Day 7; Walker to Bemidji

Today dawned cool and windy (again), but it was clear as a bell and a beautiful day for a relatively short ride.!

The Paul Bunyan trail, being further up into the ‘north country’, has many more coniferous trees than our earlier trails, but we’ve also noticed quite a few paper birches as well…

A nice clump of paper birch
Interesting how the white birch bark reflects the green foliage in the shade.
Who wants to make a canoe? 😉

A little further down the trail, I was struck by the contrast between the next two scenes…

Bright green pasture…
…and newly planted corn. (They’ve had so much rain this spring that farmers have had trouble getting into the fields to plant their corn.)

We startled a couple of white-tailed deer a little while later…

What’s a visit to Bemidji without a photo op with the original Paul Bunyan and Babe statues. It’s hard to believe, but the visitor center claims that Eastman Kodak lists this handsome pair as the second most photographed sculptures in America, behind Mount Rushmore. (They were built in 1937, with the assistance of several Civilian Conservation Corps units.)
After a quick tour of downtown, we rode up the shore of Lake Bemidji to Diamond Point park. This was taken from the point itself.
Diamond Point park is very near Bemidji State University, and they have some great public art along the edge of the lake and around downtown. We loved this piece with all the wildlife!
One last shot of gorgeous Lake Bemidji

Tonight we’re staying with another wonderful Warmshowers host; Kent and Becky Hering. They have an attractive home just south of town, and Kent shared his elaborate HO scale train set with us (including three complete sets of locomotives and cars). We’ve just finished a wonderful evening of pizza and great conversation, and now I have to do my back exercises before bed. The back is getting better every day, but I know I need to keep at it if I’m going to be able to drive the two long days back to Ridgway all by myself.

Today’s stats. (The shortest day by far)

Tomorrow’s ride back to Walker will be short too, obviously, so we’ll be able to get a leisurely start.

Then just one more day until we’re done (riding anyway)!

Author: John Clark

Computer consultant/glass artist, living in the San Juan Mountains of SW Colorado.