Day 34 - Detroit Lakes to Park Rapids, MN - 42 miles - 850 feet of elevation gain

As we were leaving the hotel this morning, the manager started asking questions about our ride. His wife was there and she was like “70 miles a day, that’s not much!” Then he proceeds to explain that we are bicycling across the country. The couple is originally from Arkansas, so their southern accent was thick. She said “wait, you’re riding a pedal bike?” The conversation was pretty funny to me. So when I went outside to the trailer I decided today was going to be southern accent day! Since we aren’t visiting the south, we should experience something from the south.

Here are some of the phrases I whipped out throughout the day in a southern accent. Some of the boys found it funny, others did not. I’m a firstborn child, so entertaining myself is something I learned as a young child.

• “Monny came down to breakfast barefoot as a yard dog! They made him go get his tennis shoes!”

• ”This road has more bumps than cottage cheese in July!”

• ”You ride that pedal bike with those thin tires? How much weight can them there things hold?”

• ”My new tire rolls smoother than corn on the cob on butter!”

It was just a way to find a little entertainment on the ride, definitely not making fun of southerners. In the coming days, perhaps I’ll whip out a NY accent or maybe PA Dutch, you just never know when an alter ego will appear 😂.

As we left Detroit Lakes, we made a few turns and then we were on the same road for the rest of the day. You never really appreciate the shoulder of a road until you are biking on them. Sometimes they are smooth and sometimes they are rough or filled with debris. We experienced all of that today.

At one point we are riding along and there was the loudest boom. I screamed and said “What was that?” Thinking it came from the truck across the road or a gun shot. Turns out is was my tire tube blowing 🤦🏻‍♀️. I had a hole in the side wall of the tire and the tube popped out of it and blew. Mike was going to loan me a five dollar bill (smallest bill in his fold) to stick in the tire to cover the hole until I could get the new tire on, well turns out my spare tube was defective. This meant a call to the van because I was now tubeless and had a bad tire. Once the van arrived, I got out a tube and a tire and we made the change. This all happened 3 miles from where the van was parked for our water stop, so we just made it our water stop too. This was my first flat in over 4,000 miles on these tires and tubes, I’d say I got my monies worth out of them.

Since it was a short biking day, we stopped at a park for lunch about a mile from the hotel. Some of the boys found a bridge to jump off of into the lake. Others of us entertained ourselves with a pretend fishing show. I was the camera operator and Micah C. was the bare-handed fisherman. Others joined and others made fun of our “show” trying to catch fish by hand. Just another example of people finding entertainment and humor in different things. We shall just see what fun tomorrow brings!