2007 Bike Trip Diary
June
27, Wednesday
Mileage 47 miles
Started: 10: AM Finished: 5:30 PM
Average MPH: 9.4
Biking Time: 4Hr 51Min
Weather: Sunny wind 10-20 [out of the North east,
temp as high as 93 on my thermometer in the sun.
Started out from
home on the way to St Croix Bluffs Regional park. Took 2nd St. to the river,
crossed Stone Arch Bridge and got onto the Energy Parkway and got onto Como Ave
and into St. Paul. There was some
construction here and there, not causing us too much trouble although we got a
little out of our way in St Paul, but eventually got to Warner St., on the
Mississippi. When we got off that and
onto Afton Rd., we ran into hills. Lots of hills. When e got onto Military Road, there was a fair amount of slight,
long downhills which was very nice. We
stopped at that one park for a snack and a rest and a bathroom break and when
we were ready to leave, John had a flat front tire. He couldn't find any reason for it, except that one of the old
patches may have come loose; except that it was in place when he first saw
it. At any rate he put air back in the
tire and on we went. Since I am riding
this one day later, I can state that we got through the whole next day with no
problem.
We took a bunch of
back roads and turned onto St Croix Trail.
At that point was where we hit the mother of all hills. Plus it was late in the day. It was a killer. We took many 1 minute rests before we got to the top. Not far from there we go to the St. Croix
Bluffs Regional Park. It was a very
nice park, we had a very nice site, with water very near by and our own port a
potty since there were hardly any people and none wanted to use it anyway. It was immaculately clean.
We saw a wild turkey
on the way into the park.
Money spent today:
$14.00 campsite.
Mileage: 44.
Started: 8: AM Finished: 3:30 PM
Average MPH:
9.1. (John) 9.2
Biking Time: 4Hr 46Min
Weather: Mostly cloudy with the wind in our face most
of the time, maybe 5-10 mph., temp 71, but when the sun was shining, it hit 86.
Started out from St.
Croix Bluffs and saw that turkey again. We biked the St. Croix Trail, not so
hilly anymore and went into Prescott and took 35 going south. It had a very nice shoulder the entire time
we were on it. That's the only good
thing I can say about it. Terrible
hills. Long, long relatively steep in
places, where we were stopping for our 1 minute rests. It felt like it took an hour to get up and 3
minute to go down. On one of the hills
John hit 41 mph; I hit 32.5, with tears streaming down my face.
We took county k and
then 830th Street and that took us across some bridge and onto 63. The shoulder on 63 was only about 12-24
inches, but we were not on it very long and it took us across the Mississippi
and into Red Wing. We ate lunch there
in the shade and got back onto 61/63 which now (on the MN side) had a fabulous
shoulder. The Adventure Cycling map has
us frequently off of 63, since it is quite busy, and taking us up into the
hills on quiet roads. We opted to stay
on busy 61 with the beautiful wide shoulder and that was either flat or tending
downhill. It was wonderful.
I saw a deer, we saw
some gold finches, some soaring birds.
We stopped at
Frontenac Station and got some groceries and then biked 4 more miles to our
park here at Lake City; Hok-si-la city park on the Mississippi. It's nice although we do not have a view of
the river. Those sites were taken and
there is none here where we are. We
remember what the mosquitoes were like when we went down the Miss., so our tent
is up because we are expecting an onslaught of mosquitoes when the sun goes
down.
It was just kind of
a tiring day today; the second day out (read 2nd day of training) our butts are
sore and it was nice to stop early. We
are just planning to take 61 south for a day or two as opposed to following the
Adventure Cycling Route.
Money spent today:
$15.00 campsite
$11.63 groceries
Mileage: 52.
Started: 8:15 AM Finished: 4:15 PM
Average MPH: 9.4
Biking Time:
5 Hr 23Min
Weather: Sunny, wind 5-15 out of all directions,
sometimes in our face, sometimes pushing us, sometime no wind. temp 61 starting, noticed a temp of 81 in
some city.
Started out from
Hok-si-la. Last night John went out and
checked out Hok si la and found out it is a huge park. There is a mess hall there and many other
buildings and we decided that it was perhaps a Church or YMCA type camp at one
point in time. Also John finally
figured out that there were no cars there.
They had some carts you could use to transport your stuff, but there
were no cars anywhere in all of the many camping areas. We just rode our bikes
in as usual and I at least completely missed the fact that there were no
cars. It was quite nice.
I met a guy an his
wife from Schaumburg IL who has biked the Chicago to Milwaukee trail. He gave me his card with cell phone number,
so we can call him if we need anything.
As we left the
campground (and we did have the entire "A" section to ourselves) and
were about to enter onto hwy 61, 2 bikers came by. They were from Virginia and each had a bob trailer. They were on their way to Seattle. I think their names were Dan and Steve. They had gone 100 miles the night before and
were planning to bike all the way to Stillwater to pick up a package. We biked on and passed another biker, on the
other side of the road, name of Steve who was from Boston and was going to
Seattle. We passed probably 2 more and
just waved.
