A Spelunking We Will Go

Team W is spending this Monday recuperating from an adventure-filled weekend. As a combined birthday/Father's Day gift for Alan, I had arranged for us to spend the weekend in Preston, MN. Preston is home to two bike trails, one of which goes through Lanesboro - a quaint town on the Root River that I've always wanted to visit. Selfish, I know.

Anyway, we arrived to Preston on Saturday, where we enjoyed a picnic lunch and then took our first bike ride. We opted to do the Preston-Harmony State Trail (over 26 miles round trip from our hotel). The map warned that about a third of the trail is a series of steep hills that may not suitable for all riders. We figured we'd get the most difficult trail out of the way first. We didn't realize how difficult it was until talking with two seasoned riders (they biked 63 miles on Saturday in honor of their 63rd birthdays) that Preston to Harmony was the most difficult part of the trails in the area. This made us feel really good, but also explained why we were the only riders headed towards Harmony and why people going from Harmony to Preston gave us looks of shock, awe, and amazement (particularly Alan who was pulling Landon in the Burley Bee).


Landon getting ready to ride on Saturday. Poor guy had a fever, but did really well!


Day two we took a much flatter route and biked Preston to Lanesboro (a little over 20 miles round trip). Before making our way back to the Cities, we headed back to Harmony (in our car this time) to go to the Niagra Cave. It was Landon's first spelunking experience (spelunking is just a fancy word for the practice of exploring caves). Alan argues that we weren't really spelunking - we just paid to take a tour of the cave. It was very cool (literally and figuratively). Niagra Cave is home to a 60 foot waterfall and at the furthest we could go, we were 200 feet below surface level and 1/2 mile from the Minnesota/Iowa border. But, you won't see pictures here. Not because we couldn't take them, but because our camera battery died on Saturday and Alan (not to point any fingers) didn't pack the charger. Just click on the link above to Niagra Cave and you'll get a slight glimpse of what we experienced.