T+148: The Real Deal and ….Really?

T+148: The Real Deal and Really?

We mount our bicycles at the top of Sherburne Pass.  (The town of Killington was originally named Sherburne, but it was too easily confused with other names, so it officially changed its name just a few years ago.  The pass has kept its original name.)  It is distinctly chilly, although the sun is out.  I don’t have gloves or mittens.  Wes has gloves to put over his bike gloves, but for reasons unknown does not put them on. The ride down is fast and cold.  By the time we reach the valley floor, we are both bringing our hands to our body’s core to warm them up. 

This is a beautiful part of the country.  The valleys are cut with rivers; the mountains rise steeply and glow bright yellow and red above us.  My ability to enjoy this beauty is being hampered, however, by how cold I am.  At a corner, about 5 miles below the summit, I pull in to a sports shop, where I buy a pair of ski gloves with photo sensing. (So I can use my phone without taking my gloves off).  

As we come out of the shop, we look across the highway and see a house completely off its foundation.  The houses and barns next to it have obviously just undergone a major renovation.  The shoulder of the road, which had been excellent, now is patchy.  Parts of it have fallen into the Ottaqueechee River.  The traffic is fairly heavy, but we soldier on, seeing more and more signs of something amiss:  another building off its foundation, strange dark marks high on the side of a barn, the width of the road strangely narrow. 

I see the name of a furniture builder I recognize from the pages of Old House Journal in a re-purposed warehouse not too far from Woodstock.  I call a halt, and under Wes’s protestation, tell him I want to visit the workshops of Thomas Shackleton Furniture.  Housed in a former wool mill, the factory and showroom were a fascinating visit.   After viewing the handmade furniture and pottery, we stopped upstairs to see the workrooms.  There, we encountered two young people in the midst of hand-building two pieces of furniture.  I stay and watch for a long while.  Wes goes to look at the artwork downstairs.

The young woman, dark haired and long limbed, was using a hand planer to shave the smallest edges from the footboard of cherry sleigh bed.  A young man, massively built, and wearing a bandanna over his balding head, is working on a walnut sideboard.  He is carefully chiseling dovetail joints to construct an upper drawer.   I find out that each piece of furniture is made by one person from start to finish.  The individual builder meets with the wood supplier, and sources the specific wood for each piece.  The builder preps and cuts the wood, then hand builds and finishes each piece.  I say, “It must be so satisfying to see a piece from idea to shipment.”  They both nod vigorously; she says it is one of the main things that keeps them going through years of apprenticeship, becoming a journeyman (person?) and finally mastering the art. 

He tells a story about friends who want him to make them furniture.  When confronted with the price of a handmade piece of furniture, they are shocked and say they will just get a piece from Ikea.   I tell them I think Ikea is a form of “classy trash”—it is visually very well designed, but made of the cheapest materials and scantiest structures.  Ikea won’t last the decade: the works made by these young artisans will be given to the purchaser’s grandchildren.  As I get ready to leave, the young man notes: “Usually, it is the husband who stays to talk to us.”  I note: “I am ten times the gear head that Wes is.”  He says, “Well, that is what it takes.”

Before I leave, I ask about the Shackleton name and find out that Thomas Shackleton was indeed cousin to Ernest Shackleton, of the ill-fated Endurance voyage to Antarctica.  In that trip, the ship was frozen in the ice for months on end, but Ernest Shackleton was able to save his entire crew through great personal heroism and effort.  Making furniture from tree to truck may not be as dangerous as sailing to the Antarctic, but it is heroic in its own right in this age of flashy trash and corporate consumerism.

Back on the road, Wes thanks me for making him go to this workshop.  We keep following the river, with the shoulder becoming more and more suspect.  We round a corner, and see the Woodstock Farmers’ Market.  There are lots of cars, but we are suckers for hand raised foods, so we stop, despite our intentions to keep moving. 

