Wisconsin Wamble

Route: MN48 becomes WI77; Danbury; Gandy Dancer Trail; Siren; CR B; Shell Lake; CR B; CR M; CR C; Rice Lake; CR SS; Chetek; CR SS; CR M; SR 27; CR M; NFS Campground Miller Lake; SR 13;Medford; SR 64; CR C; CR F; CR H; CR A; CR K; Wausau; Grand River Ave: Weston; Bay-Mountain Trail; Shawano; SR 22; CR CC; CR CCC; CR K; SR 187; Shiocton; SR 76; CR S; Freedom; CR U; Apple Creek Family Campground; CR U; CR DDD; CR DD; Wrightstown; CR ZZ; CR GG; CR CE; Hollandtown; CR D: CR PP; Potter; CR JJ; US 10; Manitowoc

By the way, Wisconsin offers online county maps that identify bike friendly roads in each county. We used this mappage, which was provided to us by my cousin Dick Murray, to lay out most of our route through Wisconsin. Before leaving Mille Lacs, I downloaded the .pdf's for the counties that we were possibly going to ride through, so we could modify the route as needed.

We arrived in Wisconsin on Monday, July 20 via Minnesota 48 from Hinckley, becoming Wisconsin 77 at the St Croix River, and arriving in Danbury for lunch. After we left Hinckley, and after making several adjustments in height, angle and front-rear positioning, Teresa decided she wanted her old seat back, as the new one was not fitting her bum as well as the old one. Mine seemed fine from the start, and with a few little adjustments I have kept with it without any discomfort.

The Gandy Dancer Bike Trail runs north to south from Superior through Danbury, and we took the crushed limestone trail (pretty solid and smooth as the stone was finely crushed) the 15 miles to Siren. Heading eastward again, we arrived in the neat town of Shell Lake, aptly named for the lake on which it is perched, and didn't have to hunt long for lodging as the Shell Lake Municipal Campground was right at the center of town on the lake. Really nice facility (and priced accordingly at $25 for tenters), it offers the lake, beach, evening family activities (movies, concerts, educational events): Madagasgar was playing that night, and the hillside was full of families with young children. Only problem with the town is that it has just 3 restaurants and the two closest ones close at 2pm. So we walked the mile or so to Becky's (it was taco night, no thanks) and had a very filling meal and a beer, topped with excellent blueberry pie ala mode. Yum. When we returned to the campground and were getting ready to turn in, some young folk walked up and asked if we had bicycled from California. Apparently the campground has the same clientèle each year – families and friends meet there for a week or two every summer – and word of our arrival had spread quickly. So we answered their myriad of questions, and when their mom arrived we answered hers, too, although she was not nearly as inquisitive.

It rained during the night and threatened again as we packed things up Tuesday morning. We had a great breakfast at "Goin' to the Woods Cafe", and as it was raining on and off, we were joined by others from the campground and got to answer a lot more questions and pose for a picture when we were taking off. Heading out, we started with raingear on and wet pavement, but we avoided any real rain as we turned east and then south with a slight northwest wind at our backs. Our intended route and destination was to stay in the country as far as Chetek, then turn east to camp at the morraine campground, a state park. We rode past several beautiful lakes surrounded by vacation homes, bait shops, bar/grills, all with beautifully manicured lawns and lovely flower gardens. With the rain, everyone must have been inside because we had a minimum of traffic. We had not intended to go through Rice Lake, which is the biggest town in the area at about 8,000 people, but our Garmin suggested it would be the shortest route, and we also were running low on electrolyte replacement, so to Rice Lake we went. Lots of traffic, rough roads through town and no electrolyte to be found at either sporting goods or GNC shops, we pushed on the remaining 12 miles or so to Chetek, which was our intended lunch stop. Fortunately with the tail wind, it didn't take long, and we found ourselves in a really nice little vacation town on a lake. As we rode along towards the downtown, we noticed a neat little motel right on the lake and said to each other that would be a nice spot for the night.

We have found that the little cafe's that sport the name of the town are usually a good bet, and the Chetek Cafe was no exception. As we were walking in, a local businessman coming out after lunch told us the best things on the menu, and affirmed our decision: great list of specials, pies and ice cream to boot. As we were trying to decide what special to order, another customer ordered. Oops, that special was all gone. Oops, the next one was, too. Eventually, one of the waitresses decided to bring the specials board up to date and erased at least half the list. Oh, well, how about a turkey sandwich and salad bar? Oh, there is no salad bar, either? Anyway, the food was good and by then we had decided that 45 miles was enough.

We checked with the local Super 8 to know about availability and pricing, then left the cafe. As we were getting ready to ride off, a couple of teenagers on bikes rode up and asked about our bike. We spent about 10 minutes talking with them about our adventure and the town we were now in, and learned that one of them was with the Thursday night water-ski show in the junior division (another event that we would miss). When we mentioned we were going to find a motel, the other said that his friends mom worked at the Grand View Lodge (the one we had seen earlier) and that we should try it. As we always follow the advice of teenagers, we did just that. The Grand View had maybe a dozen rooms, ours had a kitchenette, and was priced lower than the Super 8. The view, right on the lake, was fantastic. We decided to eat in to take advantage of the kitchenette and had a really nice homemade pasta dinner on the balcony overlooking the lake. Really good call to stop early and enjoy Chetek.

Wednesday we awoke to patchy fog and took our time getting ready. We left around 9am, hit the post office (Teresa was second in line but the person ahead of her had a bundle of registered mailers that had to be dealt with one by one, so I enjoyed being the greeter outside for a while), then rode eastward through soom really picturesque Wisconsin farmland and forests. Our path took us past the Chippewa Morraine Ice Age Visitor Center, where we stopped to see what was up. Wisconsin has a trail, called the "Ice Age Trail" that traces the extent of the southerly travel of the glaciers during the last ice age. They have several of these visitor centers across the state which depict the extent of the glaciation and the geology that was transformed by their progress and their retreat. The morraine area we were in was a mile north of the furthest southward glacier travel in that part of Wisconsin, and was full of large deposits of stone, soil and gravel that formed the hills and surrounded the many small lakes, called "kettle lakes" that formed when ice would be covered and insulated by soil and gravel, and then when the ice melted quite some time later, it would become a depression and the melted water would fill it. At least that is how I understood it. A really nice visitor center, with not only displays on glaciation but also on the flora, fauna and native peoples of the area.

Pushing on, we enjoyed lunch at the Big Minnow Bar/Grill and chatted with the locals. When told about our adventure, one fellow just kept shaking his head in disbelief - he said his knees hurt just thinking about it. We told him don't worry about your knees, worry about your bum. We got directions on a short-cut to get back on CR M - which did turn out to be shorter and a decent road - and headed to Miller Lake and the Chequamegon National Forest. When we got there, we found a campsite with access through some trees to the lake, and setup camp. It wasn't long before we were swarmed by mosquitos, which continued unabated throughout the rest of our stay (this was only the second serious engagement with mosquitos on the entire trip, the previous one being in Montana, so not too bad). Our insect repellent had some effect, but even if they weren't biting, just the buzzing was enough to drive you crazy. So we hurried up with the setup, showered and cooked dinner, cleaned up and hid in our tent until bedtime. One of the campers nearby, who had provided Teresa with change for a $20 so we could pay the $14 campsite fee, brought over some fish and chicken for us to enjoy - what a nice and welcome addition to our Pasta Sides/tuna casserole.

The next morning we decided not to prepare breakfast but to push ahead for a while to minimize the mosquito effect. As we were breaking camp, the wind suddenly picked up from the west and the sky - seen through the tree tops above us - appeared quite threatening. I went to the opening at the edge of the lake just in time to see the trailing edge of a massive cloud pass over the lak at warp speed. Surprisingly, it didn't rain at that time, so we continued to break camp (instead of hastily re-pitching the tent or running to the bathrooms), packed the bike and rode as quickly as we could out of there, taking the time however to thank the campers for the good food the night before. They indicated that they have never seen the mosquitos that bad in all the many times they have been there. Lucky us.

As we headed into Perkinstown, we came across this farm that had acres and acres of fenced-in lots with mesh roofs over them. Inside the lots were rows of corn, or soybeans, or sunflowers, and every 15 feet or so at the end of the rows were feeders. Birds with bright blue beaks were milling about the feeders or wandering in and out of the rows of crops. We weren't certain what they were, but the lots continued for quite a distance along our route. Reaching the bait shop/gas station/convenience store in Perkinstown for coffee and our first bite, we asked the storekeeper about them: pheasants. They raise them to sell to the state wildlife department as well as private hunting clubs, producing about 60,000 birds this year, which is down from the 80,000 or so in past years. I still don't know about the blue beaks, but it may have something to do with tagging them while they are in captivity. Perhaps someone reading this has a better idea.

It started raining while we were at the store, so we donned our rain gear once again, but it didn't last long so off it came. In Medford, we had breakfast, then headed up SR 64 intending to go the remainder of our 58 miles for the day to Merrill. SR 64 was not a great road and we took the first opportunity to get off it, even though it meant we would now head to Wausau and a longer day, at 75 miles or so. With the wind mostly behind us, it seemed reasonable, and we found the county roads all very passable this way, until we got real close to Wausau. We also found this area very hilly: we climbed a total of 2400' that day, but no single hill was more than 100' or a quarter mile long. Steep at time, probably 8%, but not long. The last county road we took into Wausau - CR K - was marked on the map as not bike friendly, but it was the only way in. They were right, as it was a direct link between Merrill and Wausau with lots of cars, no sholder except on the uphills (passing lane), and only became really good as we entered town about 6 miles later. Again, the drivers were very polite and good at giving us plenty of room when possible, but we also got off onto the gravel berm at times when there was traffic in both directions.

Once in the city we traveled towards downtown and stopped at Grandma's Corner Cafe for 1st supper to get our minds and bodies realigned before trying to find a place to stay. Rebecca (not Grandma, she was out shopping) after first taking our order, got right into helping with all our questions: she knew the lowest motel rates in town (Super 8), exactly how far it was (1 mile south, 3/4 mile east), then used the internet to google the Bay-Mountain Bike Trail that we hoped to use to get to Shawano the next day, found where the start point was and how to get there from the Super 8, also advising us that we couldn't ride in the street on Grand River on our way to the trail (busiest street in Wisconsin), but that we should use the sidewalk on the far side because there would be fewer cross streets. Man, she knew everything, and she was right, too. So we stayed at the Super 8 that night, and good thing as it was raining when we awoke the next morning - good time to finish the blog for Minnesota.

After posting the Minnesota blog, enjoying the great complementary breakfast (really, not kidding: waffles, yogurt, eggs) and waiting out the rain, we departed the Super 8 following Rebecca's good advice on routes, found a really great cup of coffee in a cafe/wine bar along the way, found a Walgreens for a few needed supplies, and then joined the bike trail start point in Weston. By now it was almost noon, so we rode the path (crushed limestone, not too bad) the 10 miles to Hadley for lunch, then continued on to Shawano. The path was in pretty good shape, and we had a tailwind, so we made good time for the 50 miles of trail, even with the crushed limestone surface, which is a little slower due to slippage and compression. The only real drawback was when we got close to Shawano the trail disappeared and we rode on a not so clearly marked bike route over county and city roads, probably adding 2-3 miles to the total for the day. When we arrived at the Super 8 in Shawano around 6pm, we were surprised to learn they only had one room left, a special double queen for about $20 more than normal, because of the polka festival in nearby Pulaski, known as the "Polka Capital of the World": we took it as all the area motels were pretty much full. Since we couldn't find a ride to the polka fest, we just enjoyed dinner at the nearby Flamingo family restaurant and hit the sack.

