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Old 11-04-2016, 12:30 AM   #41
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Biking locations

Paul does well to sing the praises of Wisconsin's bicycling infrastructure. There are many nice trails there, and almost every country road I have seen in Wisconsin is paved due to the dairy industry and the need for good farm to market roads.

That said, we stayed at a B&B south of New Glarus, WI a few years ago and the owners were concerned about an erosion of their business because of the superior biking facilities in MN. As Iowa Dave points out we have the Root River trail that runs through the bluff country of SE Mn. There is also the Cannon Valley trail which runs from Red Wing to Cannon Falls, the Central Lakes / Lake Wobegone trail which runs over a hundred miles from Fregus Falls to St Johns, the Paul Bunyan trail that runs for 120 miles between Crow Wing State park, south of Brainerd, To Bemidji. There are lots of other state trails. Most of them are paved. Most of them are operated by the state DNR, and are free to use. Others are operated by not-for-profit entities and may or may not charge a fee.

If you come to the Twin Cities, you will find a cyclists paradise (yes, even in the winter -- bike paths are often plowed before the roads are) with many miles of trails, bike lanes, etc. We have trails around lakes, along the light rail, and along proposed light rail corridors. Many streets have bike lanes, marked either by paint, out in some cases by some sort of physical barriier. I think that 'Nice Ride', the bike sharing program usually shuts down around Nov. 15, but it is going to be 63 tomorrow and we haven't had a frost yet. So maybe it will go later this year.

The bottom line is that Wisconsin is a great place to bike. But Minnesota is better 😄. Just kidding, Paul and Eric. Ruthe, In Response to your original question, check out the Cannon Valley Trail, only 19 miles long, but following the Cannon River. If you start in Redwing, you can ride slightly up hill till you turn around and have a gentle downhill on the way back.
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Old 11-04-2016, 10:03 AM   #42
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Ruthe, Indiana Dunes State Park is just north of I-80 and runs parallel to it on a spur highway, making it very easy to exit 80 and return to 80 without much delay. It is right on Lake Michigan and offers plenty of casual walking and riding. The campsites are large and are separated by an expanse of park-like lawn. The restrooms are large and clean

I might add, during peak season you may need reservations.
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Old 11-04-2016, 12:12 PM   #43
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Ruthe, Indiana Dunes State Park is just north of I-80 and runs parallel to it on a spur highway, making it very easy to exit 80 and return to 80 without much delay. It is right on Lake Michigan and offers plenty of casual walking and riding. The campsites are large and are separated by an expanse of park-like lawn. The restrooms are large and clean

I might add, during peak season you may need reservations.
You also have to pay a fee, where, if you are staying several days instead of one or two, it will cost you less per day. That is how it was when we were there.
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Old 11-04-2016, 07:53 PM   #44
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Wow! A lot of great information. And possibly this would be the trip when we take the back roads. Thank you all. This is going to help a lot.
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Old 11-05-2016, 10:02 AM   #45
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Also visit Rocky Mountain National Park
Mill Creek, Rocky Mountain National Park
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Old 07-06-2017, 01:20 PM   #46
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Thanks to Iowa Dave

Terry and I just spent the weekend at the Bob Shetler Campground located on the Saylorville Dam in Iowa and we are most appreciative to Iowa Dave who pointed us in the right direction, because we were at a loss where to make reservations for the Fourth of July weekend. It was a great campground -- we had a huge site -- and the morning and evening walks took us on a tour of the Saylorville Dam -- There is an amazing network of bike paths that follow the lake in one direction and go to Des Moines in the other. Swimming is nearby (although unfortunately bacterial counts and blue green algae made us cautious) and we were able to go to a minor league baseball game in Des Moines. Bob Shetler Campground was an easy 10 or 15 minutes from Route 80 -- Oh, and the restrooms were tiled and clean with plenty of hot water.

