Day 26, Tyler to New Ulm

Once again we benefited from the AC at a school, and had a restful night in Tyler. Breakfast was catered by the Tuphat Ladies, who did supper last night as well. Nice not to have to do clean up before we can get on the road.

Tyler is a very nice little town that is recovering from a bit of a disaster. Two weeks before our arrival, they were hit by an F2 tornado, and while they have been working hard to clean up the mess, evidence of the storm abounded. The top third of the school and post office flag poles were bent over. We saw half of a barn just sitting in the middle of a cornfield. Lots of trees had been uprooted, and at least one house in town was totally destroyed.

Was once a house.



Lots of wood for the winter.


If you haven't guessed, we have been pretty well beaten up by the head winds day after day, but today we had a morning gift. A quartering tail wind! Very nice. So for most of the day, we were windstrong.

Back on US 14, we rolled easily through rolling farmland. As we got closer to New Ulm, the shoulder of the road got narrower, and finally disappeared. As road conditions got worse, the traffic volume and intensity increased. It all made for some fairly unpleasant riding. Several times vehicles honked at us to get out of the way. Get out of the way to where? The ditch?

At mile 72 for the day, we entered Sleepy Eye, MN. There has to be a story behind that name, but the day had turned hot and humid, and our curiosity was on hold. All we could think about was getting off Route 14. Our cue sheet had us turning on to county road 27 in Sleepy Eye, and taking it to New Ulm.

When we turned on to CR 27, several things happened. Traffic almost entirely went away - good. The road surface improved - good. The weather changed - not so good. The skies clouded over to threaten rain, and our tail wind turned into a 15 to 20 mph head wind. For the next 12 miles we struggled to make 10 mph. We got a few sprinkles of rain, but nothing that mattered. We arrived at our dorm at Martin Luther (not King, this is the old dead German guy) College in a light drizzle.

Turns out that we were lucky. Shortly after we got in, the skies opened with a torrential rain storm. Two of our number we still on the road. Our support crew drove out to them and offered to sag them in, but they both refused. (I think they are members of the "EFI" club ((Every Full [?] Inch)), as are we.) The crew put a vehicle in front of them and another behind, and escorted them in. Now THAT'S a support crew.

I have to apologize for the paucity of pictures, there don't seem to be any saved for today. The two above were borrowed from Daria's blog. I will leave it to Margaret to comment on our dorm room. She has a more colorful perspective than I on this.

Rest day tomorrow!