Start Location: International Falls, MN
Ending Location: Redwood Falls, MN
Miles Today: 349
Trip Miles: 2168
States Visited: 5
National Parks Visited: 1
Low Temp: 62.0° F
High Temp: 80.0° F
Min Elevation: 1019'
Max Elevation: 1646'
Route Map:
Voyageurs 2025 Day09
We are in Redwood Falls, MN tonight staying at the Redwood Lodge. Like
I mentioned yesterday, we planned to be on US-71 all day. Well, with
the exception of one detour, that was true. The ride was fine until the
last 10 miles when the skies opened up and we got completely soaked.
There are no overpasses around here where you can just pull over and
put on rain gear. We saw it coming and hoped we could beat it but that
didn't happen. If we had more than just 10 miles to go, we probably
would have stopped when we realized the possibility of rain - lesson
learned. Fortunately the hotel had a guest laundry and, since we would
have to do laundry sometime before we got home anyway, we did laundry
this evening and everything is dry again.
The
traffic, if anything, was lighter than yesterday. For the first 100
miles we were passed by one lone motorcycle. We didn't pass anyone and
no other vehicle passed us. After that there was a little more traffic,
but not a lot.
We stopped at a nice City Park in Sebeka, MN
for lunch. We were a little worried because we frequently stop at rest
areas for lunch and there might not be any on 71. As it was there were
a few and almost every small city we went through had some kind of park
where we could have stopped.
After everything was dry we
started looking at where we would go from here and realized that we are
still more than 1600 miles from home and we would like to be home by
Sunday since we are concerned Labor Day traffic might be bad over the
pass. That means we have to average 400 miles per day for the next 4
days. We used to do that regularly but not so much these days. We have
reservations tomorrow night in Kadoka, SD which is almost exactly 400
miles from here. We'll have to see how we feel but have no plans to
push it. If worse comes to worse, coming home Monday is still an option.
