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Bike
Trails, Sailboats, Pelicans and the Infant Mississippi: The
34th Annual Jaunt With Jim, And You’re Invited
- June 13-20, 2008
Bike riders love breezes at their backs, sunshine
on their cheeks and cool water under their handlebars.
But at core they’re all recycled explorers. So in June
we’re re-opening the geographies and history books of our
childhood and heading north to a lake called Itasca, where
the legendary Old Man River begins an epic journey that has
touched millions of lives and given rise to song, showboats
and a thousand sagas.
This is the 34th annual Jaunt With Jim, a bike
ride of such stubborn longevity that it has acquired its own
cult of underground historians. One of them insists that we
once rode for ten hours and 97 miles from Monticello to
Osakis into a 28 mile an hour headwind in temperatures that
reached 95 degrees.
The conductor of the ride has always regarded this
as a tasteless slander and insisted that the distance was 94
and not 97 miles. But partly to commemorate that
remarkable day we’re returning to Osakis this year by a
different route and with the mileage, of course, radically
reduced. In the early years we went 100 miles a day
and carried all of our kit on our bikes, sometimes weighing
up to 35 pounds and including—on the bike of one exercise
maniac—a set of standard, weight room dumbbells.
Somewhere in the intervening years sanity
materialized, more or less in harmony with the advancing age
of the riders. We now have throttled down to 65 to 75
miles a day and the bike loads usually are confined to
digital gauges measuring pulse, mphs and global positions.
We are happy to acclaim this as progress, and even
happier to invite you to join us June 13 to 20 when we’re
“Going to the Source” in our biking pilgrimage to the
beginnings of a great river and also to some of the
loveliest scenes of woodland and lake country in Minnesota.
The actual start of the ride is June 14, a Saturday, but
because we pretty much rise with the sun, we’ll gather the
night before, June 13, at a campsite in Pelican Rapids, park
our cars for the week, breakfast there and then head out
into the morning. (Registration forms at the end of this
newsletter).
The itinerary: Pelican Rapids to Osakis the
first night, June 14; Brainerd June 15; Walker June 16 and
17; Bagley by way of Itasca State Park and the source of the
Mississippi June 18; Park Rapids June 19; and back to
Pelican Rapids June 20.
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 Quilts
Along the Trail -
September 6, 2008
Quilts of all
styles and sizes will be displayed for public viewing along
a two block area of the Central Lakes Trail in downtown
Osakis. This exhibit showcases the talents and skills of
central Minnesota quilters in many varieties and time
periods - from antique and vintage to traditional and
contemporary. This event also includes vendor booths
featuring arts and crafts, food and beverages, and quilts
and quilted items for sale. Exhibitors can sign up to show
off their favorite quilts. There is no entry fee and no
judging, just the enjoyment of sharing the art and beauty of
the quilts. Free admission to the public to view the quilts.
Sponsored by the Osakis Chamber of Commerce (866-784-8941). |
