Day Eight: The Minnesota River Valley

Maia poses for a picture, looking tough by a park just outside of Granite Falls



















This morning, we left June & Kurt's beautiful "Sweet Land" (Yes, the movie was filmed in part on their farm!), but only after a breakfast of very local bacon & pancakes. Kurt and June were amazing hosts!



















We biked into town to see the cozy indoor farmer's market, housed in a log cabin with a fireplace! We also stopped in Java River, a cute coffee shop downtown featuring signs of the many well respected sustainability organizations based out of Montevideo, such as the Land Stewardship Project. Having bid Colin farewell, we continued the trek.





















Today was a beautiful day of biking along the Minnesota River, through woods, valleys, and very steep hills. After coming through the Upper Sioux Reservation we biked along cow dotted pastures, corn fields, and barns.

Day Seven: The rain ride, and VERY local chicken

10-16-09, Montevideo





















This morning, Colin and I departed from Morris just as a misty drizzle began to cascade. We had a long route ahead of us, and by the time we got to our destination at June and Kurt's farm we were soaked. In Appleton, Minnesota (Yes, there is an Appleton in MN too! Take that Wisconsin) Colin got a flat tire, but fortunately a friendly passerby helped us out and directed us to a nearby tire shop that filled up the new tube.

After a long trek, we met June and Kurt, who own and run a sustainable small farm to the south of Watson, MN. They live close to Montevideo, where Kurt's famous sister Audrey has worked with the Land Stewardship Project. I say famous because almost everyone I have met along this journey either knows her or has heard of her, so if you're reading this Audrey, you're famous!

















Kurt gave us a tour of the farm, showing us where the cows and pigs sustainably eat a large grass field, and showing us the chicken coop, where the egg laying chickens are free to roam the yard and poke the ground in search of tasty bugs.

We warmed up inside and ate a chicken dinner off of a sustainable biofuel fed wood stove. Here, June discusses how local that chicken really is:





Kurt teaches Colin the science of cooking on a wood stove:






















Then, we watched the movie "Sweet Land" which was filmed in part on their property. Kurt was proud to give us a commentary of the movie, where he played many cameo roles and also served as a "farm guru."

Day Six: The Road To Morris

Picture: Students at U of M Morris hold a 350 flag, along with an American flag and a Minnesota one too! Thank you for putting on an amazing potluck event!

10-15-09




















I left Dave Jacobson's place early in the morning as the sun was just beginning to rise. I knew that I would have a long day ahead of me. It rained all night, and I prepared myself, taping seran wrap over my helmet so that I wouldn't catch a cold. I must have done something right though, because as soon as I stepped outside the rain stopped until I got to Morris.

The road to Morris was beautiful and dotted with farm and prairie. Along the way, I began to realize how much more spectacular it is to bike someplace than to drive there. When your driving, everything whips past you in a blur, but when you bike, everything is continuous, connected, and you meet so many interesting people and have so many exciting experiences that you may have missed otherwise.

When you ride for a long while on bike in an area without many towns, there is a problem that arises every rare once in a while: where to find a bathroom. As I arrived in Starbuck, (yes, there's a city called Starbuck and it doesn't have a Starbuck's Coffee shop... yet.) I found my answer: a gas station! Surely there would be a bathroom there! After finishing, I went to the air pump to fill my tires and ran into a professor from Morris who happened to teach classes that some of the students I were about to speak to are taking! She's teaching co-teaching a class right now on writing and climate change. This type of chance meeting has been one of the patterns that has run through this entire trip (along with weird weather and the fact that invasive lady beetles are everywhere in the state).


















After riding seventy miles, the longest day of the journey, I arrived in Morris just in time for the meeting with a student environmental event put on by the U of M MPIRG group. We gathered in a local library, and my empty stomach was happy to learn that it was not just any gathering; it was a potluck gathering. After a long day on the trail, there is nothing as good as a potluck.

I talked about Bike MN 350 and learned about all of the amazing things that are happening at the U of M Morris that put other Minnesota Universities to shame. For example, Morris has an enormous wind turbine and is planning on putting up two more in the next couple of years. It also has a geothermal program and is involved with state of the art alternative energy education. One of the students mentioned that it's cool that Morris not only has clean energy, but it prepares students for jobs in clean energy too.

I spent the night at Colin and Jenna's apartment, two environmentally engaged students at Morris who happen to be brother and sister. Colin cooked up a tasty vegan meal and then I crashed on the couch for the night, preparing myself for the long day ahead of me: the road to Montevideo.

