DAY 23 - OH, CANADA

We awoke with everything covered in dew again (you might think we'd learn our lesson and figure out how to avoid wet clothes, but oh well). The campground was also shrouded in fog, and a little chilly, so we quickly got moving on our bikes. The fog on the narrow country roads made visibility low, so we rode cautiously.

Soon enough we got to the town of Lapeer, where Dave picked us out a great breakfast place with an all-you-can-eat buffet! We enjoyed the unlimited calories and then went out to the park lot, where some motorcyclists were similarly about to leave. Their motors were much louder than ours but we still beat them out of the parking lot.

We tried to hussle a little for the rest of the morning, since we knew that Dave's father was meeting us in Port Huron to take us across the Blue Water bridge to Canada. For those who haven't tried biking across this bridge: while it's technically feasible it would be highly dangerous, since there's no shoulder, and the border control also doesn't allow it. Thus why we needed Dave's dad! When we finally arrived, we loaded the bikes on the back of his car, and headed across the bridge. We enjoyed some amazing lunches packed for us by Dave's mother in the car, too!

We got through customs without a hitch, though the officer definitely thought we are crazy for what we're doing. We unloaded in a Tim Horton's parking lot in Sarnia on the Canadian side, and then headed straight to the east for the afternoon.

Basically one road took us the entire next 45 miles, all the way to Strathroy, where we're camping tonight. We were led by the campground owner (on a golf cart) back to a site, where we set up camp.

After a fairly long walk into town from the campground, we took care of some dinner and even had time for a little dessert trip afterwards.

Headed to sleep now in a peaceful campground, and excited for a second day of Canada tomorrow!

DAY 22 - THE THREE OF US ARE FINE

We woke up this morning refreshed after having spent a night in beds in our own rooms. We set our alarm for 6 a.m. and began packing up our clean clothes and the rest of our gear. Dave's mom, Susie, made us a terrific breakfast of steel cut oatmeal and fruit, eggs in a hat and fried ham. It was very difficult to leave as their house is incredibly comfortable and the hospitality was so terrific. We loaded our bikes onto the car, put our gear in the back

and headed back to the spot where Dave's father picked us up. As we reassembled our gear on the side of the road,

I realized I was humming "Back on the Chain Gang" by The Pretenders.  It was truly a Freudian slip as we were all excited about today's ride. Three weeks ago we mailed ourselves a box to Dave's house with supplies. We restocked our camp soap, chain lube, batteries for our head lamps, sunscreen, new tubes and I threw in a new set of bike shorts. As we pedaled away we were wearing clean bike clothes,  had clean bikes, newly lubricated chains, were well rested and well fed.

     Our plan was to take Route 57 all the way to our destination 120 miles away, the Genessee Otter Lake campground. The temperature was in the 60s, the sky was clear and the roads were perfect - Dave describes them as "sharkskin".  I assumed it was because they are very smooth with a little bit of traction to help propel us forward each time we push down, but also realized this type of road is very similar in color to a typical shark - light gray.  Anyway, those are the types of thoughts that pop into your mind when biking all day.

     We were about 14 miles into the ride when it happened. I was in front, enjoying the smooth flat road, riding about 21 mph with Justin right behind me and Dave right behind him, all in a tight pace line.  As we approached the intersection with Berrigan Rd, an older woman in a light blue Volkswagen Beetle pulled into the intersection without stopping at the stop sign.  Although she would eventually stop, she was headed right for me when I hit my brakes.  Justin swerved but crashed into my rear cassette, the teeth of the moving gears ripping into his front tire and tube with a loud explosion of green slime. Dave hit his brakes but as he was passing Justin on the outside,  his handle bar caught Justin's bag and jack-knifed. He and his bike went down, the shifter for his rear derailleur broke off and his front wheel was bent. No one was hurt. As we recovered from the accident the woman stopped to check on us but there was no help she could give us.  Now, many hours later, I wish I had asked her why she didn't stop at the stop sign.  I also wonder why the truck in Wisconsin two days ago tried to run us off the road and why the car in Montana pulled up next to us and yelled, hoping to startle us off the shoulder.  As bikers we are very vulnerable.  We would prefer not to bike with cars and trucks but it is the only way for us to get around.

