Day 5: Leaving Wisconsin, heading to Marshall, Minnesota

Much relief this morning when we looked out the window and saw clear blue, sunny skies.

 Now we could really appreciate what a lovely spot this is. There was a gentle tap on the door at 7:00 as coffee was delivered to our room. This was followed by an amazing cooked breakfast of baked apple French Toast, sausages and fruit. This certainly set us up for the day. After polishing off breakfast the bikes were packed;

 and we said goodbye to the lovely Fo'c's'le Inn

The first part of our route continued along the shores of Lake Superior which had become very brown after the stormy weather yesterday

Shortly, we left the lake and turned Southwest picking up Route 23 which cuts diagonally through Minnesota. We had some excitement when a detour took us off the paved road and down a very rutted gravel / mud road. No fun on a fully loaded touring bike! Eventually we got back onto a decent road surface where we had several deer sightings including one suicidal fawn, still with his spots, who ran between us and almost got hit by me. Thanks to my "cat-like" reflexes I slowed in time to miss him but not without a squeak of the brakes and a big squeak from me.

Impressions of Minnesota: flat, lots of lakes, flat, farmland. Very friendly people. Scenes along the road:

We pulled into our hotel in Marshall, Minnesota at about 4:30pm. After a quick shower we headed off to the local brew pub much to Tom's delight. This was a pretty cool place where the beer lines were inside a fire engine! The food was good too.

Another great day on the road. After 5 days we feel we are getting back into the groove. The miles are passing easily and we are loving it!