John saw 2
woodchucks this morning on his way to the bathroom. We saw a bald eagle. I got sunburn on my face today. Not good.
Don't have any aloe, so am slopping lavender + chamomile on it.
The road was a
little more hilly today, but basically quite flat. We stayed on 61 the entire time.
Near the end (at 20 miles) I was getting pretty tired but we just slowed
the pace and it worked out well.
When we got to
Winona, the road we were supposed to turn onto to get to the campground was
closed for construction, but we found the way there with the help of some very
nice people.
And here we are at
Prairie Island City Campground. It is
big also and we found out that the non-electric part never fills up. Tonight we have a pretty close view of the
Mississippi.
I should slop some
more oil on my face and go to bed.
Money spent today:
$17.04 camping
$ 5.00
cash beer
$ 5.62 snacks
$ 7.25 dinner
Mileage: 42.4
Started: 8:30 AM Finished: 5:15 PM
Average MPH: 9.5
Biking Time:
4Hr 20Min
Weather: Sunny wind 5-15 from all directions;
sometimes pushing us, sometimes in our face, sometimes no wind. temp starting 61, ending temp of 84 on my
bike computer in the shade.
Started out going
into the city of Winona to see if the library was open and we got there at 9:05;
it opened at 9, so we both got a computer.
Before we even got there we saw a cross country biker who had left Bar
Harbor Maine and he was headed for Oregon.
His name was Briton. Then we went to the library, then to Super Wal-Mart
and then to biking. It was about 10:30.
We saw a fawn on the
side of the road, running into the woods. We saw a couple of beautiful red tail
hawks.
Our concern today
was that hwy 61, according to all the maps, was to turn into I-90. We figured that there was no way that they
would just do that; that there must be an alternative route; other than the one
Adventure Cycling showed us that put on an extra 5 miles going up into the
bluffs. We looked at google maps and it
showed that we should be able to get onto Riverside Dr and go away and then it
showed that we could turn onto hwy 1, go out of our way a little way and wind
up in LaCrescent like we were supposed to.
So we bike and bike and see the sign "next exit I-90 west, in 1
mile". We keep biking instead of
taking the alternate route up into the hills and as we are coming up to I-90
there is this old bike sign showing us a different route, but we take the I-90
route because we're sure there's going to be a road around the corner. But no.
It says 'entering freeway, no pedestrians, bikers, etc. We're forced off
the road, get cut across the grass and are on that strange route that has a
bicycle sign on it. No info, no
nothing, just an old bike sign. The
road is good, the shoulder fine, it's flat - what have we got to loose? It takes us to Riverside Dr! Where we wanted
to go. It turns here and there and we just follow the signs and it takes us to
a bike trail. And OLD bike trail and we
follow it. It's flat, the train tracks
and the Mississippi are on our left, the freeway we can hear, is on our right,
over a burm. We bike about 4 miles and
come to the freeway intersection. After
checking carefully, we see the bike sign, pointing us in an odd place, but by
now we're sure they know what they're doing and they take us up onto a busy
highway, cross another highway and we're right back on the shoulder of 61
headed to La Crescent!! Absolutely
perfect! Better than we could ever have
imagined.
There was a bad
part. John ran over a huge nail and
punctured his tire and his tube in 2 places.
Got that fixed, got back on the highway, found highway 16 that took us
to hwy 26 and John got another flat tire.
He fixed that and now we are in
Brownsville. Actually right outside at
the wildcat Landing and campground, right on the Mississippi. Watching the boaters and the barges.
We did stop at a bar
today for hamburgers. Since we started
so late anyway, we decided what the heck?. It was uncommonly good.
Money spent today:
$12.82 Wal-Mart -fruit aloe
$13
cash lunch
$ 2
cash Gatorade
$ 8.90 dinner
$18.11 camping
Mileage: 56.64
Started: 8: AM Finished: 6: PM
Average MPH: 8.8.
Biking Time: 6Hr 19Min
Weather: Sunny wind 10-15 out of the southeast, temp
64 in the morning, starting to get muggy. At 7pm my thermometer reads 72. However that sun is really hot during the
day and we're so happy when we are in the shade.
We went up and down
some real hills today and my max speed was 34.1; John's 37.6. I forgot to write previously about the fact
that we saw some strange llamas a couple of days ago.(I recalled that because
today John pointed out a llama at the top of a big hill that we climbed.) The unusual ones of which there were 3, were
sheared in odd places. One had his long
neck sheared. Then one had his head and neck with fur but parts of his body
were sheared. We thought they were
supposed to look like poodles.
We got to watch
about 3 towboats pushing barges yesterday.
They are just so cool to watch. So we had a tough day today.....actually
Minnie me(PDA) died and now I am back on the 4th of July, finishing the
typing. I can't remember in particular
why we had a tough day. However it
probably had to do with the fact that we are constantly fighting a headwind;
Iowa does not believe in paved shoulders; or a lot of times in any shoulders at
all and there are so many hills and practically mountains around here; it gets
very tiring. It was nice to camp by the
Mississippi though.
