T+96: Where We Are Right Now ----Wrapping Up Wisconsin

Mile 3410: Dunnville, ONT

WARNING: WHINE ALERT!

Here we are, one day from Niagara Falls, and I am still trying to get the stories from Wisconsin finished.  I very much want to tell the stories as soon as I can, before the memories become too faded.  I keep records and notes, as well as photos, receipts, and maps of our travels.  But each blog post takes quite a number of hours to write, re-write, edit both words and images, post to the BlogSpot, then re-post to social media and emails. 

At night, after a long ride, cleaning up, securing the next night’s lodging, and getting some dinner, I am usually too tired to write.  In the morning, I am fresh, but the days are growing shorter, and it is important to use the daylight to get down the road.  I have been trying to find time in pre-dawn, and that sometimes works.  But sometimes, it is all I can do to get up, get dressed (quite a ritual!), and get on the bike.

The other irritant is the constant hassling with the technology.  For quite a long time, my USB port was not working and I couldn’t easily get my photos from the cameras.  I have twice had to refresh my computer and re-install my software because constantly using open networks and motel Wi-Fi means that malware has been a big problem.  If I harden my firewall, then often I can’t get on the internet at all.  Simple tasks become hard and time consuming.

All sorts of people write me wonderful emails, which go days and sometimes forever without being answered.  There’s not time on the bike, even if there were reliable phone service. 

Wes and I are real mixed bags right now.  In some ways, we feel great.  Wes is almost to “fighting weight”, and I am slimmer and stronger than I have been in years.  My knees are complaining about the daily workout.  Wes complains of feeling mentally weary.  There are nights when we stay in a cottage and nothing feels better than sitting down to a (sort of) home cooked meal.  We have been eating out nearly constantly, and I am sick of it.  I miss my kitchen and my “things”.  I miss all the homely rituals around food: its shopping, preparing, and presenting.    So much of this trip has been in the outback, where food choices are a result of what can be purchased, stored, frozen, or fried easily.  The ubiquitous corporate chicken breast whatever is becoming completely unpalatable to us.

Biking reduces life to the most basic level: going, eating, sleeping, maintaining self and equipment.  For most people on these trips, this is a blessing.  There are many times on the bike, where we are not talking, and just off in our thoughts, our legs moving along.   Wes has been working out what it means to no longer be a teacher.  He circles back to this point over and over, as he tries to understand his new place in the world.  I, too, try on new identities.  I have been so focused for so long on Matrix that there are huge elements of my personality and interests that have stagnated.   I want to more fully live in my body, for one thing.

Despite the wear and tear, we are really excited to see this long journey through.  We will re-enter into the US on Sunday, after just 6 days in Canada.  It has been a wonderful ride on the north shore of Lake Erie, and it has completely changed my view of this most maligned of Great Lakes.  

As for the stories of the travels, I don’t have a solution.  I will just keep moving the story forward, even though my legs are outrunning my brain and my hands.  I think I will do updates as we move along, but forward the story of the people and the ride as best I can.    Reality charges away, with story coming when story can.

Wrapping up Wisconsin

 

We have a forty mile ride to Green Bay, then will need to get across the city, and onto the ferry port city of Manitowac.  We guess the ride will be 70 miles, which we can do, but find it pretty challenging.  We have a reservation at the port hotel and need to be there because our friend Robert is coming up from Chicago the next day to spend a few hours with us.

On the way there, I am quite worried about my brother.  We still have heard nothing but that the flooding is epic.  They are calling it a “1000 year flood” of “Biblical proportions.”  I tell Wes that if something has gone wrong, I will leave the trip in Green Bay fly back to Wyoming.  He says he will join me.  We think about what we would do with our equipment if we had to leave immediately.

Shortly out of Shawano, we encounter two burly Marines, walking the Mountain to Bay trail in combat boots, full camouflage, and back pack with rifles.   I slow down to chat with them as they and we keep going.  I ask, “Didn’t we see you sitting on the grass just outside the K-mart in Shawano?”  Yes, they had seen us, too, on the mad scramble to get to rotten resort before dark.  They are sort of a Mutt and Jeff pair.   One is tall and muscular; his biceps are twice around one of Wes’.  His massive shoulders and pecs prove a long acquaintance with barbells.  His partner is also all muscle, but a full foot shorter, round and solid and a few years older.  Both have “jarhead” haircuts—almost shaved on the sides, with a little bit of length on top.

They tell us they are walking the trail from Wausau to Green Bay.  This is a distance of 110 miles; they will do it in 3 and half days.  They need to walk 30-35 miles a day and have been camping on the trail.  They are raising funds to purchase care packages for soldiers serving in Afghanistan.   They will be featured at the Packers game at Lambeau Field on Sunday.  This is the fourth year in row they have done this.  They like the challenge and the outcome.

We tell that we have ridden from Portland, Oregon, and the shorter soldier’s jaw drops.  This is becoming a more common reaction now, especially when people see that we are not spring chickens and that our equipment is not the most efficient.  We wish them well.  They return the same.   Afterwards, we talk about walking 35 miles in combat boots.  It sounds both painful and impressive.

Our friend Robert is much on our minds as we enter the little town of Pulaski, where there is a big Franciscan abbey in a large tiled domed topped church.  We take our lunch in a Polish bakery and Wes finally gets to indulge his latte coffee habit for the first time in days upon days.  When we order the lattes, the counter woman’s face darkens, and she says, “Let me see if I can get the Latte Girl to come help you.”  Well, the Latte Girl, a young heavy set blonde with a very chirpy voice, makes a damn fine latte.  Wes actually sighs when he tastes it.

