Taken from the top of a viewing platform along the trail in Avon, MN.

I saw quite a bit of it today.

The trail mile markers line up with the railroad mileposts, even though that means the trail starts at Mile 81.

I saw many of these along the trail today, mostly around the town of Freeport.

It's two more of those.

I was drawn to their house by the large stone grotto in their front yard (more on this to follow). They gave me tours of the grotto and their beautiful garden, and fed me some great homemade food, including the first batch of strawberries from their garden this year.

Inspired by something similar he saw in Michigan, Eymard built this over the course of four months in 1990, spending countless hours searching for rocks that were the right shapes and sizes (every stone used in the grotto is as he found it; none were split or altered to fit). The water cascading over the steps passes through a screen at the bottom to filter out debris and is then pumped back up to the top to begin the downward journey all over again.

For five consecutive winters, Eymard worked on his memoir, writing everything by hand. He published it in 2008 with the help of, I believe, a daughter-in-law and the scoutmaster of the local Boy Scout troop. He is going to mail a copy to my parents for me to read when I get home. I'm quite excited: flipping through, I noticed many intriguing story titles, such as "Dogs in the Hog Pen", "Spitballs Hit the Ceiling", "About Time You Washed Your Feet Young Feller", and "Hot Britches".

High-numbered streets in rural areas

Sauk Centre, MN

Birthplace of Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Larry's main competitor, Harry uses the latest in meteorological fence technology. If the fence has a shadow, it's sunny!