Days 47 & 48: Currently at Great Bluffs State Park, MN

Alea had a hilly, but relatively short and easy, 30 mile ride from Frontenac State Park to Kruger Campground ($14, primitive sites with no showers) yesterday.  But the high humidity returned, making it fairly uncomfortable once we arrived at the campground, except when the occasional breeze stirred.  By nightfall the breezes were plentiful, thanks to a storm system that rolled through, lighting up the sky and providing lots of rain and even some pea sized hail (the sound of which woke us up in the middle of the night).

There was plenty of pastoral scenery to admire...

I was optimistic that fair weather had returned this morning when I set off for Great Bluffs State Park.  But that optimism faded quickly, as I got soaked to the bone in a rain storm and even got pelted with some of that same pea sized hail from last night.  We looked up the storm on the weather radar, and it was tracking to the NE, with wind coming from the SW.  It was close to passing over us, so it wasn't long before it was simply dry and cloudy, but by then I was pretty uncomfortable from riding in wet cycling clothes, and there was still plenty of water on the roadways being kicked up by some fairly heavy traffic.  Our route called for us to meander through farmlands to bypass bits of busy Hwy 61, but I decided to shorten the route by staying on Hwy 61.  That allowed us to head straight for the campground, as I wasn't anxious to get caught in more bad weather.  Fortunately, the high bluffs along the Mississippi River blocked a fair amount of the wind as I was riding south, so I made good time.  That is, until the turnoff to the park, where there was easily a 10%+ grade of a mile and a half that I had to negotiate.  Needless to say, by that point I was already pretty well buggered, but I managed to grind it out.

Part of our route mirrored Minnesota's Missouri River Bicycle Trail.

Ready or not, here I come - wet and grumpy!

It may not look like it, but at the end of the ride I was still soaked.

Since we got to camp early, we set out to get resupplied in La Crosse, WI, the last big city we'll see for a while.  Now we're at camp anticipating the return of the thunderstorms, which are forecast to roll through between 4pm and 10pm this evening.  It's looking as though it is not a night to cook outside, so we picked up some deli food while in town.  We are prepared to race outside to get that out of the galley so that we can eat in the cabin, if the storms show up sooner rather than later.