To my great relief, I get a text from my brother Scott, who has been able to establish contact with Steve.  My eldest brother and his cat are holed up in the guest room above the garage.  They are all right, but there is no power, no water, and the roads have washed out.  It is still raining a bit, and his house, parts of which sit right next to Left Hand Creek, have sustained heavy damage.  His wife, Esther, is in Maine, but will fly back to Colorado as soon as possible.  It is not clear what will happen next, but it is a great relief to hear they have come through the worst of it.

The bike trail into Green Bay is pretty amazing.  For a long while it takes us through a boggy canal, far below the surrounding surface. We are in green secret passage, tunneling into the innards of the city.  We start to encounter more people on the path.  It is Friday afternoon.  Nearly everyone we see is a baby boomer on a bike. 

After a series of pretty parks, the trail ends on the northwest side of Green Bay, which is a big city.  We come out to the road and try to figure out where to go.  We point our bikes southeast and hope for the best.  At the first big intersection, we start following a bike lane, but the sun is in the wrong place.  So we pull out the handy-dandy compass, and yes, we are dead wrong.  Luckily enough, we soon find the truck route through town, which is going exactly where we need it to.   It is the right direction, all right, but boy does it suck as a bike route.   We ride a lot of bumpy sidewalks instead of fighting Friday afternoon traffic.  We stop and take pictures of the big Fox River just before it empties into the Green Bay.  We are thrilled to finally be in the Great Lakes region.

As we keep following business Route 10 and we start moving toward the inevitable plastic land that rings American cities, the sidewalks disappear.   The traffic is horrendous and fast.  We are reduced to riding parking lots and walking across patches of grass.  It is slow going.  We have been going for hours.  It is getting near 5; traffic is peaking, and we are still a long way from Manitowac.  At a tavern advertising a Friday Fish Fry (a ubiquitous Wisconsin tradition), we decide to get some dinner, wait for the traffic to calm a bit, then enter shoulderless, busy road.

Inside the dark and simple structure, a group of men and women are having beers and getting ready for the first home game of the Packers.  We order the delicious fresh perch and the folks there immediately engage us in conversation.  They are very fascinated by our travels.  The women run outside to see our equipment.  Like all women we have encountered, their first question is, “Doesn’t your butt get sore?”  I tell them my strategies for this very real and never-ending problem and I can tell they are both amazed and repelled.   (Just as a note, many women think a big seat with big pads are a solution: actually it makes it worse because there is more surface to rub.  Tight padded bike shorts are a must.   As is painkiller for my tender parts.) 

We ask about the Packers and find out they each of these people are stockholders in the team—“the better for them to get money from us,” they say.  They also tell us that Lambeau Field holds 80,000 people.  The city has 100,000: they don’t know “what the hell those other 20,000 people are doing on a Sunday.  The town is dead quiet when the game is on.”

The folks in the tavern are very concerned about us trying to make it to Manitowac that night.  There is a big debate about how far it is.  Some say 25 miles, some say 35 miles.  One thing for certain is that is a long way to go after we have already gone 50 miles.  Sensible people, (which doesn’t include Wes and  I) would have taken the hint, cancelled the reservation in Manitowac, and found a place in Green Bay. 

But no.  We are concerned about our rendezvous with Robert.  We are looking forward to not having to mad dash in the morning to get to the ferry.   We make our way out to the highway and squeeze ourselves as far to the right as we can and push on.  We get the turn off to Denmark, which is the direct back road route to the ferry.  The road is horrible.  Made of concrete blocks in the 1950’s, it is broken at the edges and separated between the blocks.  It is shaking the hell out of us and the bikes. 

We continue like this for some miles, watching the sun move ever lower in the sky.  At one point, still outside of Denmark, Wes has had it.  He stops his bike and tries to hitch a ride.  This is futile and a waste of precious daylight.  I tell him, “Let’s just go to town, where the traffic will be slower and we can talk to someone about giving us a ride.”

The town is hardly more than a crossroads, but the road greatly improves and there is a good shoulder.  We don’t stop, pushing hard to cover the distance.  Dusk is starting to come on when Wes stops a man riding a lawnmower, and ask how much further it is to Manitowac.  He tells us we still have 12 more miles to go and we better get a move on, but like a good Wisconsinite, he also wants to visit. 

The landscape is really getting interesting as we get closer to the lake.  We see a few 18^th and early 19^th century buildings, but there can be no stopping to read history plaques.   We zoom down a hill to lovely little glen.  The sun slips behind the horizon.  There is a very sweet state campground at the bottom.  We have to make a decision.  We have missed the deadline to cancel our reservation.  If we camp here, it is likely we will mess up our visit with Robert.

I call the hotel to tell them about our predicament and ask if there is any kind of shuttle service that can pick us up.  They don’t have one, but there is a service called “Two Guys Taxi” who might be able to pick us up in one of their vans.   She gives me the number.

I call and tell them where we are two adults with two bikes and two trailers.  He is in the midst of servicing one of their vehicles, but he will get someone out there as soon as they can.  I tell them we will keep moving toward them as long as there is light.  We make a few more miles and come to a well-lit intersection and decide we best stay put.  I call they guy and tell him where we are.  He is on his way in a car; a van is coming, too.

A little while later, a middle aged man and his 11 year old son pull up in small sedan.  We finagle our trailers into the trunk and back seat. “Don’t worry about the upholstery,” he says.   Pretty soon, the van arrives.  It is driven by his 18 year old son.  We move seats around, fiddle here, fiddle there and finally get both bikes in.  Wes will ride with the son.  The game younger brother will ride in the cargo area of the van.  I will ride with the dad in the sedan.