As we are parking our bikes, we notice a hand-drawn sign on the backside of the red clapboard building.  Well above my height is a scrawled note, “Hurricane Irene water level.”   We peer at the note, and look around at the surrounding buildings, seeing the tell-tale signs of high water on the market and the adjacent building, which houses a glass workshop and artist studios. One of the store manager comes out.  We ask her about the sign and she tells us that the water had completely crossed the road.  They had to do major renovations just to get open again, but were lucky compared to some. 

We get some rolls and cheese in the tourist packed market and go down the road to a series of tables next to the river.  I go in to get soup for lunch and discover that this business had been completely swept away in the flood.  It is hard to imagine the sweet small river on which we are sitting raging with such force.   As we are eating, I realize that we have now completed 4000 miles.  We take pictures in front of the river and think about my brother Steve and the recovery they’re facing.

Because this is the Columbus holiday weekend, the pretty town of Woodstock is full of people, buses, cars, and bikes.  The Columbus holiday passes with very little notice in other parts of the United States, but here in New England and Upstate New York, it is a big deal, although it could be more accurately called “Leaf Peepers Weekend.”  Making our way through this crush is no fun, but I call a halt to Wes as we go by a particularly intriguing local art store.  We go in and are very struck by the high quality of the artwork.  Both Wes and I stare at a beautiful print of aspens next to a frozen lake with the mountains in the distance.  It is fairly rare that Wes and I both get “beeped” by an artwork.  We try to listen to these impulses, but this is not exactly the right moment to buy a piece of art.  We walk away, as we usually do, to see if the image stays with us.   We walk through the throngs, and check out a few stores.  The town reminds us of Aspen—not at all in the way it looks, of course—but in the sophistication and expense of its goods and the profound sense of place in its design and layout.   As we walk along, we become more committed to the artwork and decide, “What the hell?  Let this be the one memento of our trip.”

Back at the store, we make arrangements for the print to be shipped to Wyoming.  We have a long conversation with the store owner who was a longtime resident of Detroit.  As usual, we have to allay her fears about the destruction of the city.  She had many wonderful memories of her time there; she had lived on the far southeast of the city and in Indian Village.   She had heard that there were even more artists in the city than when she was there.  She compared the situation in Detroit to New York City in the 1970’s, when that city was its most dysfunctional and yet a haven for young artists.   

After our purchase, we return to the traffic.  As we pass a covered bridge, I see a road on the other side of the river.  I use my newly discovered mapping program to take us to the “road less traveled.”   There we ride up and down hills through tiny villages and little farms under glorious red and yellow trees.  This is Vermont at its most charming; we wonder if we will have the same experience in New Hampshire.

The short answer is “No.”  First of all, there is a snarl of freeways, roads, and bridges as we cross the Connecticut River into Lebanon.  Traffic is intense and we feel quite exposed.  At long last, we clear the access roads and confusing one way streets and are ready for a break.  We spot a diner.   The diner is full of students from nearby Dartmouth College.  When we go to sit down, the young waitress behind the counter barks at us, “We’re closed! You have to leave.”   Wes points out that the doors were still open, she shouts, “You have to leave!”  We ask if there is someplace nearby.  Nobody answers.  This is not an auspicious welcome.

The layout of the towns and villages is quite confusing and dense, but we make our way to a coffee shop and call our accommodations.  It had been quite difficult to get a room on this holiday weekend.  After many calls, we were able to get the last room in the hotel that serves the Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital.  We have to cross freeways again and wind our way around to find this out of the way lodging.   The room was bit worn at the edges (especially for its high price), but young Indian desk clerk was friendly.  There were no services, so Wes and I set out walking to the closest convenience store.  Bleah.  Gas station dinner for us. 

Just as we were coming back, we crossed an uncomfortable scene in the lobby.  Three senior citizens, one man and two women, were seeking lodging for the more slender, care worn woman.  She had to receive medical services at adjacent hospital and had no car.   The three pled with the desk clerk, but the motel was full.  He asked, “What shall we do?  Where will we stay?”  Some desk clerks would have called around to see if anyone had any openings.  Some lodgers who saw this might have offered their room. But this night, neither did, and the trio went out into the cold night.  No room at this inn.

