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