The ride to the hotel takes a fairly long time on the freeway.  We were obviously delusional to think we could make it on bike.  I have a nice chat with the dad.  He tells me he had been long-distance trucker based out of Milwaukee for 25 years, but then began to get neurasthenia of the feet and could no longer drive.  He was using some re-training dollars to go back to school to study computers.  He and his wife moved to Manitowac to help with her parents.   He was in the midst of his studies, when a school mate told him he was about to lose his business because his partner lost his driving license.  So four months ago, he became a business owner, running this transport service.  It is lots of hours, but he liked it a lot.  They mostly transported people back and forth from the ferry.  A big source of business was taking people from the ferry to the Packers games.  The hardest part for him was dealing with all sorts of customers—“quite a difference from spending hours alone on the road.”  A year ago, his family was in crisis.  Now they felt like they had a future---as long as his feet held out.

At the hotel, he charges us the ridiculously small amount of $30 for the use of two vehicles for a 30 mile round trip.  We give him more than that, and I wish we given more than we did.  I really hope this family can make it in this new venture.  

We have made it to Manitowac all right.  Not quite under our own power, but here nonetheless.   We entered Wisconsin on Sunday.  We will leave on Saturday.  We’re moving fast now.

  --------------------------------------

Posted from Medina, NY

---

 

T+95: Urban, Wild, and Weird in Wisconsin

Mile 3293: PORT STANLEY, ONT

We are out of Medford early, on our way to Wausau, cutting across the center of Wisconsin, and moving as fast as we can.  We have been following Highway 64 and it has been a good run, but today, we have to cut south, and start making our way to the ferry at Manitowac. 

Something shifts as we move further south.  The day before we had dubbed Wisconsin the “Deer Lawn Ornament Capital” of the USA.   Today, on Highway 97, lawns are not decorated with concrete lawn critters, instead we start to see “Impeach Obama,”  “Nobama” and “Walker is Right” signs.  There is a huge uptick in the number of flags being displayed.  The road is rougher and the traffic is faster.   The sense of play that marked the day before is gone.

Just outside of the town of Athens, we are on a high point, and can see big ridges in the distance.  That must be the “mountain” of the Mountain to Bay trail.  Road A heads due east toward Wausau, but we have decided to take Road M, after lunch in Athens, which winds over to Wausau and will get us off this rather unpleasant, rough road.

We take a quick ride down to the bridge over the Big Rib River and come up into town of Athens, which is dominated by a lush central square.  We are ready for lunch, but don’t see a café.  There’s a bakery, and we enter there in hopes that there might be sandwiches.  The coffee is off and the bakery only has sweets, so I ask if there is any place we can get a sandwich in town.  She points with her thumb and says, “The mercantile next door.”

With visions of cold sandwiches wrapped in plastic, we go to what appears to be an early 20^th century five and dime.  We open the door and are completely surprised.  What had been a variety store has become a charming café with wooden tables covered with flowery tablecloths.  Two women sit at a table, with laptops opens, obviously in a heavy work-related discussions.   A group of solidly built, mostly blonde, men and women, are scurrying about, preparing for the lunch rush.

When the youngish waitress arrives at our table, she announces that the special today is smothered pork chops with mashed potatoes, corn, and coleslaw.  Thinking that the side dishes sound better than the main dish, I ask if the corn is fresh.  Oh, no, it comes from a can, she says sheepishly.  At least she recognized the oddity of her answer.  The food is good, and as we eat our lunch, we watch a constant parade of folks, some in business garb, some fresh from the fields, come to eat and visit.  The customers visit with each other, but only look at us. 

After lunch, we ride down to Road M, which is closed. Now what?  The next road is Wisconsin 29, but it is unlikely that this divided highway will allow bikes.  We ride the 10 miles to 29, and sure enough, bikes are not allowed.  Our next choice is to go 5 miles to the south and take Road N.  The wind is blowing hard to the east and we need to go east, but we keep heading south, looking for a paved road.  This is definitely one of the disadvantages of trying to figure out your own route.

About a mile south of 29, we choose to take a dirt road.  Bad choice.  The surface is soft and our tires are slipping around.  We wobble alongside farms in the midst of their harvest.  Wes hollers at farmer on a huge tractor, “Does this road go to Wausau?”  He says, “Sure,” but his face says, “What on earth are you doing here?” We muddle on for another mile or two, while I get more and more frustrated.   Riding the 10 miles extra to get on a paved road now seems absolutely necessary. 

We make our way to the paved road, get the tail wind, and it’s a good thing because it is very hilly.  The area around Wausau is characterized by big hills and two anomalous big mountains which can be seen for miles.  Why there are mountains in the middle of Wisconsin remains an unanswered mystery to us.  We get a nice wind assist as we climb ever higher and higher hills.  A few miles in, the road suddenly becomes very busy.  Highway 29 has been closed for repairs.  Now this little country road with no shoulders is crowded with big trucks and fast cars.  A few times we have to leave the road on steep hills to let trucks go by.  It pretty much sucks.   As the afternoon wears on, and we are still a long way from Wausau, we stop at a pub for a break.  The waitress seems surly, but when another man comes in and engages us in conversation, she warms up and ends up buying our root beer and beer for us.

We finally get to Wausau via the largest plastic land we have seen on this trip.  We cross a big waterway and make our way downtown, where we have a room.  The Jefferson Street Inn is part of the re-development of downtown.  Former factories and warehouses are now trendy, upscale boutiques and bars.  For the first time since we left Portland, we see people in suits.  We really stick out in our grubby bicycle wear, especially as we push the hotel cart with our baggage around the street to our entrance.

We go the Happy Hour in the hotel bar, and get a big kick out of watching the young urban professionals work the room for love or money.  Wes has an overly sweet martini, just like most of the young women in the room.  We end up in the dining room, next to a group of six young women from the same office.  We watch them in the mirror, and listen closely as they hash and re-hash office politics and the bad decision-making of their supervisor.  It is clear that one side of the table is strongly anti-manager, with the woman in the middle dominating the conversation.  The woman on the opposite end of the table is offering resistance, while the two women next to her look like they want to disappear.

