Stockholm is a quiet place, no shops opened on Monday morning, not even a pie shop that declared itself to be famous. There was a festival here the day before we turned up so fair enough, have a lie in. The camping was fine tho' it's chemical toilets and no showers - but I did swim in the Mississippi, carefully without taking in water. The night was not peaceful - an awful lot of trains, mostly carrying coal for the power plant we passed yesterday, use the line day and night. Very picturesque in a train spotter sense but less so at 4am... but sleeping was OK. Yes, 40% of power for Wisconsin comes from coal. Well you could cry... but climate change denial is hugely popular in the US, only slowly declining as the weather gets odder.... Today's ride was initially along the Mississippi - Bay City through to Prescott tho' tending to climb up to the farmland that lies above the bluffs (cliffs) that line, on and off, the Mississippi. So sweaty climbs of a few hundred feet. Then Prescott where we took the bridge into Minnesota and got shouted at to get on the sidewalk (less polite). Odd because it was a modest flow of traffic on a two lane each way bridge. The junction before you cross the bridge is not bike friendly though. There is room for a bike lane - pavement or road. Just over the bridge is a beach - Point Douglas beach on the River Saint Croix (Americans pronounce the last letter of both those French words - very fetching).
Swam in red water (see photo)... deliciously cool, lots of bathers, mostly speaking Spanish. We took the mildly hilly (and lots of bikes) CR 21 through Afton (looked a bit like Woodhall Spa, pity there was no camping) then, with thunder clouds growing dark ahead of us, Bayport and then Stillwater where we needed a bank to refloat us prior to finding a motel. Just as we found one the storm broke and we spent 20 mins in an ATM secure area with torrential rain outside. Then I walked in a rather thundery steady rain to Walmart (walking is eccentric here, as much as cycling) and got dinner - microwaveable veggie Thai food and salad. Then $65 to stay at the Asteria Motel. Not bad and OK for the bikes to shelter in the first floor motel room... tea, a glass of wine, tofu followed by a bath - transams can have their luxurious moments. The dirtier you are, the nicer a bath is.... Oddly large number of dead deer bashed in at the side of the road today - we see the live ones less often. The top picture is a viewpoint on the Mississippi - where it forms Lake Pepin.