For anyone who is interested, the link to my travel blog is RuthMatilskyWorld.wordpress.com I just posted notes and pictures from Ohio, Indiana and Illinois and soon will put up pictures from Iowa.
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Old 07-06-2017, 04:23 PM   #47
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Shetler is the worse one in the area AFAIAC and I won't go there again. There are campgrounds at Saylorville that are good such as Cherry Glen but the best is some distance away, Howell Station which is Army Corps. It has the added advantage of being near the great town of Pella, a Dutch town complete with windmill. Really a nice town to visit and we go regularly. Many thousands of tulips at tulip time! Campground is at a dam, sometimes with pelicans which I have given photos of here. Been many times.
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Old 07-14-2017, 07:29 PM   #48
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Cathy, I'm curious why you didn't like Shetler. Anyway, now we're in Wolf Camp RV park, just outside of Custer State Park in South Dakota. We are loving Custer State Park and decided to stay here for a week. We started out in the primitive campground in the park, which is first come, but in this heat we wanted air conditioning. I just posted to my blog RuthMatilskyWorld.wordpress.com
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Old 07-14-2017, 10:08 PM   #49
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Sounds like a great trip! As someone mentioned Trail Links is a great site. You might also check out - https://www.railstotrails.org. It's a national organization promoting the use and building of rails to trails.
When you get to the Tetons it would be hard to miss the paved trail from the headquarters to Jenny Lake. Cruising along with the mountains next to you is pretty spectacular.

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Old 07-16-2017, 05:21 PM   #50
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Custer State Park

https://ruthmatilskyworld.wordpress.com/

Got up early to use the internet today and posted to my blog.

We are at Wolf Camp RV Park -- full hookups, neighbors are not here -- there's lots of room and it's quiet except when the wolves howl. For us, it's the perfect way to visit the park since we are literally on the edge of it.
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Old 07-16-2017, 05:33 PM   #51
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We enjoyed the wildlife at Custer more then Yellowstone, great place.
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Old 07-16-2017, 08:58 PM   #52
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Bob - We really enjoyed Custer as well. I really hadn't done much research on the park so, when we arrived and took everything in, it was such a pleasant surprise to us. The wildlife there is truly amazing.
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Old 07-17-2017, 09:01 AM   #53
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We need tips on where you both saw this wildlife. Terry and I have hiked some but haven't gone on the wildlife drive yet. So far we've seen a few deer and a buffalo and a chipmunk.
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Old 07-17-2017, 09:10 AM   #54
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Enjoyed reading your fine blog, Ruthie. Must get to the Custer State Park -- confused it at first with the Little Big Horn Battlefield Memorial which we visited several years ago.
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Old 07-17-2017, 09:44 AM   #55
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If you think that's strange Greg, try "Down East".

You can't go "down" to go east, at least using the common slang for map directions, but folks in Maine call it that.
Down East is originally a sailing term...During the summer prevailing winds are from the South West so from Boston you go down wind to Maine (you are going North East) or "Down East" and up wind to Boston or "Up to Boston". Good Link here Why "Down East?" - Down East
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Old 07-17-2017, 10:53 AM   #56
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We hiked from trail heads along the wildlife drive., we were in Blue Bell so it was a short drive each morning and evening. Dusk and dawn were the best, got there just as the sky lightened in the morning, and shortly before dark in the evening. We went hiking looking for the Elk herds, got us pretty worried when we found them, or was it they that found us.
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Old 07-17-2017, 11:53 AM   #57
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We were on one of the tours they offer (it was the "Chuckwagon" extended excursion). The nice thing was we were able to get into the back country where regular visitors aren't allowed. Our grandsons' biggest thrill was when were were 'stuck' in a herd of bison.
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Old 07-18-2017, 06:20 AM   #58
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Yesterday we went on the wildlife loop, but it wasn't a good time -- still hot -- and we were hungry and tired because we'd just been to Wind Cave and done a cave tour -- At Sunset we're going to try to do it the right way. We did see the herd of bison, what looked like baby elk, but they were too far away and then we came across what are called the "begging burros" a herd of them literally sticking their heads inside people's cars looking for food. That was pretty funny.
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Old 07-18-2017, 07:39 AM   #59
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Wolf Camp RV Park

Wolf Camp RV and cabins is immediately outside Custer State Park and convenient to most places. We are in a site between two seasonals --one was here briefly and very kindly helped us out with a stinky slinky situation -- the other hasn't been here at all. So it's been pretty nice. It would be a whole different situation if the guy next to us were here because the door of his trailer faces the door of ours so there would be no privacy. We have full hookups and there are sites with just electric that could also work. The bathroom is very clean -- water pressure in the shower leaves something to be desired, but they work. Also we have trash pickup at our site every day -- the whole place is well taken care of and there is lots of green open space. If we were to return I'd like to reserve a spot in the park at Legion Lake which has a very pretty swimming and kayak little lake but I'd come here again if we needed to.

The howling of the wolves has been pretty interesting, but i'm not fond of wild animals being cooped up.
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Old 07-18-2017, 10:09 AM   #60
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Ruthenium's,
That cg is near Strugis and should be avoided the first week in August, in fact the whole area should be avoided as 500,000 bikers congregate there yearly that week.
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