The next morning, at the breakfast bar, we see for the first time that there is flooding in Colorado around Boulder.  My eldest brother, Stephen, lives up a mountain canyon on a creek just outside of Boulder.  Back at our room, I try calling all of my brother’s numbers.  There is no answer.  We cannot even leave a message.  I text.  No response.  This is very worrying.

We leave through the convention center at the hotel.  We see a man on a cell phone, with his suit coat unbuttoned, and tie loose, in a complete state of stress, even though it is only 7:30am.  Something has obviously gone wrong with the event he was coordinating that day, and it is all he can do to not yell into the phone.  We pass by a table with bored staffers sitting by big stacks of conference materials.  My body remembers all of this, and I feel a spasm of sympathetic stress, then feel glad it is not me organizing this event.

Wausau has a full set of bike routes around the town, but the desk clerks are only vaguely aware of them.  Wes spends 15 minutes with one clerk, who tries to describe the bike route to the beginning of the Mountain to Bay Trail.  It is clear she is having a hard time getting out of her car brain.  (This is quite common---most people answer the question “how far?” with “how long it takes to drive there.”) Finally, she gets her brain re-oriented and gives Wes excellent, complicated instructions that wind us through town, through suburbs and parkland, and finally around a mountain to get to the start of this 110 mile rails to trail path.

At first we are confused when we get close.  All we see is a ragged path with a rough and sandy surface.  We follow it a quarter mile, already making plans to find another route, when we see the actual beginning of the route, with its kiosk, tables, restrooms, and asphalt surface.  What a relief!  We start making our way on the path.  We will ride this path all the way to Green Bay, with a stop in the tourist town of Schawano.

The first part is beautifully maintained, with lots of parks, kiosks, and waymarkers.  However, by the time we get to Eland, where we planned to take our break, the trail has deteriorated to a two track, with exceptionally rough bridges over an increasingly remote and boggy landscape.  The bridges always have sponsorship signs, saying things like “Bridge sponsored by Knechtel Construction.”   We make up stories about going into Knechtel Construction and saying, “You know that bridge you sponsored 15 years ago when they first built the rails to trails?  It’s a mess now….are you sponsoring its repairs now?   You aren’t?  Didn’t you know that you are responsible for those bridges as long as your sign is standing?  You didn’t?  You’ll need to consult the fine print on page 14b of your sponsorship agreement.  Please see the footnote: “Sponsorship in Perpetuity”.  It doesn’t help with the splintered boards sticking up, or the 2 inch drops off the end of the bridge, but it amuses us and helps to pass the time.

We completely lose the track at Eland, and there is no place whatever to take a break or buy some food.  We start following a track, but the mileage markers have started over and the direction isn’t right.  (One of the on-going jokes of this trip has to do with the compass Wes is carrying.  On the night before we left Wyoming, Wes had a small smeltdown about the weight we were carrying.  One of things he wanted to jettison as excess weight was the 2 ounce compass.  I insisted and, of course, we have used the compass every day and sometimes it has absolutely saved the day.) 

We go back to where we lost the track and puzzle over the course of action.  I try my brothers’ numbers again to no avail.  I send an email.  I leave a message with my second brother, Scott, to see if he has heard anything from Stephen.

Thank goodness a mom, her teenage son and two tiny, barky dogs decide to go for a walk.  They give us directions, explaining how this is a crossroads of several trails and that our branch will veer off and go the right direction in another mile.  They also tell us there are two places to get food within the next five miles: either at the Mohican casino at the next crossroads, or go straight south to Wittenberg. “My son has walked there before!” she offers.

We thank them kindly, make our way to the crossroads, while wondering how the Mohican people, originally from New York State, ended up here in mid-Wisconsin.  We constantly marvel at how often people give us suggestions for 10 mile or more detours for food or recreation.  I suppose this is another form of car brain. 

At the next road crossing, we look down and see a small, forlorn looking casino.  No thanks. Something is bound to come up.  The route becomes more remote.  We cross through large stands of 2^nd or 3^rd growth timber.  It doesn’t look like many cyclists have been on this route.   We pass no walkers, no bicyclists.   At a certain point, we are dead hungry.  We have been cycling from Wausau for many hours, and have gone about 35 miles.  Now is the time for what we call “Emergency apples.”  We always carry an apple or two with us.  I sometimes have cream cheese or peanut butter from the breakfast bar. 

In the midst of the forest, we stop at one of the picnic tables set periodically about the trail.  We eat an apple, an orange, and two small packets of peanut butter.  We tap into our water stores.  It will have to do.  Something is bound to come up.

The trail crosses all sorts of paved and dirt roads.  For quite a long way, at these intersections, we see signs to Bonnie’s Bar and Grill.  It has the same effect as the signs advertising Wall Drug.  We really want to know where this Bar and Grill is.  Finally, about 45 miles in, and fairly late in the afternoon, I spot the town of Bowler just off the track. I see a beer sign in the distance.  Like a hound on a scent, I call Wes and we wend our way to Bonnie’s Bar and Grill.

It is capacious and north-woodsy, with all sorts of dead animals on the wall.  We make our way to the bar, where there are three men and  a woman laughing uproariously.  One fellow is gigantic, maybe 6’5, muscular in a big belly sort of way, with his arm in a sling.  The fellow next to him is rather short, as round as he is tall, with a huge bruise on his cheek and a large bandage on his brow.  Next to him is a slender fellow with big aviator style glasses and a Packers baseball cap.  Around the corner, a blousy blonde whose dye-job needs a re-touch, supposedly doing the books, but mostly laughing and joking, is Bonnie herself. 

