It was pure bliss floating in the afternoon sun, with no pressure on my butt and all those sensitive parts lapping in the water.
Caramel Pig
Peddling the Dirt across North America
Friends, Frank and the Fonz
Stage 8
Marquette (Cedar Rapids), Iowa – Milwaukee, Wisconsin
215.88 Miles – 437.43 Kilometres
Total distance ridden 3158.90 Miles – 5083.76 Kilometres
Marquette (Cedar Rapids), Iowa – Milwaukee, Wisconsin
215.88 Miles – 437.43 Kilometres
Total distance ridden 3158.90 Miles – 5083.76 Kilometres
What better place to wake up on a Sunday morning, when you're desperate for church, than in the home of a pastor? After a quick feed we were rushed off to St Mark's Lutheran Church. Because Pastor Steve, his wife Annette and their kids all seemed to have stuff that needed doing, Sharon and I were left to our own devices. This was perfect. We effectively went to three wonderful church services one after the other. This helped fill the tank.
The afternoon was spent playing table tennis and in the evening Annette had invited a whole lot of people round for a barbecue.
I had done poetry and story gigs in New York City and Portland as fundraisers for the trip. Outside of the big cities, most people I had asked if they would be willing to host an evening were quite hesitant.
Perhaps as a compromise, near the end of our meal, Steve announced that I had some poetry to read. Within minutes, all those in attendance had found their feet and rushed to the door. I guess they don't do poetry in Iowa. It was hilarious.
The next day started with its usual repetitive laundry and admin. It picked up a little in the afternoon when, for the first time, I got to ride a recumbent bicycle. Other than not being too sure about being so close to the ground, it was a really nice thing to ride. Later on, we picked up our bikes from their service. The fella in the shop had done a real good job. We have foam grips across our butterfly bars. This gives our arms and back a softer ride but unfortunately the grips become quite yucky when they get wet. For some reason the mechanic put handlebar tape over the foam. This was both good and bad. Good because it made our ride feel so much better especially in the rain, and bad because he had effectively sealed in the emergency $100 hidden in our handlebars.
In the evening, we had a family communion service, a simple religious tradition that not only brings us closer to Jesus, but also to each other. After my experience being told I couldn't take the Lord's Supper in the last Lutheran church, this was very refreshing.
When staying with friends, I never ever enjoy the early-to-bed last evening. This time was helped a little by Steve also having to retire early before driving us the two hours back to the Mississippi.
We rose at 5 a.m. and greeted the day with a solid breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs and good coffee. It was close to 8 a.m. when we arrived at Marquette. We quickly unloaded our rides from the car and burdened them with our 12 combined panniers.
It was a rather quick goodbye, then before we knew it, we were cycling over the lazy and somewhat boring Mississippi, followed by Steve's camera lens. We lasted all of five minutes before stopping at a museum in Prairie de Chen for a sudden loo stop.
The afternoon was spent playing table tennis and in the evening Annette had invited a whole lot of people round for a barbecue.
I had done poetry and story gigs in New York City and Portland as fundraisers for the trip. Outside of the big cities, most people I had asked if they would be willing to host an evening were quite hesitant.
Perhaps as a compromise, near the end of our meal, Steve announced that I had some poetry to read. Within minutes, all those in attendance had found their feet and rushed to the door. I guess they don't do poetry in Iowa. It was hilarious.
The next day started with its usual repetitive laundry and admin. It picked up a little in the afternoon when, for the first time, I got to ride a recumbent bicycle. Other than not being too sure about being so close to the ground, it was a really nice thing to ride. Later on, we picked up our bikes from their service. The fella in the shop had done a real good job. We have foam grips across our butterfly bars. This gives our arms and back a softer ride but unfortunately the grips become quite yucky when they get wet. For some reason the mechanic put handlebar tape over the foam. This was both good and bad. Good because it made our ride feel so much better especially in the rain, and bad because he had effectively sealed in the emergency $100 hidden in our handlebars.
In the evening, we had a family communion service, a simple religious tradition that not only brings us closer to Jesus, but also to each other. After my experience being told I couldn't take the Lord's Supper in the last Lutheran church, this was very refreshing.
