Heartland State Trail-Minnesota-Day 3-Walker to Park Rapids

We took a break from the Paul Bunyan State Trail today, to ride the Heartland State Trail. The Heartland trail goes right through Walker, and we couldn’t pass up this opportunity to take it in as well. Tomorrow we will continue our ride along the Paul Bunyan, but the Heartland trail was well worth the little detour. It also meant we could stay in the same hotel for a second night and not have to pack up our luggage to be transferred to the next hotel.

After breakfast, we took our time getting on the bikes as it had gotten very chilly overnight. It was 50 degrees when we woke up and stayed cool all day. I was so thankful I’d packed warm biking clothes. I wore 2 jackets over my shirt and long pants, which felt just fine. The weather changes often here. It was sunny when we left the hotel, rainy and misty a few miles out, clear and bright again later on, then overcast most of the afternoon.

After leaving Walker, the next town on the old rail route was Akeley. Typically towns are spaced out about 10 miles apart on a railway. It would be inefficient for trains to stop more often than every 10 miles. That works out really well now too. These old rail lines that have been converted into bike trails have amenities to offer bikers about every 10 miles!

The towns of Walker and Akeley came after the expansion of the railroad to this area in the late 1800’s. The logging industry was a huge catalyst to the expansion of the railroad. The founder of Walker decided to name the new town after Thomas Walker, a big logging baron of the time. His hope was that by naming the town Walker, Mr. Walker could be convinced to build a big sawmill in the new town. However, the sawmill went to the little town of Akeley instead, and Mrs. Walker was the reason for that!

Mrs. Walker had heard about the number of bars and houses of “ill repute” in Walker and she disapproved. It was a rough frontier town! She did not want her husband’s sawmill to be associated with such a place, and convinced him to choose a different location. He chose Akeley, just 10 miles down the line from Walker, and Akeley became a boom town. Mr. Walker’s sawmill was once the largest in the state. Lumberjacks came and went on every train coming into town to work the lumber industry. Today, Akeley’s population is just 500, and Walker’s is around 900. Both are quiet little towns today with friendly people. We didn’t notice any houses of ill repute in either town! However, there was a really big Paul Bunyan statue that I couldn’t pass up!

We stopped for a break right outside of Akeley to enjoy the sunshine on this cool morning.

Our next stop was Nevis. They also have a big roadside attraction. It seems every little town has a roadside “claim to fame”, and we’ve stopped at every one we’ve spotted! Nevis had the largest Tiger Muskie in the world, so of course I had to have a picture made with that too!

We also took the opportunity to eat lunch at the Iron Horse right beside the bike trail. I had shrimp tacos and Jimmy had the walleye sandwich. He is on a mission to eat as much walleye as possible on this trip. We can’t get it in Kentucky.

The next town we came to was Dorset, and it had several cute shops and places to eat. We looked around a bit and continued on.

We arrived at the end of the trail in Park Rapids, where we were to eat dinner, then be picked up by Rhonda from our shuttle service (Soulshine Cyclery), for a ride back to our hotel in Walker. But we were not yet hungry for dinner and wanted to put in a few extra miles on the bikes, so we called Rhonda to switch our pick up to Nevis, which was a little closer to her. Jimmy couldn’t quit thinking about the walleye sandwich he’d eaten for lunch and noticed he could have a walleye dinner on the evening menu. After looking around just a bit in Park Rapids, we headed back toward Nevis.

We soon arrived back in Nevis and Jimmy got his walleye dinner. I ordered the salmon and they were both delicious. We ended up with a total of around 43 miles. Another beautiful day in Minnesota.