When representatives from the Heart of the Lakes Trails Committee approached the beige house on Beech Lane looking for donations for a new bike trail connecting Southbrook to Triplett Farms, homeowner Randy Schmoll happily handed over some money. "I don’t even know how much he gave," his wife, Mitzi, said. "We just figured the kids would use it a lot." The Schmolls, who have been living in Southbrook for four years, have four children ranging in age from 5 to 14, and they all love to ride their bikes. The older two, Jordyn and Austin, enjoy riding to the library or to the Holiday gas station for ice cream in the summer. But getting there hasn’t been easy when the only route takes them down County Road 38, a narrow stretch of highway that sees its share of drivers who are in too big a hurry. "It took us a long time to finally let them go, and we always make them go with another person," Mitzi Schmoll said. The safety of young bikers like Jordyn and Austin is the reason Rodney Carlson and Phyllis Latour donated easement rights to a section of their property for the use of a bike and walking trail. Last fall city workers started clearing trees for the half mile, 10-foot-wide trail that will run parallel to CR 38 near the northern edge of the Southbrook Golf Course. A $172,000 grant from the Federal Transportation Department will help pay for building the trail, which is expected to be done by July. The trails committee is still working to raise another $50,000 to meet a 20 percent matching requirement. Fundraising events Besides going house to house, organizers have a series of fundraising events planned for this spring and summer. Among the first is a classic dinner and dance on Saturday, March 21, at Classic Rides and Rods in Annandale. The event will feature a gourmet meal, dancing, silent auction, cash bar and a chance to have a picture taken with a classic car. The trails committee developed out of the 2003 visioning session held by the Annandale Area Community Team when community members expressed a need for more biking and walking trails, especially along major roads. "The segment between Triplett Farms and Southbrook was identified as a high priority because of safety issues along highway 38," said Renee Cardarelle, trails committee chairwoman. The original plan or hope of the committee and city, who have been working together to create trails in Annandale, was that the Latour and Carlson properties would be sold and brought into the city limits for development that would include a trail system, said city administrator Mark Casey in an earlier interview. Their second plan was to redo CR 38 to include a bike trail along its shoulder as part of a five-year plan working with Wright County. When those plans fell through, Carlson, a member of the trails committee, suggested they put it on the southernmost edge of his and Latour’s property, right along the tree line. Two bicyclists hit His thought was to get the kids as far away from 38 as possible. In the last 20 years he has witnessed two bicyclists hit by cars on that road. Both were children. "My thought was we gotta get those kids off the road," he said. Latour had similar thoughts. "No way would I not want to participate in this and then have a child lost. That’s the most tragic thing that can happen to a person," she said. Mitzi Schmoll knows the hazards of CR 38 as well. She drives it every day and cringes whenever she sees bikers, adults and children alike, trying to maneuver along the narrow stretch of blacktop that has almost no shoulder to ride on. "It just goes straight into a ditch. If they had to get out of the way, there would be no place to go," she said. Because of that, family walks and bike rides beyond the development have been out of the question for the Schmolls. She expects that to change this summer. "Tucker has a friend in Triplett Farms. It will be nice for us to be able to walk over there. It’s not far and it will get everybody out of the house." But the trails committee’s ambitions don’t stop with one trail connecting the two housing developments. Plans for another segment have already been formed in the minds of community planners. Trail to Pioneer Park That one will connect Triplett Farms to Minnesota Pioneer Park via Pintail Ponds and Purcell Ponds. The committee submitted another grant application in February to the Department of Transportation for $250,000, which is the estimated cost of the second segment of the trail, Casey said. Completion, however, is still several years out. Even if the grant is approved, he doesn’t expect to see the funds for two to three years. Then the process of constructing it can begin. Casey has hopes of eventually extending the trail from Pioneer Park across Highway 55 and up to Hemlock at the Eastview Mobile Home Park and then west to Pleasant Lake.