When staying with friends, I never ever enjoy the early-to-bed last evening. This time was helped a little by Steve also having to retire early before driving us the two hours back to the Mississippi.
We rose at 5 a.m. and greeted the day with a solid breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs and good coffee. It was close to 8 a.m. when we arrived at Marquette. We quickly unloaded our rides from the car and burdened them with our 12 combined panniers.
It was a rather quick goodbye, then before we knew it, we were cycling over the lazy and somewhat boring Mississippi, followed by Steve's camera lens. We lasted all of five minutes before stopping at a museum in Prairie de Chen for a sudden loo stop.
Eventually we stopped in the dodgy town of Mt Hope. One of the annoying parts of keeping ourselves hydrated is that we have to pee every five minutes. Fortunately this seedy-feeling town had public restrooms. I bowled on down to the toilet block, pulled the door, it moved about 2 cm and slammed shut. Because I'm a slow learner, I immediately pulled the door a second time and again the locked door slammed. A movement caught my eye and I looked up in time to notice two hornets. They acknowledged me and quick as a flash, flew down and stung me just above my lip. The nasty little things drew blood and immediately my face started swelling. Sharon gave me one of her antihistamines. There was nothing left to do, really, other than leave this miserable place. We rode out, stopped on the edge of town and peed on the side of the road.
It hadn't been a nice day, but the beautiful town park in Fennimore made up for it. There were kids playing with their families. I felt quite uncomfortable sitting there alone reading my book while Sharon was at the shop. These people were clearly not used to transcontinental cyclists and they eyed me with a waryiness that is usually reserved for staring at vagrants. I tried to act normal and not stare back. When Sharon returned, we decided it would be wise to be subtle about cooking and to set camp as late as possible. This was a shame because it was a lovely town.
That evening we were lulled to slumber by the sound of clipping and clopping and steel wheels on tarmac. Such are the sounds of Amish horse and carts sauntering past. |
We woke with the sun and had a relaxed breakfast, then rather reluctantly cycled out of the park. No sooner had we hit the road, than a lovely-looking pair of Amish women in their buggy came trotting towards us. They watched us for a minute, slowly smiled and gave us a delightful wave. Their lack of suspicion, simple smiles and act of kindness made us feel quite welcome.
Before long we hit the legendary Route 66 and dang it all, thinking we would be on it longer, I didn't take any photos. However, we did take some pictures at the lovely village of Montfort. Wisconsin towns and cities were all lovely – just good ole fashioned lovely. They all looked like they were straight from wholesome 1950s Americana movies. On the other hand, the countryside was boring, undulating and mostly the same shade of green.
We were rather befuddled when having second breakfast in Cobb. We came across a sign that read 'No Tables Removed'. This was perfect because if they had been removed, we would not have had a place to sit.
We stopped at an A&W in Dodgeville. To get a picture of this restaurant, you need to think Happy Days or Grease, when they visited those funky burger joints in their cars. The waitresses were always pretty, all-American girls on roller-skates who would glide out to your car with a tray of food held at shoulder height. Well, I kid you not, this was one of those places.
It fascinates me how those thin young 1950s servers skated themselves out of a job by delivering trays of saturated fats and sugar. Ultimately their successors couldn't skate any more because they were all victims of type 2 diabetes and the obesity epidemic. This, I suspect, is the reason why unfortunately our waitress wasn't rolling wheels under her shoes.
Anyhow, we rode our bikes into the drive-in restaurant and found an outside table beside a menu fixed to some sort of an intercom system.
There was a little green button at the bottom of the sign, beside it read, 'Push button once to order'. I pushed the button...once...I waited, and waited some more. I asked Sharon, 'What should I do?', she informed me that the light hadn't come on. I couldn't see any light that should have come on. I told Sharon that it says to only push it once. I pushed it again. We waited again, we got confused, we were hungry and beginning to stress.
According to the video I took, we waited an extraordinarily long one minute and 17 seconds before we threw in the towel and walked inside to order. The whole experience was fantastically All American and, of course, there is nothing better than fresh A&W Root Beer. At least there is nothing better than A&W Root Beer right up until the point your dentist starts scrapping the plaque off your teeth.
Rather than cycle on the busy Wisconsin Law Enforcement Officers Highway, we jumped on a rough, poorly maintained, gravel bike trail and eventually found ourselves rather dishevelled in Blue Mounds. I presume this Wisconsinly pretty town got its name from its rather steep and large mounds. I more remember them as being minor mountains. Perhaps my judgement is skewed by the fact that we laboured our heavy bikes up the wrong one in search of the town park.
Knowing that rain was coming, we raced up the next minor-mountain/major-mound to the rather pretty, lovely, gorgeous or sweet Brigham County park. As we rode in, the rain started. There was a huge pavilion there and we parked right in the centre of it and watched locals quickly pack their hammocks and disappear back down into their Wisconsinie town.
Before long we hit the legendary Route 66 and dang it all, thinking we would be on it longer, I didn't take any photos. However, we did take some pictures at the lovely village of Montfort. Wisconsin towns and cities were all lovely – just good ole fashioned lovely. They all looked like they were straight from wholesome 1950s Americana movies. On the other hand, the countryside was boring, undulating and mostly the same shade of green.
We were rather befuddled when having second breakfast in Cobb. We came across a sign that read 'No Tables Removed'. This was perfect because if they had been removed, we would not have had a place to sit.
We stopped at an A&W in Dodgeville. To get a picture of this restaurant, you need to think Happy Days or Grease, when they visited those funky burger joints in their cars. The waitresses were always pretty, all-American girls on roller-skates who would glide out to your car with a tray of food held at shoulder height. Well, I kid you not, this was one of those places.
It fascinates me how those thin young 1950s servers skated themselves out of a job by delivering trays of saturated fats and sugar. Ultimately their successors couldn't skate any more because they were all victims of type 2 diabetes and the obesity epidemic. This, I suspect, is the reason why unfortunately our waitress wasn't rolling wheels under her shoes.
Anyhow, we rode our bikes into the drive-in restaurant and found an outside table beside a menu fixed to some sort of an intercom system.
There was a little green button at the bottom of the sign, beside it read, 'Push button once to order'. I pushed the button...once...I waited, and waited some more. I asked Sharon, 'What should I do?', she informed me that the light hadn't come on. I couldn't see any light that should have come on. I told Sharon that it says to only push it once. I pushed it again. We waited again, we got confused, we were hungry and beginning to stress.
According to the video I took, we waited an extraordinarily long one minute and 17 seconds before we threw in the towel and walked inside to order. The whole experience was fantastically All American and, of course, there is nothing better than fresh A&W Root Beer. At least there is nothing better than A&W Root Beer right up until the point your dentist starts scrapping the plaque off your teeth.
Rather than cycle on the busy Wisconsin Law Enforcement Officers Highway, we jumped on a rough, poorly maintained, gravel bike trail and eventually found ourselves rather dishevelled in Blue Mounds. I presume this Wisconsinly pretty town got its name from its rather steep and large mounds. I more remember them as being minor mountains. Perhaps my judgement is skewed by the fact that we laboured our heavy bikes up the wrong one in search of the town park.
Knowing that rain was coming, we raced up the next minor-mountain/major-mound to the rather pretty, lovely, gorgeous or sweet Brigham County park. As we rode in, the rain started. There was a huge pavilion there and we parked right in the centre of it and watched locals quickly pack their hammocks and disappear back down into their Wisconsinie town.
There was a Dude there zooming around on a ride-on mower. When he was putting the thing away, I rushed on over and asked him if it would be okay if we pitched our tent in the large shelter. He said absolutely not, that we must camp in the designated camping spot. What is it about Americans and their designated spots? It bucketed down, like it totally heaved it down. The stand we were in was about eight metres wide and about 16 metres long; we were sitting right in the middle and were still getting wet. We ate our tea, dusk came and it was still storming. We pitched our tent right in the middle. No sooner had we jumped into bed on the concrete floor, than the lights turned on. America is also obsessed with lights. We were too tired, cold and damp to care and pretty much went straight to sleep.
|
Believe it or not, when we woke in the morning, my sleeping bag and the tent were wet. I can't imagine what it would have been like if we had camped outside. We had a long, slow breakfast and attempted to dry our stuff.
After a bit, we cycled a gorgeous path down to the road, then the highway at the bottom was instantly busy. This was a feeder route into Madison. It was unpleasant riding over undulating and hilly roads. On the outskirts of the city, we hit roadworks and were detoured down a steep hill. This turned out to be a good thing because we stumbled upon the start of a cycle path. The quality of the path wasn't flash, and it slowed us down quite a lot, but the actual cycle network carried us right through Madison without once having to go on a road. This was fantastic. It was a toll cycle route: we begrudgingly paid five dollars for the experience and I sincerely hope that dosh goes towards upgrading the riding surface.
Just before McFarland, we were rather tiredly climbing a hill and a lady slowly overtook us. She started yelling encouragement out the window. She informed us that she had done many things similar to what we were doing and that we were 'doing good'.
By the time we arrived at our friends' place, we were rather hungry and a bit tired. I was so excited about arriving at Steve and Myra's, partially because years earlier they had lovingly given me my panniers. This was my saddlebags' homecoming.
We once again spent a relaxed evening catching up with old friends. The only difference was, that we couldn't stay up because early in the morn, Steve and I were driving into the Wisconsin Dells to tyre-tube down the Wisconsin River. This ended up being very cathartic. A tyre tube is the opposite to a bike saddle. It was pure bliss floating in the afternoon sun, with no pressure on my butt and all those sensitive parts lapping in the water.
After a bit, we cycled a gorgeous path down to the road, then the highway at the bottom was instantly busy. This was a feeder route into Madison. It was unpleasant riding over undulating and hilly roads. On the outskirts of the city, we hit roadworks and were detoured down a steep hill. This turned out to be a good thing because we stumbled upon the start of a cycle path. The quality of the path wasn't flash, and it slowed us down quite a lot, but the actual cycle network carried us right through Madison without once having to go on a road. This was fantastic. It was a toll cycle route: we begrudgingly paid five dollars for the experience and I sincerely hope that dosh goes towards upgrading the riding surface.
Just before McFarland, we were rather tiredly climbing a hill and a lady slowly overtook us. She started yelling encouragement out the window. She informed us that she had done many things similar to what we were doing and that we were 'doing good'.
By the time we arrived at our friends' place, we were rather hungry and a bit tired. I was so excited about arriving at Steve and Myra's, partially because years earlier they had lovingly given me my panniers. This was my saddlebags' homecoming.
We once again spent a relaxed evening catching up with old friends. The only difference was, that we couldn't stay up because early in the morn, Steve and I were driving into the Wisconsin Dells to tyre-tube down the Wisconsin River. This ended up being very cathartic. A tyre tube is the opposite to a bike saddle. It was pure bliss floating in the afternoon sun, with no pressure on my butt and all those sensitive parts lapping in the water.
Sharon had been enduring a vitamin B12 deficiency and we had scheduled this afternoon for a top-up injection. This involved Steve driving us to another city 30 miles south. Uptown Janesville shopping mall had the rare honour of housing 'The B12 Store'. For the grand total of $25, Sharon could get her energy, metabolism, mood and memory boosted. They whipped her behind a flimsy screen, whacked a needle in her arm and she came out perky, happy, hungry and could remember exactly why. In short, I couldn't notice any difference.
Next we were off to DICK'S Sporting Goods for some Shoe Goo and a replacement cargo net for Sharon's bike, before meeting Myra for tea. |
Day 80 was my absolute highlight of the trip. Steve had asked us a couple of times if we wanted to visit Taliesin, which was once the home of Frank Lloyd Wright. Other than knowing that he was an architect, I didn't care that much about him. Steve was quite excited and, for him, quite persistent about the idea, so we agreed to go.