From Shawano we had a choice to either continue on the trail to Green Bay or rejoin the Adventure Cycling route, and we chose the latter in order to get back on a faster surface and to have a sure route into Manitowoc. On the way out, we loaded up with Clif Bars and a new drive chain at Joe Bikeler's, learning that we had just missed the "mom and 3 sons" who were also following close along the northern tier route and who had camped out at the lake the previous night. Hopefully we would run into them a some time, possibly at the ferry. Upon departure, we missed the sign for "CR CC" and went about 1.5 miles further on SR 22 before turning around. These last two days were marked by the route of many letters - almost all the road names were multiples of letters: CC; CCC; DD; DDD; CE; PP; JJ; ZZ; GG (pronounce the last two with a french accent, it adds to the pleasure).

We camped Saturday night at the Apple Creek Family Campground just outside of Wrightstown, another really active (and expensive at $28) campground offering swimming, games, ice cream and lots of young families. Shortly after setting up camp and getting our showers, a really big storm came through for about 30 minutes, then it cleared up. We enjoyed cooking a really nice pasta dinner with some freshly cooked meatballs and tomato sauce we picked up in the town of Freedom just before arriving at the campground, and tried to settle down for an early night, except quiet time on Saturday's doesn't arrive until 11pm, so it took a while to get to sleep. It rained again during the night, but not too bad, and when we were having first breakfast on Sunday, our next door neighbor brought over two cups and a pot of coffee - really nice. They have been staying in the campground for a little while, as they are relocating to the area with a job transfer and looking for a new house.

We departed Apple Creek around 7:45am, our first stop a church outside of Kaukauna about 12 miles away where Mass was to be held at 9am. Google maps had placed the church on CR CE about a half mile east of our planned route on CR GG. We turned onto CE around 8:30 and headed east, watching the address numbers on the mailboxes slowly grow towards the number we were looking for. When they started to exceed that number, our doubts set in. This has been a problem with using internet map software - they don't always get it right. Our choices were to either head to Kaukauna, which is where the parish was supposed to be, or head a little further east as we were about to enter another county and the numbering often changes from one county to another. We chose the latter and, sure enough, the numbering started again, giving us renewed hope. As it turns out, the St. Francis Church, which is one of three churches comprising the St. Katherine Parish of Kaukauna, was located in Hollandtown, about 2 miles further down the road. We arrived at 8:50, just in time, were greeted warmly by locals arriving at the same time, enjoyed a great service, and afterwards talked with several folks who told us about the renovation (beautifully painted walls, ceiling and arches with stained glass windows) of the church that was originally founded in 1848.

Pushing off again we found our way along CR PP to CR JJ and, just before we were to enter the town of Collins, we saw a park filled with people, tents and lots of fire engines and farm tractors. Pulling in, we learned that the Collins Volunteer Fire Department was holding their annual tractor pull and festival fundraiser, complete with bratwurst, hamburgers and cheese curds. Another great find, we enjoyed some of each, stayed until the tractor pull was under way, but left before the beer started flowing (good to put a few miles between us and them before that happened). As we left, we could feel a few sprinkles from threatening clouds, but nothing developed. A little further up the road, we could see that we were following a rain cloud and also leading one, with one or two on either side of us. About 8 miles outside of Manitowoc, we came upon the Pinecrest Historical Village and turned in to view the 19th century historical village complete with pioneer cabins, a school house, church, dance hall, saloon, cheese factory, blacksmith, dress maker, bee house, smoke house, etc, etc. After about 45 minutes it started to sprinkle and so we parked ourselves under the porch of the gift shop and watched the storm develop into a 20 minute downpour, also taking the time to call for a reservation at the Econo Lodge in downtown Manitowoc, only a few blocks from the ferry.

