Our day started with a great conversation with Don, of Don's Lakeview RV Park, Nettie, a lady who had travelled very widely in the UK and lives nearby, and Don's wife, who brought very kindly brought cakes, essential to covering mileage. Nettie has visited England for many years - even the moor above Haworth where wutheringbikes.org.uk was dreamt of - near High Withens. She has a fascination with British history, writing and researching. A few years ago some British west to east transAm cyclists were here - military and doing a charity ride - and she told us about them. As soldiers they fit into the pageant of history well - regiments, royalty. We heard that Biden had left the presidential race in favour of Kamala Harris. A woman president... The group split over who to vote for - but Trump's position on Ukraine was a worry (will he hand it over to Putin). Nettie clearly thought her regular trips to the UK were over but we hope she makes it again. Don had dutch origins and his wife had Norwegian roots. There are lots of connections back to Europe. It was nice to think about cool, damp places on a day that promises to be rather hot.... The wind was behind us, more or less, so we sped through various small towns to Fergus Falls, about 44 miles away. The only problem was the jointed roads - concrete overlaid with tarmac - the joints make our wheels go clunk rather alarmingly - they've got 2000 miles still to go. We were on a bike trail much of the time - a bike trail that started at Bowlus so 100+ miles of bike trail.... We got some lunch in the supermarket right in the middle of town, there's a lake, called Alice, near the supermarket so we sat in the shade there, it's not easy to hang around in the sun.
But it was only 2pm so we hurtled on getting even faster as the wind blew us along - we averaged 14.1mph today. I think that's the fastest yet. We were rolling at a steady 20mph for much of the last leg. The day got hotter as the afternoon progressed and reached about 30 centigrade. And the humidity was high too. The wind was a help to keeping cool. We reached Barnesville at about 5.30pm. There's a campground next to a large park. We were welcomed by Greg and Kari , the campground hosts. They give touring bikers bags of savory and sweet things - which is very kind. They are snowbirds - they take 'the van' down south in winter. They said that they particularly see Canadians doing this - escaping the long cold winter by going to Arizona, Florida, etc. We ate dinner - accompanied with Peanut Butter Porter, a pleasant variant. We were given some ice cream by the van next to us. I'm reading Vanity Fair by Thackeray - very amusing.... Becky Sharp would have thrived, perhaps, in early America. We were parallel to a rail track during the last few miles and the landscape had turned very flat indeed, hence the second photo.