We were shuttled to the site from a visitor centre. As soon as I got off the bus, my creative side started getting excited. I love straight lines, and on the brow of a hill, Wright had created this beautiful hidden home that just overflowed with long, lazy, straight lines. They went everywhere. The stables, the reflecting pool, the windows, the lounges, the lampshades, everywhere criss-crossing, hidden and seen, were tired, unambiguous, straight lines. I went nuts and took so many photos that my SD card died. It is still a little hard for me to believe that we rode past so much natural beauty, and yet the highlight of my tour was when a man came along and subtly tweaked this into a bold statement camouflaged into the contours of an incline. It was simply stunning and again I am so grateful for friends who sometimes know me better than I do.
That evening, we met Myra at a quaint Italian restaurant. They had told me this was one of the best Italian eateries in town. I love fresh pasta and quickly ordered pistachio and pesto fettucini. Just before the waitress left us, I asked what I thought was a reasonable question, that being how long ago was the pasta made? The waitress looked confused and said that she would go and ask the chef. A good five minutes later, she returned and said, “I don't know, we bought it at Walmart”. I had fully expected them to make their own pasta and so had wanted to know whether it was created last night or this morning. Judging by the hilarity at our table, it seemed that once again with my snooty European ways, I had embarrassed myself. I didn't care, I was with good friends and was about to enjoy a good feed.
On the way home, we stopped at Myra's Community Garden and had a tour of her veggie garden before retiring for an early night.
The forever servant Steve rose at 5 a.m. to cook us a pancake, egg and bacon breakfast. This was a hugely comforting start to an almost 100km day.
Early in the morning, we were joined by a dude on a naked Trek bike. It was nice to ride with an interesting and encouraging person. Shortly after he left, we were overtaken by another bloke who simply stated, “Whoa, you are hauling some freight, congratulations”. Being a citizen of the land of the brave and free isn't necessarily a good thing for those who have to put up it's fruit. Yes, we were packing three seasons of gear and many people negatively commented on this, however almost none were humble enough to ask why.
It was a peaceful and cool day. The roads were good and the wind was mostly favourable. It was a Sunday and, because of the length of our route and the excitement of seeing yet more friends, we had given up on the idea of going to church.
We stopped at a lake for panihapon, where I got speaking with a young boat inspector. To my delight, this youth thought my accent was from Wisconsin. It was so pleasant, if even just for a minute, not to be from that mystical place called 'not from around here'.
We carried on cycling east through the gorgeous, extremely Wisconsinie town of Lake Mills. We rode past many churches with doors full of happy people entering. As I said, our focus this day was the destination. This plan stuck right up until the moment we peddled upon a Moravian church. Before Sharon had had a chance to blink, I had braked, swung round a corner and was locking my bike to a power pole. We had studied Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians at Bible College and had never ever seen one of their churches. Their history had left such a good impression on me that there was no way I was going to pass up this opportunity.
A bit late, and slightly smelly and dishevelled, we snuck in a side door and plonked ourselves on wooden pews, in sight of a window framing our secure bikes. I was amazed at how beautiful the church service was and at how it lived up to all our expectations. Afterwards a few curious people gathered around us. Their number one question was, “Do you know what a Moravian church is?” They all beamed from ear to ear when we told them we did and that we had studied their denomination when in Scotland.
Unfortunately soon after the service we chose to scurry away. We flew through Concord and on the outskirts of greater Milwaukee, picked up a good bike path. Cycling into cities is always dispiriting and it took us forever to get to Hartland. We ran out of puff on the way and stopped for a forever faithful Gatorade.
After much cycling, tired and hungry, we turned the corner into Dave and Jude's street. We were greeted by large chalk writing sprawled across the bitumen that read 'Kiwi cyclists welcome'. We smiled and continued riding. There was more script on their driveway: 'Welcome to food, cold drinks, showers, laundry, bed, hot tub and friends, relaxation, mail'. This was signed by their grand-kids.
Apparently, a year earlier, I said we would arrive approximately on this date at 2 p.m. Somewhat unbelievably, David informed me that we were about 12 minutes late. Considering the mountains, snow, plains, heat and storms, I was quite shocked to discover that we were pretty much on schedule.
