Leonard, ND to Waterville, MN

 Day 64: July 26, 2021

Long day driving to Waterville, MN

Oh. My. The Land of 10,000 Lakes spawns 10,000,000 mosquitoes. A good 10% of those were welcoming me to our campsite. I hate them. They apparently LOVE LOVE LOVE me. I woke up two mornings ago with a ton of insect bites that showed up in the night.

Dan, did you get bit up last night?

No. Why?

I just counted: right forearm only: 8 bites. Right knee area: 19 bites. That was from a few days ago. Torture.

Coming into Minnesota, we noticed right away all the lakes. I IMMEDIATELY thought of mosquitoes!! The welcoming party gave me two new ones that I know off. I was able to swat dead two others caught in the act. It was, for me, like a scene from a horror movie.

Besides that, I was dripping. It’s really humid outside, and even though it was “only” 88, it wasn’t weather I’d choose to be in. On purpose. I was so amped about the nice (relatively level) bike paths here but hot and humid and mosquito infested are not conditions conducive to a nice ride. Dan? He’s not bothered by the humidity OR the mosquitoes!!

I do see people outside of their campers. How DO they do it??

That said, our site is beautiful, under a multitude of trees! Hopefully the scattered showers that are forecast will pass us by. We got hit with bad thunderstorms and hail between the size of a quarter and a 50-cent piece (as if anyone knows what that is anymore!) last night around 11:25. It went on for a long 15 or so minutes and it was as if bombs were going off when the hail was hitting the roof of the RoadHouse. It was SO LOUD. One actually punctured the tonneau cover for the truck bed. We can patch that pretty well with strategically placed duct tape!  After the hail stopped, then it was just rain. No complaints about that but I kept listening for tornado sirens…and wondering if that area southwest of Fargo even HAD tornado sirens. 

Tomorrow: early bike ride??? Stay tuned….I’m not sure how much of a fool I want to be!

(No pictures….lots of very straight roads through very neat fields planted with corn and hay and soybeans, then lots of lakes and then lots of orange barrels and road construction in the southwest loop of the Twin Cities freeway system)