Long ships of coal and iron

I took a harbor cruise on Lake Superior yesterday afternoon and saw 1000-foot ships hauling the same coal I passed by in the Powder River valley near Gillette in Wyoming. I had wondered where all those hundreds of heaping train cars were headed, and here in Duluth was my answer. The largest of the ships are bound to the Great Lakes and cannot go out to sea. This one was going to carry massive tonnage of coal to a power plant in Detroit.

Some ships carry taconite, a low-grade iron ore that's pulled from the ground in the iron range of northern Minnesota. Others load leftovers from North Dakota sugar beet processing in pellet form, taking it to Europe and North Africa to be used as livestock feed. From the water, I could see a blue rock salt candy mountain, laying in wait for use on icy winter highways. I saw great piles of stone and ore of different shades from light limestone to coal black.

Today, I head south on the Willard Munger State Trail, which starts with 63 miles of paved bicycling infrastructure. Over the next four days, I'll ride through 4 states: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa.