An Unintentional Blog Hiatus and Riding the Heartland State Trail in Minnesota

In case you've been wondering where we've been, hope no one has worried.  We have been just fine but camping in a spot with impossibly slow internet (Yellowstone!), so posting to the blog was not possible.  We have a lot of posts in the pipeline, so please stay tuned, and thanks for your patience. 

When we last blogged, we were in Akeley, Minnesota.  Seems like that was an awfully long time ago!  But what a wonderful time we had riding the Heartland State Trail there.  Here's a great description of the trail from the Minnesota DNR's website:

"The Heartland State Trail was one of the first rail-to-trail projects in the country. It is a 49 mile, multiple-use trail between Park Rapids and Cass Lake. The trail is located entirely on a level, abandoned, railroad grade, except for a four-mile segment north of Walker which is on a low-volume traffic road....The Heartland State Trail also connects with the Paul Bunyan State Trail system and other regional trail systems."

During our stay, we were able to ride the entire length of the Heartland Trail in two separate days, riding west to Park Rapids one day and northeast to Cass Lake the other. 

Map of the Heartland State Trail

The trail is smoothly paved and near flat to flat.  It is a true joy to ride, with beautiful woodlands, fields, lakes, and charming towns along the way, especially at the western end.

Riding west on the Heartland, somewhere outside of Akeley

The tiny town of Dorset, west of Akeley, considers itself the "restaurant capital of the world" because it has the most restaurants (4) per number of residents (22), or one restaurant for every 5.5 people!

There is a small campground there, and the town draws a lot of tourists. We didn't eat in any of the restaurants but did take a couple of photos,

One of the restaurants -- wish we'd gotten to try it!

Our ride to Park Rapids actually had a purpose; we needed to go to a bike shop, and found one conveniently located right at the western terminus of the trail.

Western terminus of Heartland Trail, Park Rapids, MN

It's all about bicycling in Park Rapids!

Northern Cycle in Park Rapids

Lovely small lake in Park Rapids

On the way back to Akeley, we stopped at the cute tourist town of Nevis for some delicious ice cream at Muskie Waters Co.

Pretty flowers in Nevis, MN

The next day we rode east and north on the trail.  This was a longer ride, and Walker is the only city between Akeley and Cass Lake, so you need to plan accordingly and bring enough to eat and drink.

It got hilly at the end as the Heartland Trail officially ends two miles south of Cass Lake, but we forged onward in search of refreshment!

The MRT (Mississippi River Trail) bikeway continues after the Heartland Trail ends

We finally found something yummy to revive ourselves in the city of Cass Lake (part of an Indian reservation), but we never did see Cass Lake.  It is a bit north and east of the city, and we'd ridden enough.

This makes the tough times worthwhile!

On the way back we stopped off in Walker, the County Seat of Cass County.  Walker is on the southwest shore of beautiful Leech Lake.

Leech Lake

We'd hoped to pick up a couple of freshly baked scones at the Green Scene health food store, but they sold the last two right as we arrived.  We were so disappointed as they looked amazing.  Picking up our pouty lips, we pedaled back to Akeley.

We ended up with over 41 miles on the Akeley to Park Rapids ride and over 68 miles on the Akeley to Cass Lake ride. My legs were getting really tired!  But we still had one more ride we really wanted to do before leaving the area and only one more day to do it in, so stay tuned for that one!