Last summer JP and I took a bikepacking trip to Blue Mounds State Park near Luverne, Minn.

We had a lovely time and Blue Mounds is a great place to hang out for awhile. Then we talked about it all winter.

The concept is pretty simple. You load up your bike with camping gear and ride somewhere. Camp. Then come home.

Like with anything related to cycling, you can make it as complicated and expensive as you want. So we do the latter.

In my defense, we did kind of just throw together what we had, including the bikes. And some of the other gear we got over the winter were gifts. But lets just say the maiden voyage to Palisades State Park near Garretson was a bit more stocked than last year.

That includes two new Salsa Fargo bikes. A sweet camp stove. A new sleeping pad (again, in our defense, we only had one last year, which didn't work). And a new hammock (which we couldn't use because there weren't any trees close enough together at the campsite to make it work, though it does work at home, as we found out after the trip on Sunday).

Everything worked pretty smooth, except the coffee press. (Yes, we bought a coffee press that is supposed to work with the camp stove, but that's another story.)

Thankfully, in terms of coffee, we didn't go alone this time. There is a growing number of people in Sioux Falls doing these kind of trips. You can find them on Facebook at Wandering Wieners. We hooked up with a group through Spoke-n-Sport, which organizes a few trips a year.

The thing about going with others -- we had six -- is that dinner turns into a potluck of whatever people brought or bought. We ate, drank, road some gravel, rode some pavement, swapped some stories and went to bed.

Thanks to Andrew and Spoke-n-Sport for organizing and leading a fun weekend.

Next month: Back to Blue Mounds. Can't wait.

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