Day 1 - May 10th

Miles: 46
Temperate: 70F
Wind: Light

Amy Wyman

Well the first day was a success. We made it to Nerstrand Big Woods State Park after almost five hours of rollerskiing. It got off to an exciting start at 5 am for the drive we only had a slight detour due to a fire on Hwy 61, but we made it. We dipped our skis in the Mississippi River were I thought Mead was going to to tumble down the rocks right into the river. Finally on the road...skiing went well. Big Woods State Park seemed to be forever away, once finally there we all fell asleep.

I had an exciting trip to Gear West on Sunday afternoon to get new pole tips. I got out of the car and they were very excited about the Ski across MN trip. It was great to see the excitement, and enthusiasm. It will be a great week.

--Amy Wyman

Marie Jordan & Julie Warneke

After an early start, we headed out on our trip and immediately managed to find the wrong trail going the opposite direction. Once we were back on track and headed out for a second time we hit a nice mud puddle about 2 minutes in and managed to stray it on ourselves. The first half hour of our route was on the cannon valley trail where there was very lush vegetation. The sun didn't come out until we started the second half of the trip which was on the hwy. There were a lot of semi's and we decided to pop a squat on the side of the road to have lunch. There were many strange looks our way for that one. We finally made it to the state park after we did an unexpected 6 miles...Whew!!!!!

--Marie Jordan & Julie Warneke

Jenni Mead

Honk Honk count: 4
Road Kill: 3
Dogs: 3
Waves: 5

I overslept this morning because I set the alarm for 4:45 pm vs.. 4:45 am. Despite being 20 minutes late to McDonalds where we met Marie, Carol, & Liz. We managed to pull into the Baypoint Park in RedWing at exactly 7am...seconds before Amy's carload. We unloaded our gear into Amy's car so her dad could transport it to Nerstran State park for us. After some Kodak moments which included Josie and I skiing and biking in our caps and gowns yesterday after graduation we left for our journey.

Today was the longest rollerski I've ever done. I was surprised how fast we were moving. I guess I've never really kept track of the mileage while rollerskiing. The weather was great, and it is a beautiful evening right now. Everyone is lying on their therm-o-rests reading and napping. We ate hotdogs and put Chips Aloy on the grill above the fire to warm them. It worked, but they tasted a little smokey. After we ate we took a walk and looked at Hidden Falls.

-- Jenni Mead