Today I crossed the Mississippi River into Minnesota. From here my plan is to follow the Mississippi to St Paul, so I’m not done with Wisconsin yet. However, it is nice to cross Wisconsin from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi.

For the second day, most of my riding was on trails. The map above shows ~100 miles of interconnected trails. The 400 and Elroy Sparta trails were yesterday and the LaCrosse River and Great River trails were today. All these are unpaved and it seemed like the end of today’s trails were particularly bumpy, so I look forward to road riding as a change.

Leaving Sparta this morning with their sign promoting bicycle trails.

Within a mile I was on the LaCrosse trail. Later today, the trails seemed to turn more into two ruts with some growth in between. Also today I saw more touring cyclists again. One group I met were riding from the Twin Cities to Chicago and talked about riding a perimeter ride ten years ago.

West Salem had an information center. Many of these towns had water fountains and restrooms.

Intersection point of two trails today.

Colorful fish.

Mississippi River, hooray! From here I didn’t see the river as much, but instead the trail seemed to go along wetlands near the river.

More trail riding..

Trempealeau was my lunch stop. I missed catfish days.

North of town, the trail went through the wildlife refuge.

Divided highway, one set of tracks going each direction.

Pavement! With a nice wide shoulder. Also more head wind.

To the right is one channel of the Mississippi. Ahead is a higher bridge over the other channel. Over that bridge is a Winona. The town was pretty small but had an available hotel. Nice to reach another state, even if most of tomorrow will be back in Wisconsin again.