Dr Livingston I Presume

Day 47. Orr to Ely. 76 miles. 3020 TTD. 3271 feet elevation. Weather misguided.

If you are wondering, this is a picture I took looking back down the “trail.” I had just come on for about 3 miles. If you’re having trouble seeing it, you’re not alone. I couldn’t see it either. For all intents and purposes, it was a 25 ft wide gap in the trees, which was then overgrown with grass, cattails, moss, and brush. Hidden under all of that growth was a marsh.

If you don’t know the story of Dr. Livingston, he was a missionary in Africa. He was lost for several years, and many presumed he was dead. The New York Herald sent a reporter, Henry Morton Stanley, to find him. Stanley had to lead an expedition into a jungle without really knowing where to look. He spent months looking but eventually found Dr. Livingston. It’s likely that Dr. Livingston wasn’t really lost; he just stayed in the jungle to help the natives. I was only in the jungle (swamp) for a couple of hours. I wasn’t really lost, but I was sure wishing somebody had shown up and said, “Dr. Gogarty, I presume.”

Today, I made three discoveries and one rediscovery:

Discoveries

1. Minnesota does not have 11,842 lakes.
2. Smoking can be necessary for certain types of travel.
3. Horse flies do not consider themselves bugs.

Rediscovered

Google Maps not only sucks it hates me.

1. Minnesota is a lake.

The trail I followed today was only passable when frozen. Yes, it was a snowmobile trail, but not designated as one. It’s probably wonderful in the winter when there’s 5 ft of snow on top of it. But when the grass and cattails are over your head and the water is up to your thighs in some places, and you’re using your watertight panniers on the bike as flotation devices, you realize that Minnesota is just one giant lake. The only difference from place to place is the lake’s depth. If you’re lucky enough to be on dry ground, it’s simply because fill dirt has been brought in from other states to make that part of the state lake shallower. Everywhere else, the depth of the lake varies from a few inches deep (a swamp) to deep lakes where you can fish. Today I got to explore the swamp.

2. Smoking can be necessary.

Not surprisingly, almost every small store in Minnesota sells bait. One type of bait they sell is leeches. I can only assume that if fish take leeches as bait, then leeches must be part of the normal ecosystem. Wandering through the swamp today, wondering what kind of crazy creatures were swimming around my legs, I thought it might be wise to have a cigarette in my mouth so I could burn off any creatures that clung to me too tightly. I was thinking, too, that the cloud of smoke might help disperse the ever-present horseflies and mosquitoes. Or if I got really lucky, the smoke would just quickly kill me. I’ll admit, I was eyeballing the SOS button on my rescue device.

3. Horse flies self-identify as flying creatures, not bugs.

I know this about horse flies because they don’t respond to bug repellent. Once I ended up in the swamp, I pulled out my bottle of bug lotion, provided by my sister-in-law Laura, and began squirting it everywhere. I not only rubbed it on my bare skin but also started squirting it onto my clothing, my helmet, and anything else nearby. I’ve no doubt that Laura gave me good bug repellent. But as noted, horseflies don’t identify as bugs. Accordingly, they were swarming. I could literally kill 5 to 10 bugs, I mean horse flies, just swatting the back of my hand. In large part, that’s why there are so few pictures today. Stopping to take a picture was tantamount to climbing out of your foxhole while someone’s firing a machine gun at you – well, maybe not quite as deadly, but it was definitely painful.

When I finally got out of the swamp and went to a local grocery store, one of the checkout people finally told me I had a bug stuck to my face. Apparently, I was delirious.

Google Maps Suck

You would think that my previous experience with Google Maps would have deterred me from ever using it again for bike routes. Unfortunately, I had detoured off the route to stay in the town of Orr last night. In trying to get back on the route, I started down the highway this morning, but the headwind was too much. I had hoped that being on a back road would offer more trees and some wind protection. In fact, it did, especially when the cattails were above my head; there was no wind. That also made it very nice for the winged creatures.

In the end, I had hoped to ride the 17 miles back to the route and arrive at about 9:30. It was 11:30 when I stumbled out of the swamp and onto the pavement. Thankfully, the next 55 miles were quite lovely and even had a bit of a tailwind.

Well, I’m off to Lake Superior tomorrow at Beaver Bay. Maybe I’ll use Google Maps. At least it always gives me something to write about.