we's in sioux falls waHAHhhhh

there is a honeylocust tree right outside the window and it is making me wonder. nearly every town we bike thru has a Locust St. why would you want to name a street that, unless maybe there are lots of honeylocusts on it. or u want to remember the plagues?
so the twin cities are superrrrrrr wicked awesome. it is a land of co-ops, especially food ones, they are where everyone shops. they're definitely invested in the future of the environment on both smaller and larger scales, from community gardens and a small college that runs entirely on wind power, to a 110,000 square foot green roof on the target center. the mississippi river goes ramblin on thru and trails follow it the whole way. so many people commute by bike and are usually significantly faster than us hahaha. there are a lot of really nice neighborhoods but there is still also a lot of theft.
we met a really sweet person named carol while we were biking to andrew's house and she works at the science museum, so we were able to get free passes and learn a lot about our bodies and the titanic. we learned that if you stare up at the sky on a bright and sunny day, and you start to see those little spots runnin' around everywhere, those are actually your red blood cells traveling thru the capillaries in your eyes. if you can follow the paths they seem to be traveling on, you can see the outlines of the capillaries too. crazy right!!!
andrew helped us get our bikes into shape again, helping phil with his bucking headset and me with my recurring broken spokes. his daughter madeline is such a good kid, it totally blew my mind and made me hope that if i ever have a kid we'll develop a parent-kid relationship like theirs.
we stayed at a second house in minneapolis just a few blocks away, the amazing house of tim and tara. they're both about 30 and also have another roommate sarah; they made us feel so welcome right away and spoiled us with good food and beer, a shower and a guesthouse to ourselves with a loft that has a claim to the most comfortable bed in the world, i slept until 10am for like the 3rd time in my life. sarah is in the process of writing a book about one of her bike tours with the two other girls she toured with so we shared our experiences for awhile. on the morning we were supposed to leave we still stayed with them for breakfast and a 4:00 lunch and helped them spread dirt around their yard; their yard used to be completely concrete but they're turning it into almost completely garden. also at their house i discovered stuffwhitepeoplelike.com for the first time, you should check it out if you haven't because it's hilarious!
so leaving minneapolis after 4pm we didn't make it all too far. we were trying to follow bike trails for 60 miles west out to hutchinson but we couldn't quite put it all together and made it about 20 miles out to waconia after being on and off the trail a few times hahaha. the enormous steeple of a church lured us its way and we camped at the bottom of a hill behind the church. phil cooked some tempeh for dinner that tim and tara gave us in preparation for a 115 mile day to marshall, mn.
the 115-mile day began at 10:30am and would last for the next 12 hours as we passed thru fields and small towns with populations between 61 and a couple of thousand. though there were some headwinds, the lack of topography made for smooth sailing and the day actually passed pretty quickly; we are getting good at talking on the bikes and also at kind of falling into quiet meditation or observation. we ate loads of food and are learning to be always more and more thankful that we are able to sustain our insatiable appetites. also we got 9 free slices of pizza from a gas station attendant who was about to throw them away! pizza and beer for dinner, woohoo!
we have learned that schools are great places to camp this summer and figured that Marshall High School would be no exception. in the end, it was an exception. we were unaware of the automatic sprinklers that drench the entire yard at in the middle of the night with sprinklers that seemingly have the power of fire hoses. it was a hilarious site with us scrambling out of the tent and attempting to haul all of our stuff out of their before it got too soaked. we found a new sprinkler free spot to put our stuff, much of which were filled with puddles at this point. but due to the level of our tiredness we were soon fast asleep again, enjoying the fragrant comfort of our wet sleeping bags, wet clothes, and wet tent. there was also a quaking aspen tree right next to our new site and the blowing leaves sounded exactly like water, just to torture us.
90 miles southwest would get us to sioux falls, but first a trip to the laundromat with our sleeping bags was in order. i could barely ride my bike with the weight of the two wet sleeping bags throwing me off balance, it was hilarious. while i did that phil sun-dried the rest of our stuff and packed up camp. the pizza was finished off at this point as well, thank you again gas station attendant.
traffic is sparse and shoulders are wide in much of this area; the headwinds were not too strong and the weather was once again perfect as we journeyed onward. we made good time, averaging 10 mph throughout the day even with stops, which is something we don't usually do over a long period of time. fields of corn are pretty much permanently imbedded in our minds at this point, and a lot of soy too. tons of trucks passed us today, pulling us up the rolling hills and cancelling out the headwind for awhile, never thought id appreciate trucks so much. thunderstorms were starting up a little ways away as we rolled into sioux falls and the sky looked crazy. we are now staying in the apartment of a guy named travis, who is a bit older than us, also loves to ride, and is a corrections facility officer but is super laid back and nice, it seems like a funny fit. he hooked us up with harry potter tickets for the midnite showing tonight and is even coming along with us despite the fact that he has work at 6am, aka three hours after the movie ends hahahaha. two guys on a cross country motorcycle trip were also staying with travis so we got to hang out with them and learn about their trip as well.
today is dedicated to exploring sioux falls and rereading harry potter for me, while phil catches up on his blog. then tomorrow we set off on about 4 more days of riding until the next big city, rapid city. in between we will probably go through the badlands; the motorcycle guys (keith and richard) gave us their passes which last for a week so we might just make it in time to use them, woot!
happy birthday to phil's mom and happy travels to my own maaaam!