Day 5: Thursday, June 19, 2003

This was a rather uneventful day. Just riding, all on freeways. Awakened at 8 AM by the alarm in my cell phone after a solid seven-hour sleep, I showered, packed up, and left the Blue Spruce Motel a little after 9 AM. Stopped for breakfast at McDonald's, then headed east again on Interstate 80.

The objective was to get to Minneapolis as quickly as possible. Riding on I-80 took me through Nebraska farmland past the towns of Kearny, Grand Island and Lincoln and through the city of Omaha, then through similar Iowa farmland to Des Moines and north on Interstate 35 to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. I had guessed the distance at 500 miles, but it was actually farther, about 675 miles altogether. I finally arrived in Minneapolis at dusk, about 9:30 PM.

I thought I knew the way, but got lost on the streets of Minneapolis and wandered for about a half hour before finding Elyse and Boris's house and arriving at 10 PM. Their dog Bela was strange with me at first, but began to warm after a while. Elyse and Boris had saved me some tacos for dinner along with which I had a couple of beers, and we chatted for an hour or so before heading to bed.