Day 4 - Albert Lea, MN

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It's day 4 and Sparky is getting DIR-TY! We started our day in Chicago and are ending it in Albert Lea, MN. Our place in Chicago had a lovely garden where we enjoyed our morning tea before hitting the road.



We ate our lunch under a beautiful old tree while Sparky recharged about 100 feet away.





Seeing windmills on the drive always brings us joy and gives us hope.


We were on the road for about 7.5 hours today. Our visual highlight of the day was crossing the Mississippi. Another impressively large river. The skies were hazy and it finally got warm in the afternoon, low 80s. We're making our way to Badlands tomorrow where it will be in the 90s while we are there. It's starting to feel like summer. 

We got to our place around 5pm, the perfect time to practice yoga before dinner. There are times when I love a creatively sequenced flow and then there are times when I just want to sweat while Pattabhi Jois counts to me in Sanskrit. Tonight I was craving the latter. 

If you are curious where modern yoga comes from, it comes from the Ashtanga Primary Series which Pattabhi Jois brought to America in the 70s. It is an intense 90 minute set sequence. The full expressions of many of the posses are inaccessible to most people, myself included. But there are lots of ways to modify, making it accessible to all. Really, the point though is to just breathe and stay present while you are being challenged. A life long lesson. Regardless of whether you can bend into a pretzel and float through the air as you transition between poses or are unable to reach your toes in a forward fold and need to crawl your way back to the top of the mat, it's a beautiful practice. One that has changed my life.

States traveled

  • Illinois
  • Wisconsin
  • Minnesota

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