Well now you know who flew for hours via Alaska Air, drove for two more hours in a rain storm and met me in Winona, MN!  Words escape me when I try to describe my emotions when Anita got out of the car! It was like the joy and elation one feels on New Year’s Eve, Christmas, and a special birthday all celebrated on the same day! 😘😍😘😍😘😍

After visiting for a few hours, we got ready for bed. (Anita had been in St Louis visiting her cousins and also visiting our good friend from the North Slope, Steve Culbertson.) As I walked by the bathroom mirror I noticed my left eyelid was beginning to swell up.  We went to bed not knowing the reason for my “monkey like” eyelids.  When I got up to shower on Friday the area above and below my eye was REALLY swollen! We debated about heading to an Urgent Care, but after searching the internet for a possible cause and treatment, we decided to just try warm compresses. The swelling decreased a bit so we loaded my bike and gear into the car and headed west to Rochester where there was a Mayo Clinic Urgent Care. The swelling didn’t get any worse during the drive, so we headed to Red Wing, MN fifty miles north and located beside the Mississippi River. (Truly unexplainable as to why Anita arrived on the exact same day that I couldn’t ride due to a swollen eye!)

What a super special day we had just walking around Red Wing, watching the Mississippi River flow by our park bench, learning about the origin of the town’s name, eating delicious ice cream at the Red Wing Confectionery Company, and marveled at the beauty of a gorgeous sunset. Saturday morning my eye was less swollen, but we felt it prudent to keep driving towards Minneapolis.  We think my swollen eye was the result of an encounter wit a tiny flying insect, but I could not find a mark near my eye. Who knows?  (I felt a bit guilty driving instead of biking, but spending two days with the Love of my life takes away the guilt. This Journey is about Faith, Family and Friends, so time with family should never bring on feelings of guilt!)

Anita mentioned that visiting the Mall of America was on her bucket list, so we asked Ms. Google Maps to lead us to the MOA. The first photo on this post was taken in the LEGO store with Anita standing beside some full sized LEGO robot. Watching kids of all ages walking in “dreamland” brought thoughts of our OMJSN and how much they would have thrilled to be in the LEGO store. MOA is just another super gigantic mall with hundreds of stores, but also a Disneyland like experience for visitors from all over the world. We saw families enjoying roller coasters, carousels, stomach churning Tilt-A-Whirl type rides and Magic Mountain log rides. Wow, what an experience and a fun way to get our 10,000 steps in for the day.

As I looked through photos on my iPhone I found the above photo. I found the above photo of a mural and two girls painting it while pedaling through the tiny town of Norwalk, Wisconsin.  I rode over and introduced myself to the girls, thinking they probably had been told thousands of times, “Don’t talk to strangers!” To my relief, both girls were thrilled to talk about their art work. Both are in high school and OFF for the summer, but they chose to spend their free time painting the mural, a high school art class summer project. Both said they wanted visitors driving through Norwalk to experience something out of the ordinary and memorable. I asked how long it would take them to finish painting and one of them said, “I’m not really sure because even though this is a high school art class project, everyone in town has been helping with the painting. We have our town elders, elementary students, Mom’s with babies on their back and even strangers who just want to help!” Creating a beautiful, cheerful mural instead of graffiti is one way the students and citizens of Norwalk are showing the world that Norwalk is a warm, friendly and cheerful place to live and visit. Way to go Norwalk and thanks for making my brief visit one I will long remember.

I want to share one more reflection on an earlier post. I talked about how grateful I was that I had met Jeanette Hasse. Jeanette took in a stranger and gave me shelter from a rain storm in her son’s Missouri Tavern just outside Madison, MN. As it turns out my good friend and former colleague at HAP, Sheri McIntire, know Jeanette very well! Travis, the owner of The Missouri Tavern and son of Jeanette, is the best friend of Sheri’s brother. Sheri grew up in the area, rode the Elroy/Sparta trail while in high school 10 years ago 😍, and both her parents, Almarie and Rich, work seasonally for HAP in the summer.  Our world is an extremely small place and it is hard for me to explain how such unusual encounters occur over and over on this Journey of ours.

Today was just like when my son Jeremy and I said goodbye two weeks ago. Anita and I enjoyed a super breakfast at the Cornerstone Cafe in Monticello, mounted my panniers onto my bicycle, filled water bottles and then we hugged each other for what seemed like hours.  She drove off in the rental car towards Minneapolis and I pedaled west towards North Dakota. Anita loves the below quote, but it took ten miles of riding for my tears to dry! Anita is the love of my life, and the bright light at the end of every “tunnel” I have encountered. Her brief visit will live forever as one of my fondest memories of this journey. Thank you my love!

As always, thank you all for your kind thoughts and continual moral support!

Greg