   We quickly surmised that Dave's bike was unrideable and Justin needed a new tire and tube.  My bike was fine. Still not far from Grand Rapids, we called Dave's father and located a bike shop 5 miles away in Rockford. When looking at the web site for Speed Merchants bike shop, we saw they carried the same type of higher-end components and wheels that we have on our bikes.  While waiting for Dave's father, we changed Justin's tire, then prepared our bikes for the rear rack. He came quickly and by 10:20 we were in the shop. I cannot express how lucky we were to fall into the hands of the wonderful staff at this shop. They saw Dave's shifter and quickly started looking for a replacement. They didn't have one but were happy to "borrow" a replacement from a Trek Madone. While they were doing that, they re-trued his front tire. We thought we would be in the shop for hours, but they dropped everything and had us back on the road in under an hour.

   To save time, we bought sandwiches at a nearby sandwich shop and ate them in the car as Dave's father, for the second time today, redeposited us on our route. At first we were a little nervous but quickly fell back into our routine. Trying to make up for lost time made us bike right through one of the larger towns, Carson City and look for a cold drink in the smaller town of Ashley.  It looked like the convenience store was about 100 yards off 57 but it turned out to be closer to a half a mile. When we got in, the two people working in the store seemed amazed at what we were doing. They asked to take our picture and plan to follow us on the blog. They said we were inspirational, which is exactly what we needed to hear after the events of the morning.

     We had dinner in the Walmart in Clio, our standard fare of yogurt, fruit, chips, tea and dinner salads.

 
 Despite the delay, we made it to the campground before sunset.  We quickly set up the tent, and took showers. To offset the story of the crash, I'll add something on the lighter side. We didn't pack towels so when we get out of the showers in the campgrounds, we shake off the water as best we can, put on our shorts and dry the rest of the way with the hand dryer.

    After the showers, we bought some ice cream, brushed our teeth and were off to bed. As I finish this blog post, it's good to see both Dave and Justin asleep next to me, uninjured, resting for another day. 

DAY 21 - NO PLACE LIKE HOME

While sleeping in at the Hyatt would have been amazing, we woke before the sunrise to dash over to the ferry terminal. The red sunrise peeked over Lake Michigan as we boarded the boat for a 6am departure. 

The ferry took 2.5 hours and we lost an hour due to the time change. After arriving in Muskegon, we headed east on the Muskatewa trail for about 30 miles. We kept a slower than average pace of about 15 mph and chatted while riding 3 abreast. This is our official second and final rest day, so we wanted to take it nice and easy. 

We planned a rendezvous point with my Dad about 30 miles outside Muskegon. The plan was to meet there, drive to my parents home in Grand Rapids, and take the remaining part of the rest day there. 

The plan worked well, and we arrived just in time for a lunch prepared by my mom. We continued to snack throughout the day, but made sure we cleaned all our gear including our bikes. We showered, shaved, and changed into some of my old clothes while the laundry was finishing. 

My sister Ellie, my soon to be brother-in-law Andrew and his Aunt Sally came over to visit, followed by my sister Stephanie and brother-in-law Jeff. 

Even though we were eating most of the day, we packing in another vegetable-laiden feast for dinner. We shared many stories from the road with my family, while my family told many embarrassing stories of my childhood. 

We talked over local beers and dessert into the night. Bedtime came all to soon, although getting to sleep in my childhood bunk bed is a perfect end to our first day in Michigan. Every time I come home, I'm reminded just how awesome my family is. It will be tough leaving here in the morning to get back on the road.

