RIDE REPORT (19may2018): Almanzo 100
Gravel News Network (GNN) - https://gravelnewsnetwork.blogspot.com/ RIDE REPORT: Almanzo 100 (Spring Valley, MN) -- May 19, 2018 It's the Saturday after Mother's Day in the town of Spring Valley in the southern corner of the state of Minnesota. About 70 miles to the east is the Mississppi river, past Bratsberg, Houston, and Hokan, you will find the big river down below the bluffs and across from there, La Crosse, Wisconsin. The land on either side of the Mississippi in this area, once you are above the bluff line, is wrinkled and rolling where streams and creeks have dug their paths, leaving high grounds, natural quarries, and rolling vistas of green lushness. It was here, at the edge of the rolling valleys of the great river around 1870, Almanzo Wilder arrived from upstate New York. They were here for about a decade before moving on to the Dakota Territory, where 15 years later he married Laura Ingalls. Most certainly, Mr. Almanzo Wilder would have been barely reco