Hold on to your shorts...this is a long post with no pictures. But, I promise you, it is worth the read.
The forecast predicted temps in the high 70s last weekend,
so Matt and I took full advantage of the warm, spring day. We decided to hop on
our bikes and head to Minneapolis. Now that we live only a couple yards away
from the
Minnesota
Valley State Trail, we were able to get to the city
completely
mostly by trail. With only a few hiccups along the way, we found ourselves
sitting down for dinner around 6:00 PM Saturday evening.
The Minnesota Valley State Trail is a multi-use trail ideal
for hiking, biking, horseback riding, mountain biking and snowmobiling. The
trail is natural surface from Belle Plaine to Chaska where it parallels the
Minnesota River and is paved from Chaska to Shakopee. This trail continues
through the
Minnesota
River Bottoms in Bloomington, which is an unpaved mountain bike and hiking
trail. Plans are in place to pave this existing trail, but recently, there has
been extensive controversy about this idea. I am all for paving the trail in
order to create better trail connections to Minneapolis. Read
“In
Defense of a Paved Minnesota Valley State Trail” by Monte Castleman of
Streets.MN, an organization created to better inform and engage the public on
transportation and land use issues in the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.
Anyway…………………..just outside of Shakopee, we rode on the
newly finished 101 bridge trail which connects to the
Minnesota
River Bluffs LRT Regional Trail. However, this trail is washed out due to
past flooding (Matt and I disagreed as to whether this trail was
really washed out. Let’s just say the
one who works in Public Health for the County may have been correct). We ended
up having to take a round-a-bout-extra-7-mile-very-hilly-route to the Minnesota
River Bluffs trail. Oh well…the day was nice. The day was nice.
Once on the Minnesota River Bluffs trail, we enjoyed a
lovely 13 mile ride into Hopkins. We rode this same trail last fall. You can
read more about that ride
here.
From Hopkins, we chartered new territory to the
Cedar
Lake Trail, which passes through Hopkins and St. Louis Park. According to traillink.com,
the paved Cedar Lake LRT Regional Trail occupies an abandoned Minneapolis and
St. Louis Railway (and later Chicago and North Western Railway) corridor. The
right-of-way was abandoned in the early 1990s and acquired by the Hennepin
County Regional Railroad Authority (HCRRA), who installed the trail.
Traillink.com states that the 5.5-mile
Midtown
Greenway follows a former railroad corridor through south Minneapolis, and
heads west from the Mississippi River to the neighborhood of West Calhoun in
the scenic Chain of Lakes Area. The paved pathway is only 1 block north of the Lake
Street corridor and runs parallel to the road for most of its route. The trail
provides a safe alternative for cyclists and pedestrians to travel on the busy
street.
A few miles onto the Greenway, we exited onto Bryant Street
and then rode a couple blocks to Lyndale Avenue for dinner at
The Lyndale Tap House. A quick glance at
our
watches phones told us that it was around 5:30 PM…the evening was
getting short. We had ridden our bikes 35 miles in about four hours…not exactly
enough time to eat dinner and ride home before it turned dark (we didn’t bring
headlights/headlamps…duh!). So, we decided that instead of riding back to
Chaska, we would catch the Southwest Transit bus back to Chaska at the West Bank
terminal. The West Bank is in the heart of the University of Minnesota campus,
another 6 miles on the Midtown Greenway and Hiawatha Bike Trail. We had plenty
of time to eat and catch the 7:22 PM or 7:42 PM bus.
Dinner was excellent. We both enjoyed burgers and a salad
while sitting outside, people gazing at all of the Midtown commotion. We paid
the bill and then got back on our saddles for the last leg of our ride. We
arrived at the terminal just in time for the 7:22 PM bus but saw nothing. Then,
7:42 PM rolled around and still did not see a bus. Little did we know that the
Southwest Transit Bus system does not run on the weekends…whooooooooooooooooops!!!!
Foooooooooooortunately, Uber has an XL service that
transports people…and apparently, bikes. My fear was the that driver was not
going to drive us to Chaska, but I think God was watching over us when we found
out our driver was from Eden Prairie and heading home for the night. With a $15 credit in my account for getting my
mom to join and ride Uber, we paid a cheap $21 fare back to Chaska.
What could have been topped off by a really long night was
another day filled with new experiences and adventures together. Matt and I cannot wait
to see what the rest of Spring and the Summer season hold for us.
Cheers!