The two guys are off work after a car wreck somehow related to their work, so now they are killing time at Bonnie’s, who they expect to keep them entertained.  They roll dice, they tell jokes.  She gets out some kind of numbers game that will give them free appetizers.  The aviator glasses guy is some sort of dogsbody, although we don’t think he actually works at the bar.  Bonnie tells him to go check on our order and he does.  Oh, could he please go see how much butter is still in the back, and he does.  The bartender is the solid center of this cacophonous group, but even so, after hearing that we travelling to Shawano, pulls in closer to warn us.  “Make sure you don’t stay in the cult hotel there.”

We ask about the cult, and she hollers over at Bonnie, “Hey Bonnie, tell these guys about the cult in Shwano!”  Bonnie couldn’t be more bored to tell us that the police raided the hotel there where the proprietors were selling sex parties in the guise of religious experiences as well as rooms.    The 30 year bartender was titillated by this news, Bonnie, not so much.

Just as we getting ready to leave, a brown skinned fellow with big red suspenders comes over and introduces himself to us.  “I heard you say that you are from Wyoming.  I used to live in Wyoming, so I thought I would come say hi.”  As it turns out, Gary is a Mohican who lived for a while in Sheridan, Wyoming.  He knew a lot of folks up there and had quite a few acquaintances on the Crow and Sioux reservations in Montana.  He was tickled by our stories of our encounters with the Assiniboine people.  When I told him about one of the mysteries we encountered on the trip---why do the Blackfeet people in Western Montana speak an Algonquin dialect?—he responds, “That’s what we speak!  I had no idea!  Man, I need to find out the story on that!”

Just as we leave, a news report about the Colorado floods comes on the bar television.  It is much worse than anyone expected and it is still raining.  I still have not heard anything from anyone in Colorado or Wyoming.

Bonnie’s has been a great, much needed stop (although with less than average bar food), but it is getting late, and we still have fifteen miles to Shawano (said Schwano).   About eight miles outside of this resort community on the lake, the trail returns to asphalt and we are going as fast as we can, knowing that we will lose the light if don’t get there soon.  About 1 mile away from town, the trail just ends.  We wander about, cross the nearby freeway, and end up on the busy main road into town.  It is after 5, and we know from past experience, that everything in these small towns will close at any moment.

We have reserved a cottage on the lake, with a kitchenette.  We want to pick up food and get to our cabin before dark.  Wes is agitated about our situation, especially after the detour and trail confusion.  We try to call the small resort for instructions, but there is no answer.  This should have been the first clue.  We ask a fellow on the side of the road how to get to this resort; he has never heard of it and can’t help us.  This should have been the second clue.  Finally, Wes goes into a store just as they are closing, while I try to use the map feature on my phone to figure out where we need to go.

As some of you know, Wes is big and energetic even when he is calm.  When he is anxious and hyped up, he can be overwhelming.  When I went into the store to tell him I found the route, I see the small, middle-aged store owner with a map quaking in front of big, gesticulating Wes, who is demanding where is the closest grocery store.  The fellow says, “The main store is just a few blocks to the south…” Wes almost shouts, “That’s the wrong direction! Isn’t there something to the east….?”  The storeowner offers, “There’s a Wallmart…”  Wes, “A Wallmart?!!!”   I guide Wes away and we make our way in the dying light to our resort on the lake.  We pick up some prepared food and a bottle of wine, look longingly at the nice looking motels in town, and wind our way through a tiny road during a spectacular sunset until we find the West Shore Resort.

Our hearts sink as we go into the office, which reeks of uncleaned cat boxes.  The little bent man finally comes out, rubs his eyes, apologizes and says he spent the day at the hospital with his wife, who’s not doing so good.  He doesn’t know how to run the credit card machine, and scribbles down the number, mumbling, “My daughter will take care of it in the morning.”   He tells us that most of these cabins now have month to month renters, but that he likes to keep one available for people like us.   He stresses, like a mantra, that it has a kitchenette and two bedrooms.

We walk through the grounds in the dying light and see that this resort has become low end housing.  The unit is horrible.  It is dark and too late to leave.  Wes sits in one chair, and jumps right up.  The arms are sticky with some sort of unknown goo.  He sits in another.  Its leg is broken.  The nicest chair in the lot has ink spilled all over it.  I am sullen; Wes is livid.  I sit silently and read in the one chair I trust.  Wes paces the room, lamenting his fate and wanting me to be as upset as he is.   This is one of the worst places we have ever stayed, made much worse by the resort price we paid.  This is not one of our better nights.

The next morning we get out of there as soon as possible.   The best thing about a bike trip is that nothing lasts too long.  Soon we are back on the path and on our way to Green Bay, where we will encounter more of weird, the wild, and the wonderful of Wisconsin.

-------------------------------
posted from Port Dover, ONT

T+92: We Like Wisconsin

Mile 3243: Ridgetown, ONT

The next morning we make our way back through the town of Bloomer, whose 19^th century downtown is fairly intact.   We feel time pressing on us, so we don’t stop.  I experience this as a contradiction in terms.  Our “job” is to explore America, but we won’t make it across America before cold weather, if we don’t get a move on. 

It is not long before we are in the heartland of Wisconsin.  This is the landscape of small family farms.  Gone are the giant threshers we encountered in North Dakota, where the blades of a single mower were wider than both lanes of the highway.  (The thresher moved as far to the left as possible, and we left the road, and the huge arm of rotating blades still just missed us.)  The acreages for these Wisconsin farms are probably in the hundreds rather than the North Dakota thousands.  The ground is hilly and in the bottoms, it is marshy.  It is easy to see why this is dairy country.   While there are stands of corn, it does not dominate the landscape the way it does in central Minnesota.  In fact, it is more likely to be sweet corn or ethanol corn than miles and miles of feed corn.