Once again, it was great to be catching up with good friends. In no time at all, we had showered, put in a load of washing and were sitting on their back balcony enjoying a lazy, relational lunch that seemed to run into early evening. We finished the day in the luxury of a spa pool.
I was up early in the morning, trying to get map making, blog and vlog out of the way. Hunger wasn't an issue, in the last few days we had had more time off the bikes than on them.
Sharon's suspension forks had been developing a lot of play in them. Basically, when she hit the brakes, the forks would move forward an extra 30 mm. The local bike shop seemed freaked out by our European bikes. The USA is the only country I have come across where mechanics struggled to work on bicycles they hadn't seen before. I told many American bike mechanics that our parts were all Shimano and the only thing different was the frames. Technically this wasn't quite true: our tyres were amazing German made Schwalbe Marathon Plus and we were running butterfly handlebars.
Anyhow, our simple bikes were too complicated for the closest shop and we were forced to go into town. The downtown shop was full of workers who thought way too highly of themselves. I don't quite understand this snooty bike shop attitude, but I have struck it all over the world. They did somewhat reluctantly take Sharon's bike, though. I felt quite bad about all the miles Dave was being forced to drive for the sake of her front forks.
We were shuttled to the site from a visitor centre. As soon as I got off the bus, my creative side started getting excited. I love straight lines, and on the brow of a hill, Wright had created this beautiful hidden home that just overflowed with long, lazy, straight lines. They went everywhere. The stables, the reflecting pool, the windows, the lounges, the lampshades, everywhere criss-crossing, hidden and seen, were tired, unambiguous, straight lines. I went nuts and took so many photos that my SD card died. It is still a little hard for me to believe that we rode past so much natural beauty, and yet the highlight of my tour was when a man came along and subtly tweaked this into a bold statement camouflaged into the contours of an incline. It was simply stunning and again I am so grateful for friends who sometimes know me better than I do.
That evening, we met Myra at a quaint Italian restaurant. They had told me this was one of the best Italian eateries in town. I love fresh pasta and quickly ordered pistachio and pesto fettucini. Just before the waitress left us, I asked what I thought was a reasonable question, that being how long ago was the pasta made? The waitress looked confused and said that she would go and ask the chef. A good five minutes later, she returned and said, “I don't know, we bought it at Walmart”. I had fully expected them to make their own pasta and so had wanted to know whether it was created last night or this morning. Judging by the hilarity at our table, it seemed that once again with my snooty European ways, I had embarrassed myself. I didn't care, I was with good friends and was about to enjoy a good feed.
On the way home, we stopped at Myra's Community Garden and had a tour of her veggie garden before retiring for an early night.
The forever servant Steve rose at 5 a.m. to cook us a pancake, egg and bacon breakfast. This was a hugely comforting start to an almost 100km day.
Early in the morning, we were joined by a dude on a naked Trek bike. It was nice to ride with an interesting and encouraging person. Shortly after he left, we were overtaken by another bloke who simply stated, “Whoa, you are hauling some freight, congratulations”. Being a citizen of the land of the brave and free isn't necessarily a good thing for those who have to put up it's fruit. Yes, we were packing three seasons of gear and many people negatively commented on this, however almost none were humble enough to ask why.
It was a peaceful and cool day. The roads were good and the wind was mostly favourable. It was a Sunday and, because of the length of our route and the excitement of seeing yet more friends, we had given up on the idea of going to church.
We stopped at a lake for panihapon, where I got speaking with a young boat inspector. To my delight, this youth thought my accent was from Wisconsin. It was so pleasant, if even just for a minute, not to be from that mystical place called 'not from around here'.
We carried on cycling east through the gorgeous, extremely Wisconsinie town of Lake Mills. We rode past many churches with doors full of happy people entering. As I said, our focus this day was the destination. This plan stuck right up until the moment we peddled upon a Moravian church. Before Sharon had had a chance to blink, I had braked, swung round a corner and was locking my bike to a power pole. We had studied Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians at Bible College and had never ever seen one of their churches. Their history had left such a good impression on me that there was no way I was going to pass up this opportunity.