Money spent today:
$13.00
cash lunch
$10.34 dinner
$ 5.00
cash camp
Mileage: 48.miles
Started: 8: AM Finished: 6: PM
Average MPH: 7.5
Biking Time: 6Hr 31Min
Weather: Sunny, windy, 15 mph in our face although
cloudy today at times. temp lo 80's,
but that sun is so bloomin hot, it feels like 100. When you have a chance to get in the shade, with the breeze it is
quite comfortable.
Today we biked from
this weird campground, that had barking dogs in it, and per the advice of the
ranger who came by to see that we paid our fee, we took the MRT - the Miss.
River Trail, and it's a designated bike way.
He gave us good directions and warned us there would be 2 big
hills. Indeed. The one was another minimum of 2 miles long
and looking back when we were at the top, the grade was 6%. There was no shoulder when we started out,
but once we got to the top there was a nice shoulder that stayed with us all
the way to Guttenberg.
We stopped at
Guttenberg for lunch and remembered it when we had canoed. A beautiful city on a beautiful river.
Then we biked on hwy
52, definitely not a bike route; with a paved shoulder here and there. Otherwise we did bike on the gravel because
there was a lot of traffic and quite a few big trucks.
At Luxemburg we took
hwy 136. Road the same difference - no shoulder, but not quite as many cars so
we rode on the white line.
With the wind and
the hills, I found it to be an extremely tough and long day, so we stayed in a
motel at our destination of the day - Dyersville. John called the bike guy and said we needed 2 tubes and he was
kind enough to bring them over to us while we were eating dinner at a local
restaurant.
The other day the
ranger had told us that on part of our route, they had made our little 2nd
class highway and detour for some major road and the ranger strongly
recommended that we not bike there.
However the bike guy who brought us the tubes was not impressed with our
choice of roads and he gave us some directions for the next day, to shave off
some miles.
Money spent today:
$14.65 grocery
$47.86 dinner
$10.
Cash bike tubes
$66.08 motel
Mileage: 48.
Started: 8:15 AM Finished: ?: PM
Average MPH: 8.5
Biking Time: 5 Hr 33 Min
Weather: Sunny, cloudy, windy, temp 80's but hot.
We followed the
biker guy's directions and they turned out to be very nice and helpful. We went into Farley, then Cascade expecting
to find a grocery store since there were quite a few people there; but no
grocery store. So we stopped at some
little gas station stores.
Still hilly, but
more rolling hills. We biked through
Onslow and then Wyoming and there right in front of our eyes was the library
and it was open! We stopped, it was
cool inside.
We biked to Oxford
Junction. They were to have the 4th of
July on the 4th of July so we were able to spend the night (FREE!) camped in
their city park. We were the only campers.
As it turned out,
there was lightning almost constantly for a while. I woke up around midnight and had to pee, so I went right outside
the tent as opposed to walking a long distance to the port a potty. I noticed this car that drove by and then
stopped, right up on the highway. And
then he shines this huge light on our tent, so I sneak back behind the tent so
he can't see me. He drives by (I
thought) and I sneak into the tent. One
minute later a car drives in our campground and it's the sheriff or whomever,
wondering if we're ok. Yes.
Then it started
raining, pouring like crazy, and much thunder and lightning. We got up about 6:15 because the fire
fighter guy, who was setting up the fireworks warned us that at 7 AM he was
going to shoot off a 4 inch mortar. We
were up and about at 7, saw him come and he was just standing out there. I wondered why and then at EXACTLY 7 the
town siren went off and that was the point where he shot off the mortar It was loud; so was the siren. We left shortly after that.
Money spent today:
$ 3.83 breakfast
$10.65 lunch
$ 8.25 grocery
$ 3.49 grocery
$ 6.54
cash grocery
Mileage: 48.
Started: 8: AM Finished: 3:30 PM
Average MPH: 8.9
Biking Time: 5Hr 19Min
Weather: Sunny, getting hotter, windy, but today the
wind wasn't in our face, sometimes pushing us or quartering us. temp lo 80,s,
really muggy, we're talking hot.
We left Oxford
Junction and were on a flat stretch! It
was great. We biked to Lauden
(spelling) and about a mile out we could see the flags flying at the
cemetery. It was so awesome. There must have been at least 50 big
American flags. It was very beautiful.
We biked onward and
since it had rained a lot last night, there a water in the fields, and it was
slushy once you got off the road. We
passed by these cute little pigs and everyone of them was happy and muddy. The big sow was laying right in the middle
of the biggest mud puddle and you knew she was so contented. They probably were
just waiting for this rain.
We ran into 2 bikers
going from Boston to Seattle- Mary and Larry.
We stopped and talked for a while.
They told us about this motel in Muscatine where they stayed for $35.
