Skip to main content

Faribault Bike Ride Makes Us Buy Meadow a New to Her Bike

Scott had some shoots south of the metro so we tagged along for the day. 

After shooting the quickest shoots I've ever done we ended up in Faribault. We got food at the lowest rated Mexican restaurant in the southern Minnesota city. My instincts say these folks don't have a taste for authentic Mexican food and I was right. Restaurante El Colibri was so good.

The trick to finding good Mexican food is avoiding the places that have the typical Mexican restaurant decor, you know the ones with the painted seats. 

We brought along our bikes so we could take the Sakatah Singing Hills  State Trail. 15 miles from Fairbault is the namesake Sakatah Lake State Park. There they have 4 bike in camp spots (they were reduced to two because of COVID). We thought about bike camping there , but sites are first come first served and we'd hate to bike there with all our stuff only to find they were full.

Always doing tricks.

Instead we just went for a nice, really flat, bike ride.



The trail was mostly right next to the highway. I'm not sure I'd call the roar of trucks soothing.

It was still a nice change of scenery. Normally we only bike in the city. 

When we got to Warsaw, Minnesota we decided to turn around and follow the roads along Cannon Lake.

There's Cannon Lake, Theo.


We had passed by Shager Park and promised the kids we'd stop at the swing set on the way back.

These kids sure do love swings.

whoa.

Other than the Trumpkins this wasn't a bad park.

While biking the trail I noticed Meadow had to keep standing up to keep up with us. We knew her bike was a little small for her and were planning to wait until next spring to get her a new one. When I looked up bike sizes for kids we realized she was riding a bike two sizes too small. 

I talked Brooke out of getting a cheapo bike and buying a nice, gender neutral, bike that Theo could use down the road. We found this lightly used REI Co-op bike with gears and about 1/4 of the price it retails for. Rich people selling their stuff on Facebook Marketplace are great (RIP Craigslist).

I'm glad we picked one that had gears and hand brakes. Already I could tell she was riding so much better.

The bike also came with stickers to customize it. She added her name and a few others. 

I liked the simplicity of the bike and didn't think it needed all the other accessories she had on her old bike. We let her keep the doll seat though. Also notice the ant stickers she chose.

That was my touch. I now always make jokes about ants crawling up her bike seat; the ant stickers are the perfect foil for dad jokes.

We raised her seat when we got back home and took a nice ride through the neighborhood. Cool, ride Meadow boo.

The dad we purchased it from said he would take his daughter to the Theo Wirth Mountain Bike Trails. I know we don't need another outdoor activity, but I'd love to find an inexpensive mountain bike for me to go with her. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Backcountry Camping with Kids in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Day 1  Back in May I stumbled upon Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I had no idea there was a National Park in North Dakota and that it was the northern end of the Badlands. Usually our summer vacations coincide with Scott's work trips. Since he didn't have any this summer I thought we should take advantage of actually taking a vacation. What, my workcations are always classics? I suppose a second real vacation this year wouldn't hurt. We definitely have more time than normal. As long as we took Covid-19  precautions and avoided people. We finally settled on a time to go. Blake joined us so we borrowed our dad's van so we could ride together. Scott had just driven from Michigan the day before. Blake had met my parents in Wisconsin to get the van and then drove from Duluth to pick us up. I offered to drive since I literally only drive twice a month.  I was still pretty tired from a long drive home. Since we were near Fergus Falls we had to stop by the abandoned state ho...

A Park Rapids-Walker Workcation

We were going to just go overnight on Saturday with Scott for a work trip. With a snowstorm in the forecast we left right after the kids were done with school. Meadow is still chugging away at her rug hooking.    We stopped at the China Star buffet near St Cloud. They really upgraded the interior since we were here last.  Don't worry about me. Just noshing on the green beans. Can a guy get more veggies in these buffets? We ended up changing hotels and staying in Walker at the... Walker Hotel . The room was a bit old fashioned and TV a wee one. But the pool had a slide, so that's a win. Right? The falling snow outside the pool window made it slightly magical.  Meadow got Theo's hair dry after we got ready to take a drive down to Park Rapids. It doesn't look that bad, but it was nerve wrecking driving. But I do have to say that the Escape PHEV did pretty well in the conditions. The slippery mode for snow and rain kind of rules even if we don't have 4WD. We tagged alon...

Brooke's Birthday Fish Fry and Many Minneapolis Walks

My actual birthday happened to be on the first Friday of Lent. You know what that means, church fish fry!  One of our favorites is at St Albert the Great in south Minneapolis. Usually we have to wait for a little while up in the sanctuary, but we got downstairs to the hall super quick. All the gray hairs were out for the night. Can't blame them. The kids usually opt for spaghetti.  The best part about this place is you get to pick two desserts.  They actually let you have as many you wanted this year. In past they had two tickets per person, but not this year! The same gregarious priest as always was keeping the crowd entertained. I swear he wasn't back last year, but it was good to see him back doing his best. Theo got chosen to pick the winning numbers for the 50/50 raffle. The priest gave us a hard time for not getting a raffle ticket. Don't worry about me. Just daydreaming about a back screen porch like this. I made Brookie a brookie brownie. Could've used more brow...