DAY 20 - HAPPY HOLSTEINS

Knowing there was a rest day ahead of us tomorrow, we woke up early today at our campground in Spring Green to get on the road. Our campground was covered in dew and fog clouded the road as we headed out.

Our first stop was actually only a couple miles down the road. Before we went to bed last night, we were alerted to the fact that our campground was directly across the river from Taliesen, one of the more famous Frank Lloyd Wright houses. We altered our route of the campground by a scant two miles and headed across the foggy Wisconsin River. Since it was around 6:30 in the morning, neither the visitor center or the actual house were open for visitors. Not to be deterred, we disregarded the "No Admittance" sign on the driveway and headed up to the house. We got to the top of the gravel road and explored around the outside of the house, trying not to disturb the occupants.

For both Don and me, this was the second Frank Lloyd Wright landmark we'd visited in the last couple months (I saw Falling Water and Don just saw his original house and studio outside Chicago). Taliesen was pretty best though, even without a guided tour. The fog, while it made the house invisible from the road, only added to its natural beauty. It has a pretty cool history, too- apparently Wright's mistress and a couple others were killed by a servant who then burned the house down. Two iterations later... There's a pretty cool house on a hill that we got to visit in the fog early in the morning!

From Taliesen, we headed out to the east, trying to warm up while wearing tons of layers. After a quick coffee stop, we were able to get to Madison before stopping for a real brunch. We explored the city (and the UW campus) a little bit and got some advice on where to get some quick tasty fuel.

Some of you might be wondering what we do with our bikes when we get food or stay somewhere at night. Though it's on our gear list I'm guessing most people haven't studied that the way that Dave has. Well, the answer to the question of what we do with them varies. Sometimes we bring the bikes into wherever we're going, sometimes we leave them leaning against a wall outside, and sometimes we lock them outside. I'm guessing that as we get into more populated areas, we'll probably be locking them more often. What do we lock them with? Well, we've got a pretty small and lightweight MasterLock made mostly of plastic that we lock into a 6-foot Flexweave cable lock from REI. We either lock the bikes together or to some stationary object. Whether or not we lock them, we try to keep them in view. This morning at breakfast, this meant choosing a table by the window so we could look down at the bikes on the sidewalk.

Anyways, we headed out from breakfast and Madison along the lake, where there was a pretty nice bike path.

We rode mostly on some pretty rolling county roads for the rest of the day, and even though it might not seem like it from the photos, the scenery is a little different- you can tell we're getting into much more populated areas by the comparatively smaller size of fields. We took a great early afternoon ice cream break at a gas station in the town of Lake Mills, where you can see Dave locking up the bikes.

Ice cream - and dairy in general - are items of pride in Wisconsin, it seems. They obviously are proud of their cheese, but this also means that they have ridiculously tasty. (and cheap!) ice cream. Dave and I made quick work of a pint of Caramel Collision at this gas station before we got on the road again.

Figuring that we should probably pay our respects to the wonderful animals that create this great Wisconsin dairy product, we stopped at a farm along the road in the afternoon. Dave and Don tried to feed these Holstein cows, but I'm pretty sure that even to them we didn't smell too great.

A good bit of flat riding for the afternoon along a combination of county roads and suburban residential roads led us finally into the outskirts of Milwaukee, where we ended up on a busy commercial road. Thankfully, there was a huge righthand land just for bikes and buses, so we sped along next to the cars stuck in late afternoon traffic. 

Once in Milwaukee, we were able to shower and change in our hotel before grabbing some Thai food across the street. Heading to sleep soon so that we can get up early to make our ferry in the morning!

DAY 19 - WISCONSIN

As we expected, the day started out very cold. Dave mentioned in yesterday's blog post that a small polar vortex would be affecting temperatures along our route, especially in northern Iowa and today was by far the coldest morning we experienced - much colder than Yellowstone.