Also today as we
were biking, we saw up ahead in the road, something - it turned out to be a
mama raccoon and about 5 little raccoons, crossing the road. So cute.
This was a
relatively good day today. The wind at
your back makes life so much easier. We
ran into some hills, but the further we got toward Muscatine, the flatter it
got. Except... Those Adventure Cycling people... They routed us for 2 miles on
this super hilly road, which wouldn't have been that bad, except they must have
just put tar down and our tires just got coated with the stuff. It's like ground in the tire and will
probably be there forever. It is a real
mess.
We are staying at
the $35 motel - it's quite nice and as I type this, John is doing the
laundry. We'll have clean clothes
tomorrow for probably 15 minutes. They
are saying hot and humid. Oh well. John went out to watch fireworks. He
could see them from the road that the motel was on.
Money spent today:
$20.00 dinner
$35. Motel
$ 2.29 grocery
Mileage: 52.
Started: 8: AM Finished: 4: PM
Average MPH: 9.7
Biking Time: 5Hr 17Min
Weather: Sunny, not much wind, and it should be at
our back, temp 77 starting.
Started out from the
Muskie motel, went a couple blocks down to Aldi to look for food - they opened
at 9 so we did not wait and went on. We stopped at some gas stations and they
told us there were no grocery stores in our direction. They were right. We
crossed the bridge into Illinois and were on our way. It was pretty flat and it stayed pretty flat. A few hills, but nothing like Iowa. The roads are quite nice; some even had a
shoulder.
As we were biking
along in this huge farmland country; corn as far as the eye can see, we saw
what we thought was a car heading our way.
But we saw it for such a long time.
It wasn't moving very fast. Then
a car passed it. Finally the slow
moving vehicle got to us. It was this
little old farmer with gray hair, in his overalls, driving a vehicle that had a
John Deere lettering on it; sort of a cross between a little John Deere tractor
and a golf cart and it probably went about 10mph. It was just neat; he waved as we passed by.
Met a biker from
Maryland; don't recall his name. We had
lunch at Reynolds, stopped at Sherrard and used the library computer and then
biked to our destination of Orion, at the Hillcrest campground.
Illinois reminds me
of Nebraska in that quite a few cars wave to us as we pass.
Money spent today:
$15.70 lunch grocery
$29.53 dinner grocery
$10.00
cash camp
Mileage: 41.41
Started: 8:30 AM Finished: 2:30 PM
Average MPH: 9.2
Biking Time: 4Hr 23Min
Weather: Sunny, no wind, hot and humid.
Started out from
that really stupid campground -- Hillcrest Resort. There was a golf course associated with it, but the campground
was so rundown. There was a pool that
couldn't be used. The place in general
was in total disrepair.
I forgot to write
about the fireflies. It's quite neat.
When it just starts to get dark, the fireflies come out from the grass and there
are beautiful white lights dotting the ground and after a while they fly higher
into the air. It's gorgeous to see.
So we left the
campground and went to Cambridge. We
are encountering a few more hills although nothing drastic. There was a light wind and it seemed to be
in our face most of the time.
At Cambridge, we
stopped at a city park for a break and this postman stopped by to talk to us
because some years ago he and his wife went on a 500 bike trip. He said it was the best time they ever had and
I guess he just wanted to stop by to reminisce. Actually he said he was jealous.
Next we biked across the street to a library, went back to the park for
lunch and then was on our way.
We biked another 18
miles to Kewanee and were lucky enough to wind up exactly where the motel 8 was
located. Since at that first library we
were unable to send out any AOL mail, we hopped on our bikes, without BOB (the
trailer) and biked to Kewanee's very nice library. The librarian dude asked us if we knew the guy from Holland and
Mary and Larry, since they had all stopped there not too long ago. Then we stopped at a grocery store, Walgreen’s
and a steakhouse restaurant. Now we're
in for the night. Tomorrow should be a
short day (40 miles).
Money spent today:
$ 4.86 grocery
$41.50 restaurant
$29.51 Walgreen’s
$ 2.51 ice cream
$60.50 Motel
Mileage: 41.
Started: 7:30 AM Finished: 1: PM
Average MPH: 9.6
Biking Time: 4 Hr 10Min
Weather: Cloudy, hazy, windy 10-15 out of the south
east, temp - hot, predicted high of 92.
Started out from our
motel and it was not as hot as I expected, however very humid. Shortly after we started, John spotted a fox
running across the road. He was kind
enough to sit and watch us as we approached, so I got to see him.
We hit a few little
ups and downs, the wind was sometimes with us and sometimes against us; for the
most part it was OK. We did pass a
bunch of wind generators that were turning, but we did not get very close to
them.
We biked through
Osceola, and then Bradford. We took the
wrong turn our of town and we wound up on this excellent road that they had
just finished paving and maybe 2 cars passed us in 4 miles. As we got closer to
Henry, our destination, I noticed a few less crops and a few more trees. We were entering the Illinois river
valley. We went down one fairly steep
down and shortly thereafter biked into Henry.
