Wednesday, June 7:
We slept the last night in a rest area outside of Jamestown, ND. We slept well but realized in the morning that the aux battery for the fan and interior lights was not working. We called and talked to Charlie in Anchorage and concluded that the battery is not grounded. Sven bypassed the relay for a temporary fix. Another fix in version 2.0 needed.
We drove to Brainard realizing we weren't going to make Duluth, or original hope and destination. We stopped at the Roundhouse Brewery first and met up with Scott Englestad for a few beers. We tried two different flights, a mixed IPA/lemonade (a favorite), and Svea tried both the lemonade and rootbeer. All drinks got high reviews!! Nice work friends. For the rest of the afternoon, we went mountain biking on the Cuyana trails. They were great except....while we were biking, a giant thunderstorm rolled in and the skies opened up on us. We were wet, very muddy and Sven's chain came off (of course in the pouring rain). It was a quick fix and we were on our way. (there are not pictures of this since it was pouring rain out)
We decided to dirve 169S to the cities so we could see Lake Milacs. We stopped to see Paul Bunyon's big fish and then hit the road. Our goal was to make it to the cities by 10pm and we made it by 10:30 with a frozen pizza we desperately needed. Our delay was due to hitting the edge of a big storm and we were entertained by an exciting lightening show for about 1.5 hours.
Thursday, June 8:
We spent the night at Bev and Tom's and then spent the morning cleaning out the van, doing laundry and washing dishes. By noon, all 5 of us were on our bikes and hiked Minnehaha Falls parkway to the falls. It was a beautiful day and a fun lunch at the Sea Salt. We biked there and back for the afternoon and then headed to the Mall of America Benihana to celebrate Svea's 12th birthday. What fun with Bev, Tom, Mary, Dave, Sue, Erv, Pat, Ron, Bryan, Jessie, Bryn and the three of us. We all had great food and fun! Svea was happy and had a great time.