The ride is really fun and the weather is just right.  The hills can be charged, so we are moving pretty rapidly.  This is a testament both to our increasing fitness and the relative gentleness of the landscape.  Wes and I debate the best way to charge a hill and have mini-competitions to see who develops enough speed and thrust in the downhills to glide up the uphills without having to resort to the lowest gears.  Wes has fun making up silly sayings about this, “I’m playing this hill like a….lyre…like lycra…like a lute…like a bassoon….like a baboon.”

There starts to be more and more trees as the day progresses.  Our destination is the town of Medford, which sits just outside the Chequamegon National Forest.  In between the farms there are stands of Northern Forest, which is a rich mix of pines, firs, and larches, along with ashes, oaks, and birch.  At the little town of Prairie View, we first see a curious machine in a city park next to the Chippewa River.  We find out this large diagonal machine, whose top was 60 feet in the air, was the sole example of a counter-weight operated log stacker.  This a testament to the huge logging industry which is almost gone in Wisconsin, and to the ingenuity of 19^th century engineering.   At its base, a long rails-to-trails bike path winds its way down the river to Eau Claire.  It looks lovely. 

We make our way to a little café that specializes in homemade ice cream.  There are two older women in there, along with the proprietor.   All three women immediately start asking us all sorts of questions.  Wes starts teasing and flirting with the women in their 70’s, making them laugh and telling them to get ready for their bike trips.   The smaller, rounder woman, with assiduously dyed black hair, holds up her cane and waves it at Wes, “When I was younger, I rode my bike everywhere, but my biking days are OVER!”  The two debate who Wes looks like: certainly like their friend Rory, but doesn’t he also look like Burt Lancaster?  This makes us laugh because it is so outlandish.  We eat our lunch, visiting across the dining room.  Finally, they leave and wish us well. 

Hours later, we make our way into the little town of Gilman.  We are thirsty and hot, and after our delicious root beer float of the day before, have a hankering for another.  We step into a tiny café, and ask the big blousy waitress for a float, which is not on their menu.  She says, “Let me ask…”  A youngish cook steps out, sees that we are cyclists, and says, “I think we can do that.”   As he makes up root beer and ice cream concoction in the blender (decidedly not a float), he tells of his bicycle adventure at the age of 19, during which he and a group of friends cycled from Vancouver to San Diego.  “Man, I remember eating whatever we wanted: steaks, fries, cake.  Boy, those days are over!”  The waitress jokes, “I am a perfect size 10, I just wear this size 22 over it to hide it!” 

About that time, we hear the sound of small scooter pull up.  As a stocky, older gentlemen comes through the door, the waitress and cook holler, “Hey Pauly!”  He responds, “You got any of that lemon merengue pie left?”  Then, without waiting for answer, looks at us, “You ridin’ them bikes out there?  You need to get a scooter like mine.  Be a lot easier!”  They tell him the pie is all gone.  He says, “You had some this morning.” “Well you should have ordered it then!”  Back and forth like this, the signs of a long and easy acquaintance.   Pauly finally allows that he will just have a bowl of chili.  The waitress sets down the bowl.  As Pauly starts to struggle with the crackers, she steps over, removes the package from his bent and rigid hands, and deftly pours the crushed crackers into his bowl.  The gentleness and familiarity of the gesture touches me. 

The conversation and joking is really rolling and we don’t want to leave, so we decide to split a tuna fish sandwich.  The cooks starts making it as we talk about farming and trees and the economy.  They all say that the economy is barely scraping along.   The waitress says, “We lost alotta businesses in this little town, let me tell you.”  When they find out that this is Wes’ retirement trip, Pauly says,  “You know how you can tell when a dairy farmer has retired?  He starts to raise beef!” 

We truly finally have to leave.  Our fifteen minute break for a cool drink has stretched in 45 minutes.  We ask about the route ahead.  They tell us a back way into to Medford that will save us some miles and some hills.  Pauly takes his leave as we do.  Wes says, “I’ll leave with a joke.  You know there are only two kinds of gamblers.  The first one goes to the casinos, the second runs a farm.”  The cook laughs and says,  “Well, Pauly is both!”  Outside, Pauly zooms his tiny, maybe 50 cc scooter around us as we get ready to ride again.  He wishes us well, then putt-putts away.

We are aglow with fun of the visit when I step in the local pharmacy to see if they carry Anbesol, which I use to dull the pain of constant abrasion on my tender parts.  The pharmacist is a real grump, proving that not all Wisconsinites are ebullient and outgoing.  Just down the street, at a garage littered with all sort of golf carts, four wheelers, lawnmowers and all manner of small motorized equipment, Wes hollers out to the youngish men,  “Can we get a squirt of air from you.”  Sure thing.  This leads to another long conversation.  One of the men has a cast on his leg.  I ask what happened to his leg.  Pointing with his thumb at this partner, “He ran me over with that golf cart!”

By the time we get out of this town, it is getting late and the sky is starting to darken with heavy rain clouds.  We still have 20 miles to reach our destination of Medford.   About 6 miles from Medford, we take the short cut and the sky lets loose.  We soldier on in the pouring rain.   When we get to the truck entrance to the town, we take it, and make our way through a warren of window manufacturers.  Just as we pull into the park alongside the Black River, the rain lifts.  We climb the steep hill to the main street and call our motel for further instructions.   The desk clerk seems totally befuddled and has a hard time describing how to get to the motel that does not involve major highways.  I am unhappy to hear that we have another 4 miles to go after we had just come more than 60.  A young, Goth woman in black with heavy tattoos steps out of a bar.  Her sweet face and gentle voice do not match her harsh clothes and loud tattoos.  She gives us good instructions to get to the motel, which is on the outskirts of town, by the Wallmart.  Now we understand why the downtown, once a prosperous and lovely mill town with elaborate limestone storefronts, looks so forlorn.  Another victim of “spawlmartization.” 