We have not set up
our tent yet, but we are in the city park, right on the Illinois River. There
are bow fishermen here today. They
shoot a special kind of carp. The one
guy we talked to came up from the bayous of LA. The thing is they go out from 6 pm tonight until noon
tomorrow. They have these megawatt lights
on their boat and shine them into the shallow (18-24 inch) water to see the
fish. It's a contest. To see who can
get the most fish and/or to see who can get the biggest fish.
Tomorrow we cross
the Illinois River and will obviously
have somewhat of a climb; I hope to flat land again. Tomorrow is supposed to be the hottest day before it starts to
cool off. Perhaps 94.
Money spent today
$ 5.53 groceries
$
5.28 groceries
$16.38 dinner
Mileage: 57.
Started: 7:20 AM Finished: 3:30 PM
Average MPH: 10.4
GOOD DAY!
Biking Time: 5Hr 22Min
Weather: Sunny, wind 10-20 out of the southeast, temp
hot, humid, should reach the low 90's.
Last night we had
the bow fishermen going out at 6PM, coming back at noon. HAH! We never found
out who won, or how they did, but there were people back and forth all night,
with their diesel trucks idling, and talking and just being kind of noisy.
Then in the morning
as we were eating breakfast and getting organized I noticed these white
geese. John said that they had been
down by the river yesterday. Well there
must have been close to 20 of them, with babies and they started walking our
way. Slowly, slowly, they got closer and closer - their objective was to eat
the nice looking grass and bugs. We
were closest to the street, so they got within 10 feet of us and then John made
some quick movement and scared them all off.
We started off by
leaving the river, which means going uphill, we crossed the Illinois River,
which was a fairly long bridge and then biked a couple miles before we had to
climb out of the river valley. It
wasn't as tough as I thought it would be.
In fact the wind was at our back most of the day and we really moved
along. Most of the roads were quite
flat.
By noon we had gone
about 40 miles, and stopped at the city park in Cornell and had lunch in the
shade and waited until 2 PM to leave, hoping to avoid some of the direct
sun. It was hot, but the wind pushed
us, we were on an incredibly nice road for 6 of the 12 miles and got to Odell
before 3:30. We are now camped out at
their beautiful city park (for free) and we are the only people here. They left
the bathrooms open over at the swimming pool so we are set.
It is still supposed
to be in the low 90's tomorrow but we should only have 40 miles to go.
Money spent today:
$ 6.93 grocery
$ 4.65 grocery
$ 5.93 grocery
$ 2.oo
cash grocery
Mileage: 41.
Started: 7:50 AM Finished: 1: PM
Average MPH: 10.8
Biking Time: 3Hr 47Min
Weather: Sunny, windy 5- 15 out of the southwest,
temp still hot humid, although they said cloudy today.
Started out from the
Odell City campground and when taking down the tent found the neatest bug
attached to the rope of the tent. It was a cicada and it had molted so the big
bug itself was there and the shell that it had come out of. Went to the grocery store and got a few
things as they didn't have a whole lot.
The wind was
primarily at our back and the roads were flat and we moved right along. We stopped at Kempton for lunch in their
park and on the way out, there was a store with a neat sculpture so John took a
picture of it and a couple of the sides of the buildings where someone had
drawn some neat pictures.
Then upon leaving
the city we met this young kid (16 maybe) who biked with us for 6 miles until
he had to turn to go to his farm.
We got into Askum
early in the day, luckily because I was feeling poorly - the sun, heat,
humidity and no bananas today. We
talked to the mayor, the highway patrol, the park and rec guy and a policeman
throughout the course of the day. Also
a nice neighbor who said that if there was any problem, we could come over to
his house, just across the street.
Later in the day, around 5 or later 2 other bikers showed up. Dave and Mary. They were from Delaware but started in Cleveland and are planning
to bike to Bellingham, WA. They are
using some of Adventure Cycling routes and made up some of their own. They want to go through the Badlands, Mt.
Rushmore, Yellowstone...We had a nice time talking to them.
Just after dark, or
maybe around 10 we had quite an electrical storm. And a ton of rain.
Money spent today:
$
. Grocery. From
Odell
$ 3.82 Grocery
$11.58 lunch
$ 9.54 dinner
Mileage: 56
Started: 7:30 AM Finished: 3: PM
Average MPH: 10.8
Biking Time: 5Hr 10Min
Weather: Sunny, not much wind, still hot and
humid. They are predicting storms this
afternoon with strong winds and possible heavy rains, maybe quarter size hail.
Started out from
Ashkum, it was a pretty straight shot today.
It got windier as the day went on, but again it was out of the southwest
which was great for us. Most of the roads
were good. We did have one time when we
had to turn onto a gravel road! Not good, but to make up for it, there was a
port a potty out in the middle of nowhere.
Actually it was probably there because a new house had been constructed
and was probably for the workmen. While
we were using it, a train was going down the tracks we were supposed to cross
and they were switching cars. When we
got to the tracks, the train stopped.
