{"id":449,"date":"2018-07-21T20:01:23","date_gmt":"2018-07-22T00:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/?p=449"},"modified":"2018-07-24T23:38:25","modified_gmt":"2018-07-25T03:38:25","slug":"day-23","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/2018\/07\/21\/day-23\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 23: Alexandria to Clearwater, MN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My first trip\u00a0 to Minnesota was many years ago.\u00a0 I went dog sledding across the Northern part of the state during a very cold January.\u00a0 How cold was it?\u00a0 We had a number of days when the temperature was minus 40 degrees.\u00a0 Minus 40 is where Celsius and Fahrenheit\u00a0 converge and there is no need to convert from one measure to the other.\u00a0 At minus 40 it sometimes hurts to breathe and strenuous exercise is hard to do outside.<\/p>\n<p>I went dog sledding because of a beer commercial.\u00a0 Molson beer at the time frequently showed a commercial on television of a man standing on the runners of a sled with a large team of dogs pulling him across the snow.\u00a0 It looked magical.<\/p>\n<p>The reality was quite different.\u00a0 Besides it being numbingly cold, I was immediately dispelled of the notion that the dogs do the work and humans stand back and enjoy.\u00a0 In reality dogs pull the sled and humans push the sled.\u00a0 Dog sledding ended up being a lot of work.<\/p>\n<p>I left Minnesota with a number of impressions.\u00a0 It was cold, exhausting and relatively empty of people.\u00a0 My current trip through the state has been quite different.\u00a0 So far, Minnesota has been the easiest state.\u00a0 I haven&#8217;t hit a gravel road yet.\u00a0 Everything has been paved.<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-449 gallery-columns-3 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/2018\/07\/21\/day-23\/our-lunch-stop-at-the-lake-in-avon\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"\/zagorsky\/files\/2018\/07\/Our-lunch-stop-at-the-lake-in-Avon-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/2018\/07\/21\/day-23\/the-lake-in-avon-minnessota\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"\/zagorsky\/files\/2018\/07\/The-lake-in-Avon-Minnessota-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/2018\/07\/21\/day-23\/start-of-the-lake-wobegon-trail\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"\/zagorsky\/files\/2018\/07\/Start-of-the-Lake-Wobegon-Trail-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/2018\/07\/21\/day-23\/they-are-worried-that-bicyclists-can-be-shot-by-hunters-on-this-trail\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"\/zagorsky\/files\/2018\/07\/They-are-worried-that-bicyclists-can-be-shot-by-hunters-on-this-trail-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/2018\/07\/21\/day-23\/more-mileage-markers-on-the-lake-wobegon-trail\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"\/zagorsky\/files\/2018\/07\/More-mileage-markers-on-the-Lake-Wobegon-Trail-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon landscape'>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/2018\/07\/21\/day-23\/there-are-wooden-bridges-that-are-still-being-used-to-carry-rail-freight\/'><img width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"\/zagorsky\/files\/2018\/07\/There-are-wooden-bridges-that-are-still-being-used-to-carry-rail-freight-150x150.jpg\" class=\"attachment-thumbnail size-thumbnail\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>Services and people are relatively plentiful.\u00a0 Today, about ten miles into the trip I needed to go to the bathroom.\u00a0 In a western state that meant doing my business by the side of the road.\u00a0 Today, I just pedaled a couple of miles and the next town showed up.\u00a0\u00a0 It had a tourist information office with a sparkling clean bathroom and softer toilet paper than any motel I have stayed in yet.<\/p>\n<p>Lunch today was in Avon by the side of a small lake.\u00a0 There were people swimming and fishing.\u00a0 The bench we sat on for lunch was shaded by a large tree.\u00a0 It all felt so civilized.<\/p>\n<p>The miles still need to be pedaled.\u00a0 Today, I was only able to do 81 miles before calling it a day.\u00a0 Unlike, my first experience in Minnesota, pedaling through it this summer is easy sledding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My first trip\u00a0 to Minnesota was many years ago.\u00a0 I went dog sledding across the Northern part of the state during a very cold January.\u00a0 How cold was it?\u00a0 We had a number of days when the temperature was minus 40 degrees.\u00a0 Minus 40 is where Celsius and Fahrenheit\u00a0 converge and there is no need &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/2018\/07\/21\/day-23\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Day 23: Alexandria to Clearwater, MN<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5335,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":452,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions\/452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/zagorsky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}