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

posted from Centennial, WY

T+142: Them That Gots and Them That Ain't

Mile 3883: North Creek, NY and Mile 3948: Whitehall, NY

The host at Inlet proved correct.  The terrain outside of Raquette Lake became distinctly more challenging.  The hills were higher and the roads were worse.  However, it was beautiful as we cycled past glacier lakes, climbing ever higher into the mountains to a major junction at Blue Mountain Lake.   We go to corner gas station/convenience stop.   We have a tiny amount of cash and want to get a little something.  We wander about the store, while the young woman cashier frowns at us.  We end up splitting a high priced muffin and she slaps our change on the counter with nary a word. 

Outside we peer up the north route, then down at the east route.  The north route is the Adventure Cycling route.  The east route means we will be committed to our own wayfinding.  We had been tending that way, but now, within a few hundred miles of the end our trip, we cut the cord.  With the HERE program on my phone, we feel confident enough to make our own way.  We’ll see.

The country becomes more remote as we leave the lakes region.  We cycle for mile upon mile in dense forest.  At one point, we see a car parked on the other side of the road, where a man in full outdoor gear was shouldering a heavy pack.  I call out to him as we go by, “Goin’ for a hike?”  To my surprise, he answers, “Nope, goin’ fishin’…..Say, you got a big climb ahead of you!”  Wes calls back, “If we can make it over the Cascades, we can make it over the Adirondacks.”

Cottages are few and far between.  After lots of ups and downs, we stop at restaurant in Indian Lake, where once again, with the exception of one fellow at the counter, we are the only customers.  The waitress is quite young, tattooed and vibrant, glad for some customers and the possibility of a tip. 

About half way through our meal, the waitress’ mother and a male friend come into the restaurant.  The waitress tells them of our trip. Before long we are talking about our journey through the Adirondacks with this small group of locals.  Wes asks, “Where are the moose?”  The mom begins a harrowing tale of a bull moose recently hit on the highway.  She told of the panicked, injured animal crossing back and forth on the road, causing all sorts of problems.  It finally died on the highway and they had to get special equipment to move the 700 pound carcass. 

This begins a round of moose tales from everyone in the restaurant. Wes tells the story of his mother attempting to shoo a moose (with a broom!) from their snow covered sidewalk, only to be charged by the moose.  She just made it in the door, where she told her wide-eyed sons, “You’re not going to school today!”  Others talked of moose in their gardens, or moose where they fish.   The general consensus is that there are a lot more moose than there were 20 years ago, but not nearly as many as there used to be or should be.  The same could be said about black bear.   All these locals had seen more bear more often, but the bears still had not recovered from the greedy hunts of the late 19^th century, where one hunt would kill 15 or 20 bears at a time.

(Wildlife talk like this only happens when humans live in close contact with the undomesticated earth.  We had seen so little wildlife on our journey, and had so few of these conversations.  One of the reasons we chosen the northern route across the United States was the (mistaken) belief that it would be more wild and pristine. )

We continue to cross remote country, climbing and falling.  After one long climb, we see Wes’ favorite sign: the runaway truck sign with a grade warning.  This one says “Steep grade, 4-5%, next 2 miles.”  It has been a long time since we had a long downhill, so we let the bicycles just rip.  We have to ride in the road because the shoulder is bad, but there is so little traffic, we feel safe.  The road flattens out next to a beautiful, sparkling river…the Hudson River.

We are not far from the source of this mighty river in a small lake in the Adirondacks.  Although it is a shadow of the giant it will become in downstate New York, it is already bigger than many western rivers.  The river is such a marker to us, and is so beautiful surrounded by the golden and red trees.  We stop and read every information marker about the river.  (Who knew they used to have huge railroad tie runs on the Hudson?)

The Hudson River carves the valley that separates the Adirondacks from the upper Appalachian mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire.  It is an important psychological marker for us that truly signals the last stage of our journey across the country.  We cut into the little town of North Creek to celebrate.  The town is still the gateway to the Adirondacks, with active train service, boat connections to both Lake Champlain and the Erie Canal.  The style of the town is not North Woods, but distinctly upscale Atlantic colonial: white clapboards instead of logs. 

