Day 26 Peace Milwaukee
We got up in the morning around 8 and Evan made us some oatmeal. I added some of his homemade honey in my dish. He has a small bee operation set up in his backyard where he collects the natural honey from. It tasted different from most honey I'd eaten before, but different in a good way.
After that we stopped by the bikeshop to get a selfie with Evan before leaving Milwaukee.
Said selfie:
Thanks Evan for an awesome time, for teaching us a bit about our bikes, for helping us plan our route out of Wisconsin, and of course for offering us a place to sleep for the night!
After that we got rollin and we were on a bike path for the entire day. The only time we got off the path was at the end of the day so we could stop at a grocery store. We got some food for the night and free camped in Lake Mills, WI.
Stats for the day:
Day 27 Midday "Detour"
We got rollin for the day a little before 11. We hopped back on the bike path we were on the day prior. A little after noon we hit Madison, WI- the capital of Wisconsin and home to the University of Wisconsin. It was a beautiful little bike friendly college town in between two lakes. We had some food and drinks along Memorial Union Terrace, the go-to spot in the area. The Terrace is bar/restaurant area right on the coast of Lake Mendota, one of the 2 lakes on either side of Madison. Being that it was a Sunday afternoon it was very busy at the Terrace, with the crowd of customers containing a healthy mixture of young college students and older locals.
Here's the town on a map. The red circle marks the Terrace location.
We liked Madison so much that while we were having lunch at the Terrace we all agreed to stop there for the day and explore the town a little more. Our only goal was to get to La Crosse, WI in 2 days, since we were to be meeting friends there at that date. La Crosse from Madison was 140 miles if we went straight there. Our original plan was to go towards a town more south (Prairie Du Chen) and then follow the Mississippi River up north until we hit La Crosse. Our new plan was to stay in Madison and cut out Prairie Du Chen, heading straight towards La Crosse instead.
So we decided to take a detour for the day. Well.. I guess cut the day short to get more drinks and eat more food is a more appropriate description, but detour sounds better for a cycling blog. And with that, a 60 mile planned day turned into a sub 30 mile day. But hey it was to enjoy ourselves and enjoy the town a little bit more. So it's worth it. In fact, we've already come across a handful of bikers who've warned of getting caught up in the day to day numbers and trying to rush through. Most have shared their own personal stories and partial regrets for rushing through areas they wish they'd spent more time in. To me, the common thread of advice I've noticed from these seasoned bikers is that a detour here and there is healthy.
We scrambled to find a place to sleep for the night. Luckily we came in contact with Robert through warmshowers. He and his wife offered their yard for us to tent in for the night. Before going to meet them we traveled around the city a bit more, exploring other areas and eating more food. Later in the day we met Robert and his wife at their home. He showed us around and we met their two very nice cats. I will preface with saying I am Not a cat person by any means. But aside from one other cat I've met before named Boo, one of the two cats Rob and his wife have was probably the nicest cat I've ever met. He came over to me right away, purring and rubbing his body all along my legs to his extreme satisfaction. It was kinda funny. Petting him knowing how much he loved it felt like a type of therapy one couldn't even pay for. It's always a pleasant surprise when I'm reminded that cats don't always have to be evil and scratch the heck out of you like that one did to me for no good reason when I was 10. But we'll keep the childhood cat trauma stories in the bag for another blog post. Hahaha yeah, as you can see I have a pretty strong negative predisposition towards cats so I am especially happy to have met that one. But I digress.
Later that night we went back to the Terrace to catch the sunset:
We hung out some more there then packed it in for the night, heading back to our tents in Rob's yard.
Very short stats for the day:
Day 28 Cabin (Warmshowers host) in the Woods
We left Rob's a little before 11, getting a late start to the day. Our end goal for the day was Lee, a warmshowers host in La Valle, WI. About 70 miles away. We were on another bike path for most of the day which was nice. It was smooth riding for the most part.
Lee gave Tom instructions on how to find his property. It went something like this: Go under the bridge on the bike path. About a football field's length away there will be a yellow ribbon hanging on a tree. Follow that into the woods, across the bridge, and passed the dead coyote carcass. Don't touch the carcass, my kids are waiting for it to further disintegrate. Follow the string through the woods and you'll arrive at my property.
Maybe it's just me but following a string through the woods to get anywhere is not my ideal method of navigation and truthfully made me partially nervous.
Here's Owen getting across the bridge Lee spoke about. Sidenote: I was recording instead of helping because I was confident he'd make it up that little hill. Yes, I would've felt bad if he didn't make it up because of my lack of help. On the contrary that would've made for a hilarious video. But luckily none of that happened!
If the whole situation of having to walk through the woods passed a dead coyote carcass while following a piece of string to get to this house didn't weird me out enough, the keep out sign with the bloody looking hand print certainly didn't help. Luckily it turned out to be a really nice camping area Lee had by his house. And Lee was a really nice fellow. He gave us some water and even some locally brewed beers which was very nice of him. We set up camp and used Lee's fire pit to make our first fire of the trip that night.
Stats for the day:
Comments