

2 thoughts on “Even More Great People

  1. It was great riding with you on Saturday Steven. Good luck on the rest of your ride.

  2. Thanks Mark. I enjoyed riding with you as well, even more since your knowledge of the trails helped get me to where I needed to go.

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