A "Handy Dandy" Trail

We drove into Danbury to load up on supplies and take one last shower before our 100-mile bike ride on the Gandy Dancer State Trail (which Richie calls The Handy Dandy Trail). We stayed at the Trailside Motel, with luke-warm showers and oddly enough, right next door to a propane station.

Danbury is an interesting town with ATVs EVERYWHERE - driving to the grocery store, getting gas (of course!), and visiting restaurants. Heck, we even saw a few in a church parking lot! These folks love their ATVs as much as they love their God.

You can tell a town's priorities by the product that is placed in the front at the local grocery store. Interestingly enough, when we arrived at a grocery store in Danbury, we were welcomed not by two walls of gleaming produce, but six rows of alcohol, mostly shelves filled with beer and signs about how inexpensive it is. Not that there is anything wrong with that, by the way.


It took us a few tries to find the trailhead for the Gandy Dancer Trail, but we managed to find it behind all of the construction machinery.

A brief history of the Gandy Dancer Trail from the Polk County Tourism website:

This 98-mile recreational trail follows the old Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie railroad grade from St. Croix Falls north to Superior. This grade was commercially used for approximately 100 years starting in the late 1880s. Upon abandonment, part of the corridor was purchased by Burnett County and the State of Wisconsin for use as a recreational trail.

Railroad history is remembered in the name "Gandy Dancer." Hand crews, who built and maintained the tracks, used railroad tools manufactured by the Chicago-based Gandy Tool Company. Often the crews used vocal and mechanical cadences to synchronize the swinging of their hand tools or the movement of their feet. Hence the name "Gandy Dancer" reminds us of the past crews who built the railroads.

It was a pleasant ride with perfect weather. Here is a list of the towns we biked through, in order:

Danbury to Webster = 8.9 miles


Webster to Siren = 6.6 miles


Siren to Lewis = 5.7 miles

Lewis to Frederic = 5.4 miles

A log carved bear doing that vertical arm swing dance.
I'll give 5 points to anyone who can tell me the name of that dance.

Frederic to Luck = 6.1 miles

Luck, Wisconsin - where we stopped for some ice cream.

Luck to Milltown = 3.7 miles


Milltown to Centuria = 6.2 miles


Centuria to St. Croix Falls = 4.5 miles

Richie kicking butt on an uphill trek.

And the 3 miles to get to Interstate Park, for a total of 50 miles. The ranger promised that the 1.5 miles to our campsite were all downhill, which we were grateful for at the end of the day, but not looking forward to first thing in the morning.


We were a little confused about the name of the park (Wisconsin's oldest state park). We saw two variations, and couldn't decide which one was correct... Interstate State Park or Interstate Park. And to add to the confusion, it is operated by the Wisonsin State Park System, Minnesota State Parks, AND the National Park System. And we woke up the next morning to do it all over again.

Note: All photos were taken with a Kodak Easyshare M893 IS Digital Camera.