Crookston, MN to Erskine, MN about 30 miles. Head winds, sunny.
In Minnesota not every town that is on the map is actually there. After leaving Crookston in the late morning we cycled for 14 miles hoping to stop at some sort of park bench in Marcoux. Sure the map said there was less than 500 people in the town but there should be a bit of shade and a wind break. At the appointed intersection there were two abandoned houses on either side of the road. The one with the shade had a yard full of bee boxes. We settled for sitting in the broken asphalt drive of the other and waved to traffic as we devoured the cold chicken we'd bought last night but didn't eat because Bruce dazzled us with pork chops in homemade sauce and amazing potato salad. Needless to say but I will, we polished off all the baked beans.
When we stopped in Mentor for a break at a DQ I called a contact from warmshowers. We were trying something new: call them a day ahead of when we'd show up. Schedules on this trip usually result in us pushing ourselves much harder than we wanted to but it was worth a try. Meeting other cyclists has been fun and we thought we'd try more of it since we were getting into a more densely populated area on the warmshowers map. We got a green light to stop in the next day and camp. Today we just had to find a place for the night, which needed to be soon because we were tired from the last three days of riding.
We picked Erskine for the night and quickly found the town park. I had decided that we'd camp behind the giant pike sculpture but it wasn't to be. A mother of a few kids that had been playing in the park's beached water hole decided we needed to be snapped up for the night but they lived 8 miles south of town and it was getting on to 9pm. She came up with an alternative, we were to stay with her mother a few blocks north of town. Grandma Goose was how she was introduced and we never found out her real name. She fed us, we got a warm shower and a nights rest in the yard.
