Day 31 Benson - Portland to Portland Anniversary Ride - CycleBlaze

June 18, 2018

Day 31 Benson

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Scary campground shower.
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Our former Yellow Springs neighbor. Doktor Kaboom!
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Benson, MN

We made it to Minnesota! And, not that parts of South Dakota weren’t cool, we’re glad to be done with the Great Plains. 

We set off early to a beautiful sunrise and made our way past more lakes and farm fields. At one point, Jon pulled over to pick wild asparagus growing along the road. The road we were in went from four lanes with a wide shoulder to two lanes with little shoulder and most of it dirt. There were still a decent number of trucks on the road so every now and then we had to pull off the road so as not to get blown off the road. Most of them gave us room when they could. At our last break stop today, a nice woman was looking at our route and giving us alternatives to the more major roads. 

We pulled into Benson around 4:30 and stopped at Do-Mats grocery store to pick up dinner. (Cleanest bathrooms ever!) Then we made our way towards to town park where they have a water park, golf course and camping area. That took us a while to get there though, as a really long train was going through town, and stopped for about 10 minutes before continuing on. No alternative routes, so we had to just wait. We got to the camp, pretty place, but the showers were n-a-s-t-y. Like don’t touch anything nasty. Ugh. We used it, but stood in the bench to get dressed and thoroughly dried every bit of wet skin. I would have rather washed up at the grocery store! After showers, I set up camp while Jon went the few blocks back to town and got a haircut. Soon after that, we got a message from a friend of ours, Dave Epley (aka Dr. Kaboom) They had lived next door to us in Yellow Springs. He’s on a road trip with his daughter, going from Kalamazoo to Seattle and they were passing south of us through Minneapolis. They decided to alter their route a bit and come camp with us! It was so fun to see them and catch up! We miss having him as a neighbor. They’ve got a great trip planned, seeing cool things like the big ball of yarn, wall drug, and varying the trip as they desire. Such a great father-daughter adventure.

Today's ride: 90 miles (145 km)
Total: 2,002 miles (3,222 km)

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