Lots of road construction my last 11 miles of SD. Rough shoulder. Came to a spot where they had a pilot car for 1.5 miles. Told flagger that I would ride as fast as I could.

I can go pretty fast but not 40 mph. Pilot car turned around and was bringing cars back towards me on the one open lane. I just moved to left shoulder. A bit rude in my opinion but I guess, if I had to wait in a car for some idiot on a bike to get past, I may have become a bit impatient.

I survived and made it to MN. Loved my time in SD but have to move on into state number 6.

I had to adjust my intended route from Ortonville, MN. Had planned to stay on Hwy 12 to Benson but road was closed to through traffic for 26 miles. Randy had warned me about that last night. I took Hwy 75 north for 19 miles. Not the direction I’m supposed to be going but…I did get to go through Graceville, the birthplace of former MN Twins manager, Tom Kelly.

The corn through this area looks pretty good to me. It’s tall anyway.

At Morris I stopped at my 3rd Verizon store in the last 24 hours. All closed Monday and Tuesday for “training”. What??

Stopped for lunch at McD’s and there was a Verizon store across parking lot. I just assumed it was also closed. As I was leaving, I planned to take a picture of Closed for Training sign. Lo and behold, it was open.

I got exceptional service from Nikki and Alexis. New phone (and camera) up and running!! Oh, happy day.

The corn is starting to tassel. It’s important, in my professional agronomist opinion, that it gets some rain at that time. I’d go into the details but I really have no clue. Someone just told me that.

Complaint of the day. Hey, MN, what’s up with these shoulders?

It was like this pretty much all day. What do you do? Ride on gravel? Slow and bumpy. Ride on 1-3 feet of pavement on shoulder? Hard to do because gravel is 3” lower than pavement and white line is a rumble strip. Ride in traffic lane? A bit sketchy.

I pretty much rode the lane until I’d hear vehicles coming up from behind and then rumbled over to “shoulder”. Took lots of concentration. Good example of why nothing in my ears (music, etc.).

I wanted to get pretty far today as there’s a good chance for rain tomorrow.

8 miles before Starbuck there’s a car alongside the road. It’s Mary (Cramer) Ronning, a high school classmate. She knew I was heading to Starbuck and wanted me to stay at their house in Alexandria tonight. Sounded good to me!

Mary will give me a ride back to Starbuck in the morning. If I drank coffee, I’d definitely get some of their famous mocha latte.

Planning a short (35 or so miles) ride to Sauk Center tomorrow. Rain possible and Gerty is past due for a check up.

One last thing…if strong thighs are a key to good golf, all of you boys from The Plantation should just send me $100. I’ll be a +4 in 8 rounds. You might as well just pay in advance!!!

Ride on.

Just Pete