Our Wurst is the Best
I was smug as I pulled out of the campground and got right on to the paved bike trail, avoiding the piles of dirt being bulldozed in the road immediately outside the driveway. I was less smug after I deposited my dirty dirty laundry at the laundromat and went looking for the cafe recommended by the ranger. It wasn’t open until 11am on Mondays and Tuesdays. I had a hard time remembering which day it was, but when I went across the street to check the library which was closed, but opened at 9am on Tuesdays, I deduced it must be Monday. Eit.
Since I hadn’t figured out where I was headed yet, anyway, I decided that I should aim for Cloquet, the closest big town with a nice cafe listed on the bike map. After my laundry was clean, of course. Ah, clean clean clean laundry.
The highway from Carlton to Cloquet had a surprisingly well-paved shoulder. Crossing I-35 was surprisingly painfree. The cafe I was hoping for was nowhere to be found, but there was a Mexican restaurant that had Huevos Rancheros as a Lunch Special. Nice. Then I headed east for County Road 7, but was horrified by the multi-laned no-shouldered Hwy 33, and kept going straight, directly to a coffeehouse where I had a latte, may have seen Jessica Lange, (another local pointed her out) and asked for directions to County Road 7 via the backroads.
The county roads were nice, except for the cracks which were too frequent and too deep to be ignored. Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump. So it goes. I got chased quite a distance by a hound dog. Not dangerous, just amusing.
I stopped at TJ’s County Store just before I got back on the Munger Trail. Every flat surface on their property said “Our Wurst is the Best”. I was tempted to get a few links, but they only came in frozen packages of six, which seemed a bit excessive, even for me. Instead I got baked beans, string cheese, an apple and a nectarine. So healthy. I sat outside and talked to my grandmother as it was the day after her 91st birthday. She was very chipper, which was nice to hear.
Another ten miles to a campsite, where I set up next to Moosehead Lake. Someday internal combustion engines are going to be outcast like smoking. I can hardly wait. The boat jetting around the lake was loud.