Week 11: Rail trails, tunnels, and bikes (June 24, 2001 )

The Fool has reached Minnesota! That makes state number seven. He has walked from New Jersey to Minnesota in 11 weeks. That is a looooong way.

Last Sunday found The Fool in a public campground in Elroy, Wisconsin. He was the only human being in the campground. He had spent the earlier part of the afternoon and evening hanging out in a Subway restaurant, waiting for the rain to clear, and trying to explain to a belligerent truck driver that he really wanted to walk, and that he didn't need a ride somewhere.

Elroy is the beginning of a nice trail that goes along an old RR bed. The Fool really likes these kind of trails, because he is SOOOO tired of walking next to cars. Also, because it is on an old RR bed, it has a nice low grade, because it had to be flat for the trains, and so he is often walking above the general lay of the land on built up ridges, or through hillsides that were blasted open. This makes for interesting walking. This trail also happens to have three old tunnels on it, one almost a mile long. Some friendly kids were at the opposite end of the first tunnel, and they were kind enough to help The Fool find his way by screaming to him the entire time he was in the tunnel. He camped Monday night near tunnel number 2.



Tuesday The WF had a meal in Norwalk, and he met a doctor who had actually happened to hear him on the radio when he was interviewed in Chicago, several weeks before, which was pretty odd. He camped in Rockland that night, and then was able to take another rail trail all the way to La Crosse. This rail trail had a working RR on it, though. In La Crosse he finally broke down and ate in his first Burger King since the "cellphone incident", a few weeks ago.

He forged on, and crossed the Mississippi at La Crosse, thereby entering Minnesota, in the town of La Crescent. It was another rainy week, so he took a break, and spent two nights in a motel there, so he could do some video editing. The motel he stayed in was the Ranch motel, and it had lovely shag carpeting, fake wood panel walls, and a strange funky smell that intensified with the rain.

On Friday he reached Houston, MN, and he also bumped into a woman who was a news anchor on Channel 8 (CBS) at a gas station, who seemed interested in his story, but he was headed the wrong direction for her station.

He was able to take another trail starting on Friday, called the Root River Trail. (See map here.) The Root River Trail is VERY zig-zaggy. The weirdest thing about this trail was that he was traveling on it on Saturday and Sunday, and so he was sharing it with TONS of rollerbladers and cyclists. This is sort of a new thing - having other people to say hello to while he is walking. The Fool found it sort of disconcerting having to say "Hey, how's it going?" to people so often - especially the bikers, who came in a constant stream. He's more accustomed to zoning out while walking, and tuing out the traffic. There were a lot of cute couples on tandem bikes on the trail, too. Even with all the other folks around, on Saturday The Fool saw a wild turkey.

Sunday night found The Fool camped out in Fountain, MN. And just an FYI -- Fountain is only about 4 miles from a town called Bucksnort. No joke.

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