We find a bumptious bar named The Barking Spider.  It is jam-packed on this early Friday afternoon.  The crowd is older, European American men, most of whom looked like they just escaped their corporate offices to get an early start on the long Columbus holiday weekend.  We are lucky to find a couple of seats at the far end of the bar.  Before long, we are in conversation with a young retiree in an Indiana Jones hat, who tells us of his love of airplanes and fly fishing.  He was really glad he got out of the real estate business in New York City “just in time.”  It was clear he had made enough money to do just what he pleased for the rest of his life. 

Sitting next to him is a silent, burly, bearded fellow, about 45 years old, who barely looks up when he is introduced as the leading garnet prospector in this area.  The area around North Creek is still the largest source of garnets in the US.   While Wes and the airplane guy compare adventures, I try to talk to the prospector about his work.  Finally, he signals me to follow him out on the deck.  I ask a few questions about garnets and how they are found.  He answers without looking up, almost in pain.  I ask how garnets are related to rubies.  Here, he becomes animated and tells me that they are the same chemical composition, just subjected to different degrees of pressure.  I say I love rubies and show him the three ruby rings I always wear.  “They are my birthstone,” I say.  “Mine, too,” he says, still not making eye contact.  “You a Cancer?”  I ask.  Then, and only then, he looks me full in the face, peers at my eyes, then says, “Yes, I am.”  He then scoots away without another word into the hubbub of the bar and away from his former seat.

We know we should go on.  There are still a few more hours that could be ridden, but we like it here and are not quite ready to leave the mountains.  There are several places to stay, but there is a nice looking motel in full colonial style just across the street.   The ladies at the desk were tickled by us and our trip and give us a discount to stay in this rather high priced establishment.  We stow our bikes and BOBs in the basement, return to our big and kind of showy room, and get ready to have nice meal.  

The restaurant is an anomaly.  In the midst of this very colonial motel, with its Queen Anne furniture and chintz wallpaper, is its restaurant, The Trappers Tavern.  It is built like a North Woods tavern, complete with a stuffed moose (shot by Teddy Roosevelt) on the wall, knotty pine paneling, and big stone fireplace.  It was inviting, but so disconnected to the rest of the facility’s ambience. 

We are sitting next to an older businessman dressed in a muted green suit.  At first, he is in intense discussions with another heavy set man who seems to be the manager or owner of the inn.  They are the middle of some kind of development deal with a local government agency, and there are lots of directives, and communications, and maneuvering that have to be done.  He orders a martini and drinks it rapidly.  When his colleague leaves, he orders another, rubs his face, and sits waiting, tensely.  A little while later, a middle aged man and woman, with two college-aged daughters join him at the table.  They exchange “barely hugs” while saying “Hi, Grandpa” or “Hello, Dad.” 

The grey-haired man is suddenly bluff and outgoing.  He announces to the table, “I have already ordered lobsters for everyone!”  The son exchanges a look with his wife.  Seeing the look, the older man announces, “You don’t need to worry about the cost.  The whole thing is on me.  Then you can get whatever else you want after you finish with the lobsters.”  The family acquiesces and the conversation turns to the two young women.  They are home for the weekend from their colleges in Middlebury and Bennington, Vermont.  They are pleasant, but rather supercilious, as only college juniors can be.   They tolerate, just barely, their grandfather’s questions about their overseas studies.  The taller, more muscled of the two blonde girls, answers one question with barely concealed condescension, “Well, of course we studied French before we went to Paris.”  The grandfather winces at this remark.  There are not many places in his world where he is not front and center.  He continues grandiose, however, buying drinks and oversupplying their every perceived or real whim.

The next day takes us into very different territory.