Later this morning we biked by a temperature sign on a bank that read 51 degrees and heard at breakfast that a record low of 49 degrees for this day in July was set a few towns over. Despite the low temperatures, our gear did well by us. Justin and I had purchased sleeping bags from Katabatic, which work down to 40 degrees and are under a pound in weight.  http://katabaticgear.com/shop/chisos-sleeping-bag/

Getting ready, I threw on an extra shirt in addition to my biking shirt, arm warmers, leg warmers and jacket. 

Yesterday in the bike shop we were given advice on some roads to take us to the bridge over the Mississippi. We had come into town on Route 9 and it was awful - trucks at high speed, no shoulder and lots of  pot holes wider than the width of a bicycle tire.  Our original route was a direct approach on Route 18 but we were warned it would be worse than our Route 9 experience as 18 is a major route for truckers who need to cross the Mississippi.  If 18 was the hypotenuse, the new route would be the other two sides of the right triangle.  It added about 12 miles but turned out to be absolutely delightful biking. The roads were smooth and wide, with very little traffic. We could even ride three abreast and carry on a conversation which was a pleasant change.

Part of the route was labeled as one of Iowa's scenic byways.

   
We had breakfast in Waukon where our matching biking outfits brought the similar comments to those we received all through northern Iowa, "are you here for the RAGBRAI?"

RAGBRAI is an acronym for the Registers Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa.  It is sponsored by the Des Moines Register and attracts over 10,000 riders each year for a week-long ride across the state. 

It starts next week and is scheduled to take a northern route, stopping in some if the same towns we stopped in: Okoboji, Rock Rapids, Forest City and Decorah.  I rode in the RAGBRAI back in 1999 with a group from the Air Force while I was stationed at Wright-Patterson AFB. The time off was classified as permissive TDY (temporary duty) which meant it was time off but didn't count as vacation. : )  It was a wonderful week, with many similarities to our trip across Iowa: cornfields, friendly people and great hospitality, but in contrast to this year, back in 1999 the temperature exceeded 100 degrees on a few days causing parts of the road to melt.  http://ragbrai.com/about/ragbrai-history-1990s/

Although leaving Iowa was bittersweet, crossing the Mississippi and entering a new state was exciting. The Mississippi River is huge.  After we crossed the bridge, we commented to each other that we thought the river would have been wider.  As it turned out, we were on an island and the width of the river was an equal distance again. 

     

We received more of a welcome entering Wisconsin than any state so far. There was a park that had a large sign for the state,

one for the city,

and a statue of Rev James Marquette, SJ who was the first westerner to "discover" and map the northern Mississippi. I found it amusing that the town on the other side of the river is called Marquette, Iowa, but the inscription on the statue is clear to point out that the discovery was made from the Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin side. The statue of Rev. Marquette has one hand outstretched to the river but his back is squarely to Iowa, looking over Wisconsin. I'm sure this is part of some interstate rivalry. 

We ate lunch in Prairie du Chien and headed east along the Wisconsin River.  Our destination for the night was a camping spot at the Wisconsin River Resort in Spring Green. Again the riding was very enjoyable on Route 60, one of Wisconsin's scenic byways.

After a few relatively short days of 100 miles, it felt good to get in a little longer distance today. There was no wind whatsoever, temperatures in the low 70s,  clear skies and gently rolling hills.

 When we reached our destination, we quickly set up camp and headed to dinner where on Wednesdays there were two specials - happy hour all night and an all-you-can-eat pizza, pasta and salad bar which was great. We caught a few pictures of the sunset on the river after dinner

and headed back to camp where Dave convinced us that we needed to bear (actually raccoon) bag our Power Bars. For the trip we bought very lightweight rope as we thought we would need to bear-bag our supplies in Yellowstone. There they provided boxes, so the rope hadn't been used for more than a clothes line so far. Not wanting to have carried something we didn't need, Dave used the rope to suspend our food out of the reach of raccoons and himself. 

It was another early night as we have a big push to Milwaukee tomorrow which will be 130 miles, 10 more than today.