Once it stopped raining, we completed our ride into Manitowoc, rode straight to the Econo Lodge which was actually very nice, and headed off to find Tyler's Tap & Grill, one of the few places open on a Sunday in that part of town. About 8 locals were there, and Tyler himself was tending the bar (he has had to lay off some help and actually work himself) which was quite fun as he has a very glowing personality - flaming may be closer to the truth - and was a lot of fun. The beer, food and company was great, and afterwards we headed the short distance across the river to a fantastic ice cream shop. Finally sated, we walked along the riverfront and the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. We viewed the USS Cobia, a WWII submarine moored along the river as part of the museum, one of 28 submarines that were built in Manitowoc between 1943 and 1945. I believe that 6 of them never returned, and that one of them was responsible for the second-most enemy tonnage sunk during the war.

Monday was a great day. After laundry and cleaning the bike for the first time in quite a while (it was a mess), we left the motel about 11am and went to a very nice coffee shop for lunch just a couple blocks away. As we pulled up, we noticed several bikes parked outside, so we were excited to meet some local cyclists. Upon entering and being greeted by about 8 cyclists spread around 3-4 tables, we learned that they weren't locals, but part of a group of 50 cyclists participating in the "America by Bike" supported tour from Astoria, OR to Virginia. Learning that their gear was carried for them, they were staying in motels and eating in restaurants, Teresa immediately said "Reuben, I think I will ride with them now." After our coffee and sandwiches, we left for the ferry and joined up with the whole lot of them. Pedestrians were boarded first, then bicyclists - we all walked out bikes on board and leaned them against the bulwark, stacked 4-5 deep, then headed up top for the ride. The crewman that was directing the loading said this was the largest group of cyclists he had ever handled in 26 years of working on the ferry.

What a fun boat ride! We talked with quite a few of the group, learned that while most of them were in for the long haul, several we joining in at various points and then leaving at others. Their whole trip totalled 50 days, with 5 days off, averaging about 80 miles per day. A team of 7 provided the support, driving two sag vehicles and one luggage truck, with 3 or 4 riding bikes along with the group to keep an eye on things. Most were 50-70 years old, with one in his 80's and a few in their 20's. Really good people, we enjoyed sharing our stories, relaxing on the boat (the crossing was very smooth) and just having a good time. When we arrived in Ludington and most off the cars had disembarked, everyone grabbed their bikes (or grabbed one that you liked) and we walked off. I had seen a group of 3 young men and a woman ride off earlier and, thinking they were the "mother and 3 sons" we had heard of, I kept an eye out for them as we rode from the parking lot. Sure enough, there they were in the parking lot so we rode up to them, introduced ourselves, said we had been hearing about them for quite some time (they said they had heard of us, too), and wished them luck as we headed off to get our picture with the "Welcome to Michigan" sign. We had heard that the father had recently died from cancer and that he had always wanted to make this trip, so they were doing this in honor and memory of him. The Michigan sign was quite crowded with cyclists getting their pictures taken but we managed to get one, then we rode with all of them to the Ramada as we had unknowingly booked into the same hotel. So we completed our day and our visit with the group by enjoying dinner with John, Gene and Anne (you can see Anne's blog at http://www.coasttocoastmama.com/)

So now we are in Michigan (actually been here a week and finally got this posted) and are relaxing considerably as we are 2 weeks or more ahead of schedule. Our plan is to continue riding for the next couple weeks visiting family and friends in Michigan and NW Ohio, then heading to Teresa's parents 60th wedding anniversary party in Ann Arbor on August 22, and then we will be staying at a cottage on Hemlock Lake near Hillsdale with our kids and grandkids until the 28th (family and friends will also join us out there). Afterwards, we head across Ontario, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and, finally, Maine. We plan to return to CA by plane on October 1.