From the tony environs of North Creek, we ride to the far less prosperous town of Wevertown.  The landscape is opening up and we are mostly going downhill.  The town is crowded into a small valley.  We wander about trying to find a place to eat.  We ask a woman and a man; neither can provide any guidance.  We think it very strange.  Towards the southern end of this long and skinny town, we spot a little bistro with room for 12 or 15 people.  It is a one-woman operation.  We hand-write our own order.   She tells us she will prepare it as soon as she can.   The food is worth the wait, but we wonder, once again, why so many restaurants, bars, and hotels are so understaffed. 

On our way out of the bistro, we meet a handsome couple who see our bikes and ask about our trip.  She is an avid cyclist and is trying to convince her older husband to take an extended trip.  Even more interesting, she is a direct descendent of the town’s founder.  Her family has lived in the town for seven generations.   She says that Wevertown used to be a major transportation hub, and had a lot of mills and factories, but most of that is gone.  Now the town is trying to make it on retail and tourism.  They were really excited about an outlet mall coming to the town.  They gave us advice on the quickest route to Vermont which would save us 20 miles.

When we leave Wevertown, it is a long zoom down to the tourist environs of Lake George.  We recall the words of the barkeep in Inlet, who told us it would be fun going down, but he couldn’t conceive of biking up.  We agree wholeheartedly.  The tourist season is almost over along this beautiful lake.  Given the miles of motels and guest houses all along the lake, we are glad we are not biking through here during peak season.  There are a few lake steamers still plying the waters as we cycle by. 


We are on our way to a bike trail originating at Fort William Henry, a tip from our Wevertown folks.  As we ride through a glacier rim, we discover that we are on the Knox Trail.  Of course, we had never heard of it before, but our admiration grew with each mile we travelled.  During the first year of the American Revolutionary War, in the middle of the winter, American troops hauled more than 60 tons of heavy artillery captured at Fort Ticonderoga to Boston.  With these canons (one 11 feet long), George Washington was able to drive the British from Boston and change the course of the war.  Cycling through this little canyon is no easy task: hauling through the snow across these mountains was truly heroic.

We leave the Knox Trail, and begin following the French Mountain to Fort Ann cut-off described by the Wevertown folks.  It starts out well, but soon turns into a scary road with heavy traffic and no shoulder.  We were so relieved to be off that road with its heavy semi-truck traffic, we didn’t at first notice how beat-up this town was.  Nearly every building was ramshackle, although they were probably quite nice in the 1890’s when they were built.  More than half the buildings looked to be closed or abandoned.  We could see no signs of economic life.  It seemed as though Fort Ann was in the process of ghosting. 

We find a little tavern in one of the few open buildings.  The owners were truly surprised to see two strangers come in.  We order a beer and ask about accommodations.  There are none here, none near here either.  I check my phone and find out that there is one motel within 20 miles.  It is up in Whitehall, which is another 14 miles up the road.  The barkeep and her husband, who is sweeping up, both make faces and warn us off it, saying it is a known location for prostitution. 
About that time, a professionally dressed woman and her casually dressed husband come into the bar. They are longtime friends of the owners.  She works in Vermont and is on her way home. They ask her if she is aware of any other lodging between Fort Ann and Vermont.  She thinks long and hard, and gives us the name of place right on the border in Vermont.  She thinks it is another 6 or 7 miles past Whitehall.  It would be a lot better…and a lot safer…

We have already ridden 40 miles by this point and it is after 4pm. If we have any hope of getting to this better place, we better get a move on.  We ask about the bike trail following the canal.  It stops at Fort Ann.  We have to ride US 4.  We ride this national highway with heavy traffic, but a good shoulder, watching the sun move ever closer to the foothills on our left.  By the time we get to Whitehall, the sun is just about over the hill.  We’re beat. It will be dark soon.  It’s the fleabag motel for us.

It is bad. It is dirty. The sink in our room pours water onto the floor through the leaky gooseneck.   The heat doesn’t work and the landlord brings us a space heater.  There is no way I am sleeping in that bed.  We bring our bikes and trailers in the room for safekeeping.  Our dinner that night comes from a rundown McDonald’s next door.   We watch TV for a while and manage to get some sleep on top of the bed.

