The longest day?

Today was the summer solstice. Does that mean today we had the most hours of daylight we're going to see on this trip? Maybe. Maybe not. We don't know.

Sunrise this morning in St. Joseph was at 5:28. We traveled northwest to Alexandria where sunset was at 9:15. We had 15 hours and 47 minutes of daylight.

We got an extra 6 minutes of daylight by cycling northwest compared to if we had just stayed put in St. Joseph. Tomorrow we'll be on the move again. We could check on the internet to see if tomorrow will bring us more daylight than today, but that would be cheating. We'll just have to wait and see what tommorow brings.

Our entire ride today was on the Lake Wobegon trail which follows the old St. Cloud and Pacific rail line route. The pavement was excellent, there was no traffic to worry about and only the most gradual of hills.

The start of the Lake Wobegon trail in St. Joseph.

Team S seems pleased with the lack of hills.

The mile markers on the Lake Wobegon trail offer good advice.

We were lucky to spot some Showy Lady Slipper orchids along the trail. You would think they would be common around here, since that is the state flower of Minnesota, but they only bloom for a short while in May and June.

A rare find. We were lucky to be here in June.

One thing that is definitely not rare around here is dairy farms. This seems to be the dairy capital of Minnesota. What do they do with all that milk? They turn it into cheese. What do they do with all that cheese? They turn in into cheese dust to make Kraft macaroni and cheese.

What do they do with all the turkeys? Jennie O turns them into turkey dinners.

We took our baggage off for a ride in a park next to the trail.

We keep crossing our old friend the Sauk River. Today we passed through Sauk City, home town of Sinclair Lewis. We thought it appropriate to stop for lunch on Main Street in his home town.

Childhood home of author Sinclair Lewis.

There's lots of hay around here for the cows. But we also saw corn, wheat and rye growing. Some if those grains are fed to the cows directly, some gets turned into whiskey first and the cows get the leftover mash.

Grain destined to be turned into whiskey.

Something is bubbling at the Panther distillery.

Brett is the master distiller. He also has some very happy beef cattle who get the leftovers. Mmmmm! Better than grass.

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