Milltown to Luck

Yesterday we needed something to do. We needed to explore something or discover something. We decided to go for a little ride on the Gandy Dancer Trail. This trail runs along an old train bed that went up to Superior. The trail isn't that long now but it goes through our county and Burnett county to the north of us.

A person over the age of 16 needs to purchase a trail pass, either a daily pass or an annual pass. Matthew nor I had a pass so we went to the trail head in St. Croix Falls at the Polk County Information Center and got all legal. We knew Isaiah wouldn't be able to make a really long trip, this being his first. Knowing this we decided to pick two towns with very minimal miles between them. We decided upon the section of the trail between Milltown and Luck. I believe they state the mileage between the two towns as 3.7, it came out a little more than that in actuality.

What we did was drive up to Milltown and park near a section of the trail that was accessible from the road. We unloaded all of our gear and started up the trail. Being that it was an old railway bed there were some nice trees along both sides of the trail, this helped with the shade.

This section of the trail crossed over a few roads, mostly little used country roads but at one point we had to cross over Hwy.46 where it splits from Hwy.35. I make Isaiah get off his bike and walk when we cross roads, we all do that. Matthew was the road crossing instructor and would tell Isaiah and I when to cross. It really wasn't bad but we were just being careful.

We initially had a lunch packed in a cooler that Matthew strapped to a little rack on the back of his bike. Had it just been us we'd have just munched our lunch and continued on our way. Being that the kids were hot we decided to take a little break at the Wren Cafe in Luck. They had really yummy food, organic and all natural. This cafe cost a bit more than we wanted to spend, since we had a FREE lunch in the cooler, but we were making use of the air conditioning for the kids. Oh well. There's also a restaurant in Luck called the Main Dish that has pretty good hometown food. We ate there for breakfast once and will probably go back there next time. It's cheaper.

We will also try other stretches of the trail occasionally, I know there is a nice looking park in Centuria that is also along the trail. That would be a nice town to stop in with a picnic lunch, next time.

The last photo of Anna shows her sans helmet and front flap of trailer. She normally wears a helmet in the trailer but since we weren't riding on a road and it was hot I thought she'd catch more breeze on the way home without the helmet. She seemed more comfortable this way.

I'm sure we'll be doing more summer rides on the trail and exploring different sections. Matthew and I are both looking forward to the fall rides, however. We are thinking the kids may enjoy it a bit more when it's not 83 degrees. All in all it was lots of fun and we are all looking forward to doing this again.

As a bonus when we were about 20 yards away from our truck at the end of our ride two fawns walked out onto the trail in front of us. The camera was behind Anna in the trailer so I wasn't able to shoot a picture without spooking them so I'll let you imagine the sight. We all stopped on our bikes and just watched the fawns try to decide it they should cross the trail or turn around and go back from where they came. After much deliberation they stomped at us a few times and then turned around from whence they came. It was a fun little treat to see the babies up close.