We left the on the Girls' Bike Trip III Saturday morning after a slow start. Gear organization, family obligations and work had us leaving after 9am instead of our targeted 8am. No worries, we rolled with it heading from St. Paul to the Wilmar, MN trail head of the Glacial Lakes State Trail. We rode on the trail north through Spicer and New London where we headed west to Sibley State Park. Temperature forecasts were for 90 plus with high humidity and a 70% chance of thunderstorms including predicted severe weather.
The trip was full of unexpected good luck. Starting with the purchase of fresh, hot tortillas from a grocery store in Wilmar. Sat. was warm and humid, but clouds and a firm tail-wind kept us moving in comfort. We were able to get to camp, be set up and go for a swim before bad weather hit. We moved out of the lake because of lightning and waited out the storm by the park gift shop. We watched a wall cloud and the storm come across the lake whipping up rain, waves and 60mph winds, way more cool than scary.
After the storm past we swam again then headed to camp for Jiffypop. We had a bit more rain during our smore course, but were undaunted because of good rain gear. By the time we went to sleep we were able to point out the big and little dipper along with the North star to the girls.
Sunday morning we broke camp with only a few leftover rain drops falling from the trees. Breakfast was corned beef hash and eggs eaten in our tortillas. We used John's Aeropress for and outstanding cup of camp coffee.
Sunday we benefited from a tailwind on the cool side of the weather front. We rolled along to Spicer where we found the local fire department was having an open house along with pancake and sausage fundraiser. We climbed on firetrucks and ate more than we needed to.
We finished our ride and headed for home after a side trip for more tortillas. The girls', and dads too, did a great job on this fun outing.
