The plan for the day is to ride from Bloomington, MN to Grand Forks, ND some 370 miles and 6 hours ride time.
The day started with a surprise, dark cloudy skies. OMG! So hating rain gear I started with only my jacket and was doing well for about 5 miles before the drizzle hit, so I put on my leathers and rode up to Monticello for breakfast, I had barely gotten wet. So I thought no problem and started out again after breakfast, fueling and a look at the current radar in leathers and my jacket.
In the next ten minutes I was getting wet and with my liner safely stowed in my saddle bag (idiot), I started to feel the moisture weeping through the leather. Damnit! I have to put rain gear on… We’ll I gotta get to Grand Forks, and the radar showed rain and heavy rain for most of my day, so as it was currently raining I took the next exit and donned my rain gear.
I rode 2 hours straight in the rain before stopping for fuel in Motley, and 2 more hours to Fosston where I fueled the bike, retrieved my liner from the saddlebag and put it back in my jacket. Next I had the privilege to join one of my favorite youth group students for dinner and a well deserved break from riding in the rain.
It was great catching up with Melanie, but I still had an hour plus to finish my day so back on the bike, thankfully the rain had stopped, and radar suggested I might have smooth sailing the remainder of my trip. And I did, making Grand Forks, ND shortly after sundown. I pray tomorrow’s weather is kinder to me.
Tomorrow, I traverse North Dakota into Montana, I’ll strive to do better on taking pics…
Below you can see today’s route mapped out…