We wind our way to the perfectly average, but perfectly acceptable motel and realize that if we hadn’t taken the “short-cut”, we would have driven right by it.  On our way, we meet an older couple from Milwaukee.  They too want to hear all about our trip.  They, too, are funny and friendly.   During our nightly ritual of showering together at the end of our biking day, we talk about the open culture here in Wisconsin.  Certainly people have been friendly and helpful all the way across the country.  But nowhere else have we seen people so free of self-consciousness, so open to experience, so funny and friendly.  We decide: We like Wisconsin.

 

-----------------------

posted from Port Stanley, ONT

…………………………….

T+91: Welcome to Wisconsin

Mile 3133: Imlay City, MI

The wild and scenic river of St. Croix delineates the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin.  It is a very different landscape than anything we have yet encountered.  In fact, it reminds me of a little finger of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  Steep hills, big trees, and unadorned water.  It is always refreshing to see water that is not completely ringed by summer homes. 

Wes and I stopped to take pictures at the scenic overlook, then zoomed down to the town of Taylor Falls.  It is a classic tourist town, and it is hopping.  The streets are full of Minneapolis day trippers here to see the St. Croix National Scenic River Park.   Wes and I consider stopping at one of the crowded coffee houses or restaurants for about 20 seconds, but the hub-bub is too much, so we push on. 

We walk our bikes over the bridge, which points out that the word “falls” in the 19^th century also meant any stretch of white water in a river.  The “falls” at St. Croix Falls are a stretch of about 50 yards of rapids in a beautiful tree lined canyon.  As people who were raised in the Rocky Mountains, we were amused at this fuss over the little change of elevation, although we do grant that the deep, tree-lined, river course is quite beautiful.  

We push our bikes partially up the steep bank and visit the decidedly much quieter town of St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin.  The streets are almost empty and there are no cars visiting the federally funded visitors’ center.  We wander up and down the street and are most intrigued by a small café that says, “Vegetarian and Vegan Food.”    We are so sick of bar food.   We don’t think we have seen the word “vegan” for over a 1000 miles. 

We are greeted effusively by the Indian host when we enter.  The place is not full, but the people who are there seem mostly to be young, mostly people of color.  We have not seen this crowd since we left the West Coast.    The menu is eclectic, but we are drawn to the northern India dishes.    We savor dishes made with beans and with exotica like eggplant.   We are sick beyond belief of fried stuff.   Fried stuff is the cheap and easy offering at 90 out of 100 American restaurants.   Why this is, especially here in the fertile Midwest, we cannot tell you.   In the land of corn and tomatoes, why is it impossible to get fresh corn and tomatoes at the restaurants we visit?

Afterwards, we make our way to the Wisconsin tourist information station, where I hope to get a state map.  We have already decided we are not going to take the ridiculous Adventure Cycling route, which would have us ride north to within 3 miles of the Michigan border (for several days), then turn south for several more to go the ferry at Manitowac.  Instead, we will make a dash across the center of the state, without all the ups, downs, ins and out, prescribed by the bicycle touring organization.

At the tourist information, Wes goes right in, but I get hornswoggled by an interesting trio of people.  They are all in their 70’s.  There are two women, each tightly gripping the arm of a slender, formerly red-haired, gentleman.  They ask about our trip.  After the usual responses to the usual questions, I ask about them.   He is a former pastor who had lived in Wisconsin for many years, then had a parish in Florida.  The short, grey haired woman clutching his left arm was also from Wisconsin.   The tall, willowy woman in the bob haircut is clinging to his right arm.  She is a former teacher from Florida, where she retired a few years ago.  The pastor’s wife died last year.  Now that he is alone, it seems that these two women have come to his aid.  I sensed a competition over this pastor, as each woman ever so slightly pulled at his arm as they talked about the places they have visited and planned to visit.  He looked at pleased as punch; his bright blue eyes twinkled beneath his light eyebrows.  When Wes returns with the needed maps, the talk turns to our travels.  Wes always encourages people to make plans for their cross country ride.  This is particularly amusing to our elders.  The former pastor replies, “In my younger days, I would have taken you up.  But now, I’ve got a bad back, and I just can’t get around like I used to.  I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have so many kind people around me.”   The women blush, and clutch their pastor a little more tightly.    We make our good-byes and go to get on the first of several bike trails we take in Wisconsin.
 

The nice folks at the information booth have given Wes a tourist map, and a series of small maps which highlight the very local bike trails, as well as the statewide network of bike trails.  One of the most famous trails starts here and goes north following the river and ending at Lake Superior.  We are to follow a short local route.   In a few miles, there is another route which will take us to our destination for the evening, Ashby.   The first route starts out badly: badly marked and bumpy, it is just feet away from a nice highway with a wide shoulder.  It is much steeper than the road and we cast aspersions about the trail designer.   All of a sudden the route ends.   Perhaps it goes into the state park and resumes, we wonder.   We ride into the park, talk to the attendant.  No, no bike route around here.  Sorry.

Feeling snookered, we return to the highway and travel down a series of ups and downs, with one very long, fun downhill.   We have a map leading us to a route called the 7 Lakes Trail.  It is a complicated set of instructions to get there and I am skeptical after the first snafu with the trail.  We ride up and around, through little towns, and into smaller and smaller roads.  I keep questioning Wes, “Are you sure this is not a goose-chase?”   We have already cycled more than 40 miles through the Hay Daze and St. Croix tourist enclave, the last thing I want to do is go wandering aimlessly in the Wisconsin hinterlands.