Day Five: The Wobegone Trail to Dave Jacobon's Place

10-14-09

I woke up early today so that I could get to Dave Jacobson's prairie preserve by mid afternoon. First though, I jumped on my bike and followed Theo to the solar array area on campus.

Right now it's just a field of tubes and support structures, but by the end of November, it will be the largest solar array in Minnesota by four times! Theo and I got there at just the right moment and happened to run into a worker who was happy to talk about his pride in building the solar photovoltaic collection facility. He excitedly introduced us to the manager, who was proud to have his construction company, MA Mortenson, working on the project. He thinks that this is a trend, and that soon other colleges will also rise to the challenge of becoming more energy efficient.

Then Theo and I hit the trail. The Lake Wobegone trail is beautiful and the weather was warmer (than it had been at least!). I travelled through prairie and farmland and beautiful natural spaces, crossing through many towns along my way and meeting many interesting people.

I had a good conversation in Spanish with a couple of guys working at the local turkey stuffing plant. They thought that this year has been better than average for crops, but were concerned about long term environmental changes.

I stopped in at Charlie's Cafe in Freeport and had the best breakfast food for lunch I think I've ever had at a restaurant. Mel, my server, was excited to find out about the bike trek and wrote a note in the book that I'll be taking to Copenhagen. Thank you Mel!

I biked through Sauk Centre and north to Dave Jacobson's farm turned prairie land, and I got there in the nick of time. Right after I pulled my bike into the garage it began raining after a completely dry ride.

Dave brought me on a tour of his land in his jeep and explained why he had decided to take the farm that had been in his family since 1885 and return it to the native prairie savannah it had once been. Starting in 1992, he began to transfer the cropland to native land, doing research with the help of the DNR to find out where the original ponds and plants had been. Then, over the course of more than a decade, he reconstructed six ecosystems in what is possibly the most biodiverse restoration project ever to occur in Minnesota.

Day Four: Webster Farm Organic to the St. John's Abbey

Tuesday, October 13th

I woke at Amy's to a strange sensation: one of her dogs was nuzzling under the covers with me on the pull out couch. Amy and I ate a breakfast of locally farmed eggs and biscuits and talked about her famous dances and about the importance of internalizing a sustainable ethic in the way we live our everyday lives. Afterwards, she brought me on a tour of her pottery studio (she is an amazing potter, and is a painter too, so her ceramics dance with creativity). Then, we walked through the barn, where she is planning on setting up a farmer's market on the lower level and a dance hall upstairs as soon as she can get rid of the bats that have taken residence.

I hit the trail and found my way to Webster Farm Organic for brunch without getting lost and without being sleeted on. I met with Tam and Nett, a couple who own an organic CSA farm, and whom I had met a month earlier while biking by their Community Supported Agriculture stand in front of Blue Moon coffee in Minneapolis. My mother stopped by to resupply me and we all ate a delicious meal of vegetable soup from their garden. Thank you Nett and Tam!

They gave us a tour of their farm, and showed us everything that they had built with their bare hands, including a storage shed that they were proud to have only paid 93 cents for! They work hard and are able to grow their crops with a very small carbon footprint. Because of their CSA program (Community Supported Agriculture) they are able to make a decent living, do what they love, and limit their CO2 emissions. Nett explained that oftentimes, people in big cities have this idea that people in the countryside know less about climate change and about how to deal with it. Instead, she says that there is a lot of intuitive knowledge about climate held by people who make their living off the land.

We travelled southwest on 23 through St. Cloud and caught the Lake Wobegone Trail by St. Joseph (Yes, Garrison Keillor didn't lie, there is such a place!). Keillor's trail was a beautiful contrast to the shopping extravaganza in St. Cloud. After a short while, I had a chance meeting with a student reporter who was doing a story about technology on the trail. He interviewed me for his show and then Theo, the sustainability fellow for St. John's University showed up.

We biked to St. John's and met with a group of students there who are involved in climate change solutions, some of whom I will be travelling with to Copenhagen this December. Very quickly I learned that there is a lot of good happening on campus that other universities could look to for inspiration. St. John's for example is in the process of installing the largest solar array in the state (by four times!).

Here's a great interview with the delegates about their preparations for the UN Conference on Climate Change: (video to come as soon as it stops freezing my computer)

We talked and then the monks at the St. John's Abbey generously let me stay the night in their guesthouse.