A bit late, and slightly smelly and dishevelled, we snuck in a side door and plonked ourselves on wooden pews, in sight of a window framing our secure bikes. I was amazed at how beautiful the church service was and at how it lived up to all our expectations. Afterwards a few curious people gathered around us. Their number one question was, “Do you know what a Moravian church is?” They all beamed from ear to ear when we told them we did and that we had studied their denomination when in Scotland.
Unfortunately soon after the service we chose to scurry away. We flew through Concord and on the outskirts of greater Milwaukee, picked up a good bike path. Cycling into cities is always dispiriting and it took us forever to get to Hartland. We ran out of puff on the way and stopped for a forever faithful Gatorade.
After much cycling, tired and hungry, we turned the corner into Dave and Jude's street. We were greeted by large chalk writing sprawled across the bitumen that read 'Kiwi cyclists welcome'. We smiled and continued riding. There was more script on their driveway: 'Welcome to food, cold drinks, showers, laundry, bed, hot tub and friends, relaxation, mail'. This was signed by their grand-kids.
Apparently, a year earlier, I said we would arrive approximately on this date at 2 p.m. Somewhat unbelievably, David informed me that we were about 12 minutes late. Considering the mountains, snow, plains, heat and storms, I was quite shocked to discover that we were pretty much on schedule.
Once again, it was great to be catching up with good friends. In no time at all, we had showered, put in a load of washing and were sitting on their back balcony enjoying a lazy, relational lunch that seemed to run into early evening. We finished the day in the luxury of a spa pool.
I was up early in the morning, trying to get map making, blog and vlog out of the way. Hunger wasn't an issue, in the last few days we had had more time off the bikes than on them.
Sharon's suspension forks had been developing a lot of play in them. Basically, when she hit the brakes, the forks would move forward an extra 30 mm. The local bike shop seemed freaked out by our European bikes. The USA is the only country I have come across where mechanics struggled to work on bicycles they hadn't seen before. I told many American bike mechanics that our parts were all Shimano and the only thing different was the frames. Technically this wasn't quite true: our tyres were amazing German made Schwalbe Marathon Plus and we were running butterfly handlebars.
Anyhow, our simple bikes were too complicated for the closest shop and we were forced to go into town. The downtown shop was full of workers who thought way too highly of themselves. I don't quite understand this snooty bike shop attitude, but I have struck it all over the world. They did somewhat reluctantly take Sharon's bike, though. I felt quite bad about all the miles Dave was being forced to drive for the sake of her front forks.
From here, we went in for lunch and watched a solar eclipse. The afternoon was spent touring the exhibition. We got to sit in numerous Harleys and even saw the one that floated across the Atlantic after the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. The museum was a must do and I'm so glad we were able to see it. Afterwards we went for a walk downtown. Unsurprisingly, Milwaukee was just as pretty as any other Wisconsin town. My highlight was finding a Fonzie statue. As a kid, Happy Days was one of the few television programmes that I was allowed to watch.
And as if the day hadn't been cram-packed with enough cool stuff, I spent the evening zooming round rural Wisconsin on the back of another Harley. I slept well and probably dreamt of carburettors.
The next couple of days included borrowing a car and driving to Grafton to see friends from a Vineyard church. They had visited us a number of times in Lithuania.
We also went to a hoot of a brewery and picked up Sharon's bike, complete with a Surly front end.
The highlight was Dave and Jude purchasing a massage for us. It was supposed to be an hour full body experience but the poor masseuse never got past my legs. She poked, prodded, slapped, punched, and dug long and deep into every knot. I think I was hard work, she seemed quite disappointed that she hadn't loosened my legs nearly as much as she would have liked, but oh, did that pain feel so, so good. I felt positively limber afterwards.
We also spent lots of time talking and soaking in the hot tub, and were blessed with a friend from Chicago coming up for a visit.
On our last evening, I performed a story and poetry gig. It had been a while since my last one in Portland and I enjoyed sharing my art again. People were encouraged to donate towards the evening and the dosh went towards feeding us whilst on the road.