However, the instructions are good and my fears are unfounded.  We ride a 10 mile trail through truly lovely scenery.  There are in fact 7 lakes, as well as marshes, and farms, and cute little towns.  The day is getting late, however, and we are getting tired.  About 2 miles from our destination, the rain comes down.  We don rain gear and push on.  By the time we get the town of Ashby, the rain, though fierce for a few minutes, is gone.  We goggle at the fancy new bike center with WiFi at the terminus of the bike trail, and wander about town trying to find a motel.  There are only two.   We decide to take the closer, cheaper one, but I have a fit when we get there and see guys hanging outside and a big anti-meth poster just outside the office.  The proprietor can barely be pulled away from her Packers game to give Wes the registration form. 

The room is underwhelming, to say the least.  With wall paper from the 1960’s and in need of a good scrub, I am less than happy to be here.  We have to bring our bikes into the small room, not only out of fear of the rain, but also with some concern about theft.  I fuss about the cleanliness of the room, and Wes is irritated: “If you wanted to see the room before we rented it, why didn’t YOU ask to?”  The room is icky and worn, but not worth a fight.  We go next door and have good margaritas and bad Mexican food, then come back to the room and sleep surprisingly well.

The next day we are up early.  It is very foggy.  After a quick breakfast at the brand new restaurant across the street, we start following Highway F.  Wisconsin is the only state I have encountered where all county roads are named by letters instead of numbers.  There is limited visibility and this part of Wisconsin is a series of glacier-made hills and dales.  We ride up short steep hills, then right back down.  This goes on for some hours and is getting wearisome.  The agriculture in this part of the state is marginal.  We encounter much that makes us uncomfortable.  First, this must be some sort of center for puppy mills.  We identify them by the endless howling of dogs, the cyclone fences, and the multiple NO TRESPASSING signs. 

This is also the first time Wes and I have seen factory turkey farms up close.  One such: behind the sign “Welcome to Wesley and Debbie Nelson’s Farm”, we see a big warehouse, approximately 100’ by 24’.  Along the long side closest to us, there are at least 25 turkey pens.  Along the short side, there are four turkey pens with a center aisle between them.  Each of these 100 pens is about 8’x8’.  There are 8 turkeys in each pen.  Each turkey has about 1 yard square.   They are screaming and pecking and flapping, but they cannot turn around.  There must be at 1000 white turkeys in this single building.  A while later, we see another farm with 3 of these turkey torture chambers.   I don’t think that Wes will ever be able to eat commercial turkey again.

We make another corner, and I see several rows of what looks like large igloo type dog houses.  As we get closer, I see that these are not dog houses, but calf-cages.  Very young calves of just few weeks in age are chained to each of these dog houses with big industrial chains about their necks.  They can walk only a few steps.  This is a veal operation.  I look at their knobbly knees and big eyes and am repulsed at the cruelty to these baby animals.

By noon or so, we are ready for a break.  Wes is having issues with his bike (a trend that started in Minnesota and will continue all the way through Michigan).  The back derailleur quits working just as we pull into the little town where we hoped to take our break.  Unfortunately, this town is in the process of becoming a ghost town.  The pub is out of business.  Most of the houses are for sale or abandoned.  The only place that seems occupied also seems to be a puppy mill. 

We mess around with his cables and shifters.  We take his shifter apart, then have a hell of a time getting it back together.  In the end, we cannot get all the washers and spacers back in and still get the shifter to work.  We are frustrated, hungry, and a bit freaked out by our surroundings.   We didn’t think Wisconsin would be like THIS.  All our messing around with the shifter does not fix the problem, but Wes has no more patience.  He smacks the back derailleur in frustration.  Out pops the missing nut that holds the hook of his bike bag.  The derailleur now works.  We didn’t need to disassemble the shifter at all.  Mercifully, and inexplicably, the whole thing works better than before, so we stagger on.

A couple hours later, we pull into a beautifully situated farm town on a lovely river.  There is a “c-store” where we buy nuts, cheese, and other emergency supplies.  There are no restaurants, but we can get food at the tavern next door.  We do and it is wretched, though not as bad as the chicken-cheese-wild rice goo of the other day.  Back on the bike, I rail about the unconscionably bad state of American foodways.  How can we have ridden through 1000 miles of farmland and yet have been served so much adulterated and overly processed food?  Where is the respect for the food and the eater?

As the day goes on, however, the ride becomes more pleasant and more beautiful.  In one little farm town, I see a sign on a corner store announcing “home-made root beer floats”.  We pop in, have a truly delicious treat and encounter ebullient and talkative Wisconsin natives, who make us laugh and ask us about our travels.  Afterwards, we both don headphones to listen to our “stories” as the miles zoom by and the discomforts of the morning slip away.  We get to the freeway two miles from our reserved room, but have to circle all the way through the town of Bloomer then back out because cycles are not allowed to ride on the freeway in Wisconsin.  The extra six miles are a drag at the end of this nearly 70 mile day, but the town is well put together, with lots of social services.  

When we get to our motel, there is a big crew of youngish men drinking beers out on the porch.  They are very fascinated by us, and true Wisconsinites, start asking questions before we can even get the bikes parked.  They can’t believe we have ridden from Portland, Oregon.  We are surprised that they are a crew of traveling grain elevator maintenance men.  They will be out for months at a time, servicing the giant metal and ceramic containers we see every few miles.  It is a good, hard, dangerous job.   I didn’t realize such job even existed. 

These first two days in Wisconsin have been surprising in so many ways.  There is so much we don’t understand, but we sure do like the people.  We look forward to the rest of our whisk across the center of Wisconsin, but conk out immediately and sleep like logs.

 

 

----------------------

posted from St. Clair, MI