Pin Cushion Mountain

We woke up to cloudy and cool overcast weather. Still feeling the miles in our legs from yesterday, we slept in a bit. Even though it had rained all night, the morning was dry, albeit chilly. "Sweetie, wanna go do that ride I did the other day around Pin Cushion Mountain?" I thought for a moment. "Yeah, but it's pink..for more difficult...not the easy yellow stuff", I replied. Mike promised not to get annoyed with my lack of mountain biking skills and so we ate some breakfast and headed out on our bikes to the wooded hills by way of a snowmobile trail just outside of town.

True to his word, Mike was patient with me. "Mountain biking is more cat-like", he told me. I just grunted up the rocky incline, annoyed at my lack of balance. "If you can't be like a cat, then you've got to power over the rocks like I do". I concentrated all 115 lbs of my body to power over the rocks. All my confidence at having had such a great ride yesterday on the road flew out the door. Sigh.

When we arrived at the trailhead, this 10-12-ish year old skinny girl came ripping it up past me on the trail. Now I really was put in my place! Stubborn, I said to myself, "You can do this!" So I followed Mike up and down the trails, trying to pick a good line and not crash or un-click. Boy do I suck at mountain-biking. When we got to the slickrock top of Pin-cushion (which is like this tacky-sticky like rock formation) I walked (sorry guys) my bike to the top, while Mike rode up and down trying to show me how easy it was. The views from the top were indeed beautiful, and I was happy to be there since Mike really wanted to show me this beautiful place on earth.

We rode around the trails for awhile and then I headed back down to the cabin while Mike continued on the GunFlint Trails. I went back and grabbed the small hound and headed back up GunFlint to check out some of the many Lakes. On the way back, it started to rain. Glad to have gotten a ride in, Mike and I headed to town to check out some of the local artisan shops. There's even a Ben Franklin store---remember those?

We walked in the rain, then stopped by the grocery for some dinner to cook, as well as a local fish store to buy some salmon. And of course the liquor store which had some very expensive Anchor Steam beer!!! Woo hoo!! The evening was calm and clear until we went to sleep and then it rained ---the pitter patter of rain drops on the roof!