Thursday, July 22, 2010

Welcome to the humidity er I mean the mid-west








Yesterday after I had posted my blog I learned of a coworker, and friend's death. Kerry Enick was reported missing and his body was then found four days later in the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary in Calgary. Kerry and I worked together for many years at Kanetic Energy and he recently joined me over at Harvest. Kerry and I shared an interest in biking and running. He took it very seriously and had completed an ironman as well as several marathons. Kerry and I did a number of runs together and lots of bike rides. To honor him I rode today's ride for him.
Todays ride was 83 miles from Watetown SD to Montevideo MN. The net climbing was 1350 feet even though we had a net down hill of 700 feet. There was suppose to be a big down hill in there but I sure never saw it. Maybe there was a head wind right there and I missed it.

However I am kind of ahead of myself, because I wanted to tell you about the huge rain storm we had last night. It started raining around 7:30 PM and never let up until after 11:00 Pm. There was a lot of lightning and it was very close. Laying in my tent was very neat, with the pounding of the rain and the flashes of lightening. The thunder would actually shake the tent.

This morning was still cloudy and a few miles out of town it turned really foggy. I always feel a little uncomfortable in the fog as I never know how well seen we are by the traffic. The fog lifted by the time I got to picnic which was in this little town called Marietta. They had a nice town park for picnic. I rode around the town to survey it and the newest building was the post office which was circa 1976. The next newest building was probably 1950. Most of t he town was boarded up. Lots of vacant lots. However I didn't see any for sale signs. I guess the market is just slow. I loved the Marietta machine works with the old truck in front.
After lunch was pretty uneventful. The funniest thing was I rode up behind Nathan and gave a few big dog barks. It took him totally by surprise and he thought for sure he was being attacked by a dog. We both laughed and talked about being attacked by dogs for several miles. Nathan is here with his mom and dad. Riding across the country as a family is great. I am sure they will remember it. Actually there was one other highlight and that was a strawberry milkshake in Dawson. I liked the cows out front and they brought me in.
On the road again.

Terry












1 comment:

Ken C. said...

Terry, Minnesota is where many Scandinavian immigrants started out in North America. My maternal grandparents came to Minnesota from Norway about 100 years ago. Accordingly, I know about Lutefisk, pictured in your fish picture from Madison, MN. We can talk about Lutefisk next time we have lunch. Thanks for the blog and keep up the good work.