The next day, we wander up and down the streets of Whitehall, looking for a place to get some breakfast.  It is not as bad as Fort Ann, but it too has seen much better days.  There are beautiful 19^th century manor houses, from when this was a canal and boat building hub.  About half of these buildings are in good repair.   There is a big castle on the hill and there are numerous signs proclaiming Whitehall as the birthplace of the American Navy.  It is situated at the southern end of Lake Champlain and has none of the tourism energy of either Lake George or Burlington.   We end up eating at a small diner which has been in business for 50 years but has a sign announcing it is going out of business.  The young tattooed waitress tells us she is leaving the town as soon as the place closes.  “There ain’t nothing here anymore.”  Across the small room, two older town residents talk at length about the town’s big deficit.  It is hard to believe that North Creek is only 35 miles away, as the crow flies.

We make our way out of the valley and up the hill to Vermont.  We climb and climb before reaching the better accommodations we had been told about.  We couldn’t have made it the previous evening. 

When we cross the border into Vermont and enter the picturesque little town of Fair Haven, Vermont, we have entered another world.  It is as shocking a border crossing as the one between Detroit and Grosse Pointe.  One side, decay and dereliction, signs of poverty everywhere, the other side, services and shops, buildings in good order, signs of prosperity.   In modern day United States, these are the passages of inequality…there are them that gots and them that ain’t.

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.

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Posted from Medina, NY

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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.

 

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posted from Port Stanley, ONT

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T+89: Hay Daze

Mile 3010: MIDLAND, MI

We head out the next day with the idea that we should make a run for the border of Wisconsin, with the hope that the weather and luck would cooperate.  Fat chance. The wind continues hot, dry, and strong from the southeast.  The route has us going south, then east, south, then east.  Thinking I can outwit the wind, I have us turn on an alternate road, only to find that the bridge we needed to cross is out.  We wander, half lost, through farm roads, hoping we can make our way back to the route in a few miles.  We finally do make our way to the tiny town of Dalbo, but miss what is considered an essential stop on this route…the Adventure Cyclists’ Bunkhouse, where one of the founders of the organization has created a respite for cross country bikers.    We have been wrong so often today, there is no way we are backtracking up the hill to visit that respite. 

At Dalbo, we decide we have had enough of beat-up back roads that jar our bones and add extra miles.  We decide to follow Highway 95, a major cross state road that will take us through the Cambridge and North Branch.  It is Saturday.  This is farm country.   How busy could it be?  The answer is a lot.  It continues hot, and we are getting overheated, so we stop in a nice old tavern in Cambridge for a cold drink.  We better find a place to stay.  I start the search.  I call everything in North Branch, which is on Interstate 35.  Sold out.  I move up and down the Interstate, calling various establishments with 15 miles.  Sold out.  We try websites of motels in Cambridge.  No availability.  As a last final shot, I call the closest motel, just to see if the desk confirms what the website said.  The young voice at end of the line confirms that they are sold out, but….they just had a cancellation on a jacuzzi king at a high price.   Eeeek.  We take it.

When we get to the motel, we ask the impossibly young desk clerk, “What on earth is going on?  Why are there no rooms within 50 miles?”  It’s Hay Days, she says, certain we have an idea what that means.  What is Hay Days?  Why it’s the biggest event of the season around here.  People come from miles around, but especially Canada, to race their snowmobiles on alfalfa hay.   There are hundreds of contestants and many thousands of spectators.  Haven’t we ever heard of Hay Days?  It used to be here in Cambridge, but it got so big, they moved it over by North Branch.

The Crossing Motel is jumping, with all sorts of families bringing in bikes, and kids, and coolers.  There are groups of men drinking beer after beer on the porches outside.  Most of the cars do indeed have Canadian license plates.  A good many are pulling trailers.  There is a lot of noise up and down the halls.  It is clear that not only is the motel full, most rooms are full to capacity as well.  We decide to do our laundry as we have had to end our ride so early.  As I make my way down the hall, I look in one room and see a harried set of parents, luggage strewn everywhere, two kids jumping on the beds, and the cry, “What do you mean you don’t know where the tickets are?”

