Overnight bike pack with Heath

 Heath and I celebrated MLK weekend with a bike packing trip Sunday to Monday.  We left from my house with a lot of gear.  In addition to what you see on the bikes we each had a big back pack to hold our -40 sleeping bags and a bunch of water.   The insulated bottle on the bike is only good for about an hour at these temps before it will freeze up.

 We camped between the Minnesota River and Gifford Lake.   Heaths $1.50 jacket actually looks good from this distance.  He had the good idea to set up camp in the tree/bush like stuff behind him in this pic to protect us from the wind.  In summer this area would be a very wet mosquito hell.  We didn't even bring bug spray.
Not sure exactly were we were on this map but I think right about in the middle a little closer to the lake.

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 Got to try out my homemade supercat (cat food can) stove with Heet car gas tank treatment for fuel.  I had limited success with it.  I think we could have made it work with more practice but Heaths white gas whisper lite stove was so good we just used that to boil all the water we needed.

 After dinner we went for a little hike to Gifford lake.  Also discovered that the night setting on our phones made for much better night pics.  Not perfect but much better. Go figure.

 Sat around the fire enjoying some hot chocolate and coffee.  It was surprisingly comfortable considering the temp and wind chill.  Before retiring to our tents we heated up water to put in Nalgene bottles that we threw in the bottom of our sleeping bags.  It was a little unnerving putting water inside my sleeping bag but it did keep me a little warmer and more importantly we had water rather than ice for making breakfast.

 After getting in our tents Heath watched a movie on his phone and I watched the first two episodes of Breaking Bad on mine before going to sleep.  With ear phones and the high def video on the phone so close to my face I felt like I had a big screen tv and surround sound.   I slept pretty well other than feeling a little cold after I let my air mattress get low in air pressure.   I also repeatedly dreamed that I was getting up to use the bathroom .  It really sucks to get up to go pee in the night.  Heath said he had to do it multiple times.  I just used my easy to fool Id and some dreams to delay the need.   -9 at wake up time was a little painful on my fingers while getting my warm day clothes on for breakfast.   Packing up took a lot of effort.  Tents would not fold up small enough to go back in there bags.  The ride home was challenging with the climb out of the river valley, cold windy weather and cold thick grease in the bikes bearings but short enough to make us wanting more.  Only thing that could have made the trip better is if more people came along.  Lets buy some gear people.