We were most fortunate that we only had to wait about 1 minute.
We biked into
Indiana today and have biked about 16 miles on Hwy 16. It's a relatively nice road with not a lot
of cars. As we were nearly to our
destination, Bob got a flat tire. John
fixed that and we wound up at the Little Creek campground at about 3 PM. As I type this, it still hasn't rained but
it is getting pretty windy. No
threatening clouds or anything, but they are saying that it should be cooler
tomorrow.
Money spent today:
$ 2.00
cash grocery
$10.00
cash camp
July
11, Wednesday to Jos and Michael's
Mileage: 32.
Started: 9: AM Finished: 2: PM
Average MPH: 10.1
Biking Time: 3Hr 19Min
Weather: Sunny windy, 10-20 out of the northwest,
temp 67, cool, not, humid, beautiful.
Started out from the
Little Creek campground and took all the county roads that John determined
would be good, and we checked on a few as we biked (by looking down the roads)
to see if some might be better. He had
made good choices.
We stopped in
Wolcott at the park for something to eat, determined that we definitely did not
want to travel on hwy 231 and then proceeded out of the city.
Along the way, we
saw a HUGE tractor like vehicle spraying something (poisons?) on the soybeans
and we waited and waited to be sure that we didn't wind up where he was
spraying and when he turned and got far away from us we biked as fast as we
could to get past him. Later on down
the road, he passed us as we were resting on the side of the road and it struck
me as being a vehicle out of Star Wars.
The wind was most
kind and pushed us most of the way; when we were within a mile or 2, Bob got
another flat tire. It turns out that
the patch had not held, where John had fixed it before. It was in a bad spot. But it held all the way to Jos.
Since they don't
believe in marking any of their roads, we missed Northridge Lane, but luckily
John noticed we were too far and we went back and tried it again. Got the right road that time, but couldn't
find the house. It had been about 6
years since we were here last and the trees had grown so much, we had to do
some guessing, but eventually found it.
Michael had made an
appointment with an optometrist for me and shortly
After we arrived, we
drove down there. (I have perhaps not mentioned this before, but either on
Sunday or Monday John noticed a [seeming small] bright red mark in the left
hand corner of my left eye). The doctor was extremely thorough and the long and
the short of it is that I had a conjunctive hemorrhage. She said I just sort of blew a gasket; this
would be cardio-vascular in nature.
Since I don't seem to have any such problems, and although biking in
Iowa was really tough, the timing and the duration of that biking didn't seem
to fit. She said a one-time happening
of this may be ok, if it happens again be aware that a problem exists. Well
John figured it out. I was smart enough
to remember when it happened and he went back and figured out that that was the
day we moved that god-awful heavy picnic table and we moved it about 25
feet. I thought my arms would drop
off. Actually looking back, I am glad I
have been doing all of my back exercises because I could have screwed that
up. But instead it was my eye that took
the brunt of it. It never caused me any
pain, it is now only quite bloodshot and is continuing to heal.
Next
bike travel day is Sunday.
Money spent today:
$ 4.88 grocery
$87.00 optometrist
$48.73 bike odometer, Bob tire, degreaser and lubricant
$93.26 Pat-shoes socks
$27.18 grocery
$ 8.15 grocery
$56.69 Don Pablo's lunch
$76.27 Bottle shop
Mileage: 47.
Started: 8:10 AM Finished: 2:30 PM
Average MPH: 9.1
Biking Time: 5Hr 00Min
Weather: Sunny, very little wind starting out, but it
increased as the day went on, up to 10- 15 out of the north northeast,
temp about 65 starting out and it
remained beautiful all day.
Started out from Jos
and Michael's home with Sandy David and about the only thing we saw were a
couple of red tail hawks and we saw very few cars. We biked into Wolcott and stopped for lunch at one of their
parks.
Shortly after we
left there, John spotted 2 deer in a soybean field that we were all able to see
before they ran off in the opposite direction.
Shortly after that John spotted 2 cute little fawns by the side of the
road that he was able to take a couple pictures of before they ran off. In that same spot we got to see a couple of
goats.
From there we biked
to Rensselear and just before we entered the city, we went by a quarry. Now this was a quarry. It was probably about 150 feet deep and it
was also very wide. It was a great
spectacle, such that we biked across the road to see it better; to see the long
twisting roads that went down to the bottom, the loud gurgling stream that was
way over on the far side of it, and the great length of the conveyor belts that
moved the stones, or gravel. There was
a semi down at the bottom and it looked like it was about 2 inches big. There were also 2 turkey buzzards that were
soaring around down there in the winds.
We entered
Rensselear and biked around the city a little, nothing was going on. As we left the city on hwy 114 we passed the
county fairground, where they were having their county fair. We stopped to watch the horse pull. They had about 6 teams of (big) horses, 2
horses to a team and they had to pull this big box that they kept putting
bricks in, to make it heavier. The
horses seemed pretty jumpy. Two men would take the horses up and quickly hitch
them up to this sled thing and then have to get out of the way because they
would start pulling immediately. We
could see how someone could easily get hurt, if not killed so we left after a
little while.