As luck would have it, the dryer fails to dry.  The perky young desk clerk, who also has to do the entire motel’s laundry, volunteers to dry our clothes in the industrial dryers.  She takes our damp clothes and tells me to check back in twenty minutes.  I do.  Still not in the dryer; things have been hectic.  I go again in another twenty minutes, then another, then another.   At this point, I figure it won’t get done until after things have quieted down for the night, so Wes and I decide to take advantage of the Jacuzzi.  We have just settled in when there is a knock at the door.  Wes answers it, wrapped in a towel.  The flustered desk clerk stammers,  “He…he…here’s your laundry.”

The next day we head out and the road is packed with Hay Days traffic.  We don’t think we have ever seen so many big pickup trucks pulling snowmobiles on trailers, or carrying them in their beds.  There is an edginess in the traffic, with lots of revved-up motors and unsafe passing, as individuals in the big string of traffic try to get to the race just a little quicker.   All along the way, anybody who has got anything to sell has got it out along the road.   There are garage sales, art sales, bake sales, innumerable snowmobiles, motorcycles, four-wheelers, farm equipment--a multi-mile yard sale.  Soon there are parking hawkers, trying to encourage drivers into their ad-hoc parking lots.  The prices climb from $5 to $10 to $20.  Finally, we are to the big cut hay field where the races are taking place.  We can hear them long before we can see them.

Off in the distance, we see numerous circus-size tents set around two hills which form the grounds.  One hill was for seating. The other, much lower, is the race track.  There are thousands of trailers, trucks, tents, and various kinds of transportation equipment between the race track and the road.  There are police on the roads directing traffic and shuttles running back and forth.  People are rushing about in a high state of excitement. 

Wes and I are flummoxed.  We had never even heard of grass snowmobiling 24 hours ago.  Of course, it is our special kind of luck to be cycling through its premier event.  A few miles past the agitation and noise of thousands of snowmobiles circling in a cut alfalfa field, I spot a little shop that says, Amelund Mercantile: Coffee, Housewares, Baked Goods, Fresh Eggs—Since 1910.  Looks like our kind of place. 

We go in and meet Anna.  She is a registered nurse who works in Minneapolis, but who commutes back and forth to her hometown to care for her elderly parents and this store.  She has just purchased a domestic espresso maker and is interested in getting our feedback on her efforts.  The building has been the center of this little Swedish community since its founding.  There are lots of interesting dishes and odds and ends.  I wander about, picking up plates, looking at embroidery, trying on wool jackets.  I feel a little homesick.  

A young, tall, heavy-set woman of about 19 comes in to share news with Anna, but upon seeing, stops in her tracks, apologizes and very nearly leaves.  Anna tells her it’s ok, that we’re just having coffee.  She blushes, self-conscious around strangers.  However, it is not long until we are busily chatting.  She loves the Hay Days and all the excitement it brings.  She tells us that it brings in 250,000 people over the whole week and that there are contestants from Alaska and Washington State, and from every province in Canada.   

She is less excited to talk about the economy around here, especially about something as boring as farming, which she has done every day of her life.  We talk about the drought just north of here and she tells us they will only get three cuttings of hay this year.  Finally, she pulls Anna aside and whispers the news she came to share.   Anna returns to us and tells us they are planning a baby shower.  She tells us how worried she is about this little town surviving.  Most of the young people have moved to Minneapolis, just as she had in her younger days.  She expects to stay at her job as a union nurse a few more years, then she will be back full time in Amelund and in this little store.  She shakes her head, “Keeping my family and this little town together, that’s what it’s all about for me.”

She points out the prettiest way to return to highway and watches us go, waving and smiling.  We felt honored to meet her.  This was the Minnesota we had expected to meet.  We are glad we did.  Ten miles down the road, we cross the St. Croix River and enter Wisconsin.  Immediately, the energy and the story changes.  But that’s a story for another day.

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posted from Midland, MI