We woke early in the morning and I set about putting Sharon's front panniers on her bike. Because of the new fork and her front rack sitting in a slightly different place, they didn't fit. I was a little panicky, we had a scheduled ferry to catch in the afternoon and had quite a ride to accomplish beforehand. I had to do a temporary fix on her mudguard stays. We hit the road about 30 minutes late.
It wasn't that flash riding on suburban roads, however eventually we found an excellent bike path. No sooner had we jumped on it, than it stopped. This sent us scampering around Waukesha until we found another excellent bike path.
After 20 miles, we stumbled upon the Trailside Cycle shop. We stopped here and asked them to shorten Sharon's fender supports. With no fuss, they dropped what they were doing, disassembled the mudguard, shortened the stays and put it back together. They gave us such graceful service without the international attitude. We haggled over the price for quite a bit; they didn't want to charge us and we wanted to pay. We settled for an insufficient five dollars.
The bike path run out again and we had to spend time competing for road space with cars, until eventually we picked up another route. We followed this until it spat us out into somewhat of a black ghetto. It was a poorer suburb, so naturally had bad roads, which we bounced along until we hit a bike lane.
And as if the day hadn't been cram-packed with enough cool stuff, I spent the evening zooming round rural Wisconsin on the back of another Harley. I slept well and probably dreamt of carburettors.
The next couple of days included borrowing a car and driving to Grafton to see friends from a Vineyard church. They had visited us a number of times in Lithuania.
We also went to a hoot of a brewery and picked up Sharon's bike, complete with a Surly front end.
The highlight was Dave and Jude purchasing a massage for us. It was supposed to be an hour full body experience but the poor masseuse never got past my legs. She poked, prodded, slapped, punched, and dug long and deep into every knot. I think I was hard work, she seemed quite disappointed that she hadn't loosened my legs nearly as much as she would have liked, but oh, did that pain feel so, so good. I felt positively limber afterwards.
We also spent lots of time talking and soaking in the hot tub, and were blessed with a friend from Chicago coming up for a visit.
On our last evening, I performed a story and poetry gig. It had been a while since my last one in Portland and I enjoyed sharing my art again. People were encouraged to donate towards the evening and the dosh went towards feeding us whilst on the road.
We woke early in the morning and I set about putting Sharon's front panniers on her bike. Because of the new fork and her front rack sitting in a slightly different place, they didn't fit. I was a little panicky, we had a scheduled ferry to catch in the afternoon and had quite a ride to accomplish beforehand. I had to do a temporary fix on her mudguard stays. We hit the road about 30 minutes late.
It wasn't that flash riding on suburban roads, however eventually we found an excellent bike path. No sooner had we jumped on it, than it stopped. This sent us scampering around Waukesha until we found another excellent bike path.
After 20 miles, we stumbled upon the Trailside Cycle shop. We stopped here and asked them to shorten Sharon's fender supports. With no fuss, they dropped what they were doing, disassembled the mudguard, shortened the stays and put it back together. They gave us such graceful service without the international attitude. We haggled over the price for quite a bit; they didn't want to charge us and we wanted to pay. We settled for an insufficient five dollars.
The bike path run out again and we had to spend time competing for road space with cars, until eventually we picked up another route. We followed this until it spat us out into somewhat of a black ghetto. It was a poorer suburb, so naturally had bad roads, which we bounced along until we hit a bike lane.
On the other side of a busy road, right near the ferry terminal, we saw another tour cyclist. He was the first we had seen for quite some time. It was too dangerous to stop, so we waved, smiled and lamented not being able to share trail stories.
Due to the frantic road, we missed our turn-off to the lake. Another cyclist spotted our distress, rode alongside and redirected us. Eventually we stopped just before the wharf, for a late lunch overlooking Lake Michigan. David, Jude and their grand-kids joined us for the ferry ride. We said goodbye to them on the car deck, as we docked across the lake in Muskegon. We rode off in the dark along cycle paths that were being watered by sprinkler systems. We settled at a neat, tidy and very expensive lakeside campground. Our heads hit our pillows around midnight. |
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