After a couple of
miles we came to our motel, the Knight's Inn.
It's very nice. We walked next
door to a Mexican restaurant and had a good dinner.
Also just as we
pulled in, this guy asked us where we were going and he too was a biker. He had biked the Chicago to Kenosha trail
and also this area we biked today and will be biking tomorrow. He knocked on
our door after we got settled in and was kind enough to bring us some beer and
some maps about our biking route tomorrow.
John had been wondering about some of the roads, so he had a lot of his
questions answered. Now we're all set
for tomorrow.
Money spent today:
$57.30 Motel
$33.36 Dinner
Mileage: 45.
Started: 7:45 AM Finished: 1:30 PM
Average MPH: 10.5
Biking Time: 4 Hr 12Min
Weather: Sunny, no wind to start, but it came up
slowly and as the day went on, got up to maybe 10mph out of the west
southwest. Temp was 65 to start and it
as supposed to get to about 87. It did
seem hotter today than yesterday, definitely more humid. Sandy talked to Greg as he was driving from
Lafayette to Watertown and he said it was raining in Rockford. There is a 60% chance of rain tonight.
Started out from the
Knight's Inn and traveled on a pretty busy road for a mile or 2 and then turned
off to your run of the mill county road with very little traffic. Saw some more red tail hawks. We saw one hawk sitting on a wire, with 2 small
birds right by him, they were all resting, like they all needed a time out for
a minute.
We did see a big
dead turkey vulture. It was right near
a dead raccoon. We think it was
probably eating on the dead raccoon when somebody hit it. Other than that, we didn't see much
wildlife.
We had a few periods
early on when we would run into civilizations - homes and more cars, but the
majority of our trip was on quiet roads.
Then toward the end it started to get a little hilly and we started
entering the city of Merrillville. We
were on some very busy roads, very little shoulder and near the end there was a
sidewalk, that we began biking on. From
there John had a very nice route through the city that was mostly untraveled by
cars, so we had a quiet, leisurely last mile to our motel. The Red Roof Inn. There seemed to be about a million people here, in our motel.
Tomorrow - Chicago.
Money spent today:
$13.74 groceries
$82.35 dinner
$74.36 Red Roof Inn
Mileage :42 miles
Started: 8 AM Finished:3:30 PM
Average: 9.4
Biking Time: 4
hr 25 min
Weather: Cloudy to
start and we heard a chance of rain. We
did go through about 20 minutes of rain and sat under a shelter for about an
hour while it rained. The wind wasn't too
bad, mostly pushing us. Toward the end
of the day it started getting sunny and humid.
Started out from the
Red Roof Inn and biked about 3 miles to the start of the Erie Lackawanna
Trail. The biking was pretty stress
free as John picked some really good streets and/or we were on sidewalks for a
while.
When we got to the
start of the trail, there was a guy there and John checked with him about the
trail to confirm where we would get off and any construction or whatever, and
everything was as it should be. It was a
very nice trail (but no port a potties - there were cornfields however). As we were biking another guy came up to
talk to us and he too confirmed all the stuff that John might have in question.
We had to leave the
trail for a while (not yet completed) and the route through the city to return
to the trail was unusually nice. We
biked into Hammond, Indiana. This was
the area where it just started to rain as we came upon a really nice park and
we got under the picnic shelter just in time.
After a while we thought it wouldn't stop raining so we put on our rain
jackets and off we went.
We probably went
about 3-4 miles and got stopped at a light.
It had stopped raining and I was getting hot. It just so happened that a funeral was going by so we couldn't
cross the road and this was the longest funeral ever. So we all took off our rain jackets and got organized because
that funeral procession had to have been at least 10 minutes.
We essentially got
back on the trail; it ended, we biked on a nice route in the city to find the
next trail. Found that trail, biked
7-10 miles till that trail ended (the Burnham Green Trail) and then wound up
where we weren't sure to go. John had
an idea, but there was another biker who was coming up, so he gave us a slightly
different route. We started out on his
route and then we picked up John's route and there right in front of us were
bike signs showing us the way to the lakefront trail. It was like 4 miles and we even had bike lanes to bike in!! Once we got a little lost and stopped to
look at the maps and this one guy yells at us from the car "just go 2 more
blocks and turn right on 85th St). Just
amazing , everyone is so nice.
We did in fact find
the Lakefront Trail and it was so nice. So beautiful. You could sometimes take the trail or like take the scenic route.
Both were wonderful. This is just a
whole other world with the cars zipping by, but we and the pedestrians are on
this fantastic trail with signs telling us where to go and flowers and Lake
Michigan. We all loved it. With John
leading the way we had very little trouble, still biking, finding the route to
get near to the hostel. As we got
nearer to the Loop, there is this vast amount of land that is only for walkers
and bikers with wonderful signage, so we got to the streets and only had to go
3-4 blocks and that wasn't even too bad.
