Weekend Fun.

 I got a later start on Saturday as Brinna worked and I had to get Avery to gymnastics.  I got out around 10:30.  I explored a bit more of the Beaver Island area on the Mississippi before making my way back down to Sand Prairie.

Saturday was the last day of fog and Hoar Frost.  The St. Cloud Prison

is in the back ground.  The old water tower is visible.

From Sand Prairie it was the North Loop and Fred Park.  About 3 hours.  The more fun was later that afternoon when Jen, Toby (our dog), and I went back to Sand Prairie to snowshoe.  We used the North entrance.  It's an odd entrance as there are really no trails from it.  I don't think many know about it as I never see any cars there.  We snowshoed a bit over an hour.  The goal is to make a connector trail to Bumpity Bump.  We almost made it before running out of time.  There are lots of down trees that need to be moved or gone around but lots of potential.  Sand Prairie is 700 acres!  Most of which is wetlands so only accessible during the winter.

Sunday I met Charlie at the Soo Line Trail Head near Royalton.  We have a loop we like to do but never got a chance to do it last year as we had too much snow or it was too warm.  The route heads NE on the trail a bit till we hit Skunk Lake.  

Skunk Lake.

We jumped on the lake and make our way to Skunk River.  The going was slow but manageable. The river was more of a creek than meandered like crazy.

Skunk River.  We did an out and back.

After out little jaunt out and back on the Skunk River we made our way over to the Platte River and took it back to the trail.  It's about a 2.5 hour loop.  While I'm not a fan of driving to a ride it sure was nice to change it up some.  Very fun ride.  We did hit some slushy spots that gave us a bit of a scare but all in all it was good and safe.

Last week I rode all 7 days for just under 20 hours and 159 miles.  Fat bike miles sure do not add up fast!  I also hit the rower up 3 times and snowshoed once, plus a few walks with Toby.  Not a bad first week of the year.