Winona, MN.

Friday I rose at 9 a.m. and gathered clothes and supplies for my trip to Winona, MN. I cleaned up, straightened the place, ate and was out the door by 10:45 a.m.

100 miles up the road I stopped at my parent's place in Janesville, WI. They were over-accommodating. To the point of being kind of annoying. I ate something small, rested a bit and hit the road again around 4 p.m. Traffic was manageable the following 3 hours.

Pulled over in Winona and picked up a 12 pack of Red Stripe before heading over to the municipal pool Eric works at. Eric got off and we went back to his place, drank a couple of beers, and then Eric took apart the Trek VRX and re-built the Klein Mantra. The new bike is hot. It's almost too showy for daily commute. I don't want somebody to even come close to fucking with it. I may adopt Reuben's habit of locking to the fence line.

Saturday we took a pair of kyacks out onto the Mississippi River. We paddled through a section that I had paddled Shannon in a canoe in a year ago. Thinking of Shannon and our time together then stayed with me all weekend. She and I had spent the better part of two days biking through town together on that trip last June. She's a world different now than she was last year with me. I prefer to think of how she was then.

We stopped and bought meat and vegetables for cabobs, grilled up and then drove in the intense rain through the highway valleys to La Crosse, WI to see Spiderman 2. It was better than I'd thought it would be. Computer animation is improving.

Sunday Eric had to work (until a kid shit in the pool around 4 p.m.), so I got to ride my bike around the area. Shannon and I covered a lot of area last year, because I recognized several sights far enough from Eric's place. I stopped at the crest of a bridge that connects Minnesota to Wisconsin. It was the same place Shannon and I had taken pictures of. I started to recall Wednesday night, and I felt regret and sadness. The girl is someone that I cannot seemingly get along with. I miss her, but when I have met up with the reality of Shannon, and the reality of her life and the reality of the situation, I am at a total loss. She's just too fucking extreme, I can't handle her or the situation. It's haunting. I felt regret that our last meeting broke down into a somewhat drunken, highly dramatic and totally irresponsible public argument. I don't know if I was wrong or pushed it too far, I just did not like what was coming out. It all makes me feel sick.

Sunday night Eric and I drove to a bluff overlooking the river and climbed 600 steps to the top. 600 steps is a lot. It's more than you think. From our perch we saw the firework displays of 8 or 9 neighboring communities. Leaving, we had to slowly crawl down the 600 steps through next to no visibility under the canopy. It was scary. Eric produced a lighter, and we scurried back down quickly.

Today we got breakfast a terrible greasy spoon, and I got out.