We fell asleep last night to the sound of rain hammering on the tent and woke up this morning to……silence. Was it done? Nope. It was overcast and the forecast said we had an hour before it started raining again. We had a quick breakfast and were packing up the tent and gear when it began again. We rolled out of the campground and picked up Matt’s route to Ely. A paved bike path no less, thank you Matt!!! The first few kms were an older trail and and a bit rough in places but once we hit the newly completed section of the Mesabi Trail it was smooooth sailing. Some on old railbeds and some off, the scenery was enjoyable even with the constant and sometimes moderate rainfall. We rolled into Ely and rode straight to Ely Kicksled and Bike where a phone call yesterday had revealed a Vittoria Mezcal on the shelf that we needed to replace the only Race King that we were still running, on the front of Lynne’s bike, and which was now showing the effects of the sharp crushed rock that was prevalent on the roads in Manitoba and Ontario. They have two more yet, possibly the last two available in North America if anyone needs one. Leaving the bikes in Alvin’s capable hands we wandered down the street to try and find a motel in which to spread our gear to dry as everything was mostly wet after takedown in the rain this morning and the forecast is for rain to continue until tomorrow. After finding one that would do that for us we headed back to the bike shop to get Lynne’s bike complete with new tire, hopefully we can forget about sharp gravel issues now. With our bikes inside and our gear spread all over our room we washed some by now smelly bike clothes at the local laundromat and found a nearby Dairy Queen for supper. So now with full tummies and mostly dry gear we are relaxing in our warm dry room that smells of wet sheep from all our merino clothing. Tomorrow is looking like another day on pavement as any gravel roads will be completely saturated. It sure would be nice to get some dry roads again.