Day Three: Snow Day!

Monday! Oh Monday!! Today I woke up, looked out the window, and saw SNOW. Again.

I set out from the Hauan’s warm farm by North Branch into the bitter cold of the wintry morning. Okay, I told myself, I knew what I was getting into when I decided to organize the bike ride in October in MINNESOTA; I would stick it out, I wouldn’t let any weather deter me. The roads were free of snow, but they were wet, and by the time I got to the City Center Market in Cambridge, even my “waterproof” shoe liners were soaked like sponges.

As I entered the co-op, I felt like I was like a traveler in a sleety desert who had just stumbled upon an oasis of heat and locally grown produce. Susan, who was working at the register, greeted me and called Gail, the manager, who showed me to a table where I could sit down and drape all of my wet clothing over the chairs. Thank you Gail for putting up with my mess!

Gail left for a while to return to a meeting, and I met and talked with customers at the store who were excited to learn about Bike MN 350, and shared their opinions about clean energy, climate change, and Copenhagen.

After getting some delicious organic squash soup from the deli and a decaffeinated cup of coffee from Cafe Caffeine next door, I sat down and talked with whoever came by the table.

When Gail got out of her meeting I was able to interview her on the importance of buying local to take action on climate change and the message she would like us to take to Copenhagen. See an interview clip, coming soon! City Center Market has been thinking of ways to increase its efficiency in ways that are cost effective.

An hour later the snow had stopped, and I was biking along when my phone rang from my bag. Trying to answer it, I fell from my bike off the side of the road. Fortunately, I wasn't hurt and I answered the phone in time, just as cop cars whizzed by me at top speed. On the phone was Josie from St. John's University, calling to say that I could stay at the Abbey in the guest house the following day and meet with Theo, the Sustainability Fellow at the university to talk about the new solar installation.

Shortly afterwards, I crested a hill and saw that there was yet another challenge before me. The bridge was out. I could only go south when I needed to go north. This added another hour to my trip. Also, there was no shoulder on the road! Get with it, road infrastructure! Make room for bikes!

I also got lost for a couple hours when I took the wrong road of two roads with the same name. It was starting to get dark and I was lost, but I turned around and found my way.

Finally, I got to Amy Sabrina's Sweetgrass Farm after sunset, exhausted but exhilarated to see her.

Over dinner, we talked about what she's been doing at the Sweetgrass Farm. For someone raised on city food, it was a treat to eat local, organic, real food. We ate venison burgers that were awesome and wild rice, drank chaga (a coffee substitute made out of a type of mushroom). Her idea of how to do something as a solution is to live the way that she would like others to live and to share that by introducing people to it. She doesn't like teaching people to do things, she likes teaching creativity. She told me about the community dances and why she does them. No matter what a person's point of view, dancing breaks down barriers. When that happens, people are more open, happy, and joyful. She thinks you can't do any important work unless fun is part of it.

We put on music and danced!

Then..
Sleeeeeeeep!!!!

Day Two: Flats, Chats, and Nice Warm Hats

Uh Oh: The Flat Tire Fiasco

We set out from the refuge of Rebecca Otto's alternative energy home into the brisk chill of the Minnesota autumn morning. We travelled for about half a mile and everything was going well until I started to hear a "thu-thunk, thu-thunk." Oh, no, a flat tire, and not just any old tire, it had to be the rear one. I've changed a front tire before, but I realized (a little bit too late!) that I'd never learned how to change the back tire of a bike.

For hours, Maia & I worked on our quest to fix the tire. Many thanks to Amy Sabrina @ the Sweetgrass Farm and her friends for telling us how to actually get the tire off! After working "tire"lessly for a couple of hours, we put in a new tube, figured out how to fill it up and hit the road.


















Karen Clark & The Women's Environmental Institute

We stopped for conversation (and tasty brownies!) at the Women's Environmental Institute north of Almelund. Up a large hill, the brick building of the center stands like a part of the landscape, surrounded by a beautiful organic orchard.

We sat down by a warm, crackling fire with Karen Clark, the Institute director and were joined by a couple from the U of M who were spending the weekend on the farm. Karen talked about how the Institute focuses on issues of environmental justice in both the Twin Cities and north of Almelund. Karen believes that we need to prepare for climate change in ways that are fair and do not disenfranchise those who are poor and already struggling, and that it is an issue of environmental justice