I slept fitfully. I itched all night and the mosquitos buzzed all night. No storm came to wash them away. I get up at 4:50 AM, figuring this will be the coolest part of the night and the mosquitoes would be the most dormant. The mosquitoes aren't dormant at all. I'm out of water and I have to backtrack a ways into Crookston to find a water tap at a gas station. I don't see any other humans active at this hour of the morning. Only a fool would be out on the streets of Crookston in the dark when the mosquitoes are on the prowl.

About the only good thing I can say about mosquitoes is that they can't fly very fast. I roll out of town and into the sunrise. I'm not exactly leaving the mosquitoes behind since it seems that all of western Minnesota is flooded and there are many pools of standing water where the mosquitoes can breed, but I'm moving too fast for the bugs to lock onto me. Whenever I stop, however, I'm reminded that I'm not out of bug territory. I keep my stops brief. At 7:30 AM I have breakfast at the Texaco in Erskine and at 7:50 AM I stop at the Oak Lake Rest Area and clean the last of the mud off Eddy. It's quite warm now and I apply a fresh coat of sunblock before I head back out on the road.

My hundreds of mosquito bites still itch fiercely and on the fixed gear I have to keep pedaling, so I develop a technique that allows me to scratch and ride at the same time. I alternate taking different hands off the handlebars and I drop my free hand alongside my leg so it rubs my thigh or calf as it spins past. I settle into this scratch and ride rhythm and roll on down the road.

There's a bit of a breeze from the south now and it disperses the bugs. I stop a couple of more times at gas stations. At my 10:40 AM lunch stop I notice one of the clamps holding my rack to Eddy's rear stays is broken. I fix it with a zip-tie from my toolkit and roll on into the heat.

It's very hot again today and as I'm rolling into Bemidji it occurs to me that a long sleeve cotton shirt would be much more comfortable than my short sleeve wool cycling jersey. Grant Petersen, the founder and owner of Rivendell Bicycle Works has long advocated dressing "like Homer Price" when the weather is hot and a cotton shirt suddenly makes so very much sense to me. Long sleeves would shield my arms from the worst of the sun and a loose-fitting shirt would let some air circulate to keep me cooler. At 1:20 PM I stop at the Target store in Bemidji and buy a lovely blue cotton tattersall button-down shirt along with my usual stock of food items.

At 2:30 PM I stop off at the Paul Bunyan statue and a tourist worker takes my photo. She asks me about my trip and I tell her it was fine until I encountered the heat the mosquitoes in Crookston. She tells me that things had been fine until about five days ago when the mosquitoes hatched and that they seemed particularly fierce this year. She also says that I look pretty dapper compared to most of the cross-country tourists she's seen and I explain about my new shirt. She wishes me luck on the rest of my journey and once again I head east.

Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox 65.83 KB

Minnesotans seem to have a fondness for large statues of people and animals. In western Minnesota where my parents grew up there are little towns with statues of pelicans, prairie chickens, otters and various other creatures. And there are at least two towns (Bemidji and Brainerd) with statues of Paul Bunyan. As I roll east, I have to stop to take a picture of the Big Fish Supper Club. Nothing says Minnesota quite like a restaurant in the shape of a giant fish.

The Big Fish Supper Club 60.61 KB

At 6:30 PM I run over a staple and puncture my rear tire. There are still some mosquitoes around but nothing like the huge numbers I'd encountered in Crookston. It doesn't take me long to fix the tire and get back on the road. I'd been thinking of stopping soon to camp, but I don't really see a good spot and I decide to press on to Grand Rapids. This will be my last night on the road, so I decide to treat myself to a motel and at 7:55 PM, I check into the Americana Motel in Grand Rapids.

Forward to June 26, 2002 -- Grand Rapids MN to Cloquet MN

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