I was up early today and on the road at 5:45am, (you know its before sunrise when your GPS is in "black" nighttime mode). Breakfast again overwhelmed the hotel staff as fifty people all tried to eat in a ten minute time span. Many skipped out and headed to McDonalds, but I snagged a couple muffins and a couple yogurts and was on my way. We had 108 miles to ride, and were again attempting to beat the heat and wind. I got an early jump on most of the pack and was averaging about 16 mph in the cool of the day. Today we must have been in "PIG Country", as we passed a couple processing plants, a rendering plant and countless pig farms on our route. The oder of each were memorable. My body has adapted well to all the riding and doing a hundred miles seems to be just a matter of putting the time on the bike necessary to get there. The heat seems to rob you of your motivation, so starting early is a good idea. When we approached Mankato near the town of Rapidan, we were directed onto "The Red Jacket Trail"(a rail trail named after a Seneca Indian Chief) that took us down into the city center without any hassles with traffic. When we arrived at the Minnesota River, we turned onto the North Minnesota River Trail which follows the river, within some concrete flood levees built by the Army Corp of Engineers. As we neared our hotel we passed Reconciliation Park, which was built to heal bad feelings from the hanging execution of 38 indians in 1862 who were involved in an uprising after the US Government broke a treaty with the Dakota-Sioux tribe. We also passed the Mankato Train Depot and the Public Library with a Korean War Memorial statue out front. We are staying tonight at the City Center Hotel, one of the nicer hotels we have seen on our trip. After my shower, I grabbed a bagel at Tandem Bagels down the block.
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