Checked into the
hostel. They couldn't find our
reservation and so we wound up in a room for 4 (as we were supposed to) but
we're in a handicap room which means we have our own bathroom and shower! Did we luck out or what?
We walked down from
our room to find something to eat and then went to Millennium Park, a part of
Grant Park. This place is
unbelievable. The sculptures, that egg
thing, everything hands-on. I would
explain it if I could, but we listened to the concierge try to explain it and
couldn't figure out what he was talking about.
It is fantastic. After viewing
all this incredible stuff, we crossed the busy street on this amazing bridge,
only for walkers and went to where there is this big movie screen and there was
a free movie - "Young Frankenstein" the screen was out in a field of
grass.
While we waited for
the movie to start, I noticed some music in the next area, about a block or 2 away
and there was this way cool fountain (Buckingham Fountain) and the music seemed
to go with the water moving shooting up in the fountain. By the time we got there, the music stopped,
but the fountain was still lovely. We
sat down on a bench and waited and waited to see if the music would start but
it didn't. So we walked back to the
movie. While we were at the movie we
looked back and saw that the music had started again at the fountain. Well too bad, we were all so tired so we
went back to our hostel room.
I must add that all
this stuff is free (not our room for sleeping). But the area for this stuff is huge and there are so many people
of every race, color and creed you can think of and everyone is just walking
around enjoying all the beauty that is everywhere around here.
Money spent today:
$214.62 hostel for 2 nights
$
Sandy paid for dinner
Mileage: NO BIKING TODAY
Started Finished:
Average:
Biking Time:
Weather: Rainy to
start, then cloudy, then sunny, some wind, cool at first but getting hot and
humid as day went on.
Started out from the
hostel at 8:25 so we could zip down to the camera shop at 8:30 so Sandy could
get a camera; which she did. Then we
went back to the room to get rid of the camera box and the cords and all the
paraphernalia, went almost out the door - it was raining. We walked back up to our room, got our rain
jackets on and then really left. We
were too early to take the free trolley so we walked down to the Aquarium. Saw the aquarium, it was nice but by the
time we left the noise level was so loud you couldn't hear yourself think. We did eat lunch there and then walked a
short distance to the planetarium. Also
very nice and we saw 2 different shows.
From the planetarium
we walked outside and there was the free trolley so we sprinted about half a
block and got on. This was about 3pm or so.
We had to go to the end on that trolley, walk 2 blocks, get on another
trolley and took that to the end, got off and then walked 2 more blocks to the
Hancock Building to go up to the observation tower. Way cool. It was still
somewhat cloudy and we couldn't see very far off into Lake Michigan, but it was
way neat.
From there we ran
out of the Hancock Building so we could get the last trolley to take us
home. We were going to the Navy Pier,
and then to the fireworks and the free concert tonight, but Sandy reminded us
that we are leaving tomorrow and we had to do the wash and pack and eat and
sleep. So we went home (Ate first).
It is raining and
thundering now, so unfortunately they won't have the fireworks. But it was a really full day; it was great
fun. Chicago is great. Tomorrow we bike out of Chicago. Next time we stop here, we need more time as
there is a plethora of stuff to do.
Money spent today:
$ 150. Admission tickets
$ 15.00 for the extra show
$ 25.54 lunch
$58.33 Dinner
Mileage: 60 miles
Started : 8 AM Finished: 5 PM
Average: 9.3
Biking Time: 6 hr 26
min
Weather: Cloudy,
humid, some wind starting out, 30 % chance of rain, but fog up at about the
28th floor of the higher buildings. Temp. - 65.
Started out from the
Hostel and stayed on the sidewalks and biked slowly the couple of blocks to
Michigan Ave and then across the pedestrian and bike friendly area to our bike
path. There were many people out biking
and many walkers. We went under a
couple of bridges, and it seemed around and through and whatever it took to
move onward. The lake was always to our
immediate right. After maybe 9 miles
the Lakefront trail ended. At that
point there were signs for a couple of different other trails. John consulted our Blommer book that had the
route that we would be taking from that point up to Milwaukee. This guy, Peter
Blommer did an excellent job on mapping and the very specific write up on how
to get through all of these cities. So between the book, the bike signs and
arrows and the helpful people we made our way through. It was so slow going because of the
stoplights and all the traffic.
Our first big city
was Evanston, a beautiful place, we were all impressed with how great it
was. Further on we came to Northwestern
University and biked through their campus.
They were doing construction after we got a ways in so we really got to
see the campus because we had to bike all over to try to find the correct
street to get out of there. Some of the
other cities we went through were Winnetka, Wilmette, Glencoe and Waukegan. We were on a railroad right of way, with the
real railroad on our left so we stopped at the rail station at Glencoe and ate
our lunch. There were hardwood floors
in there; it was beautiful.
We went by the Great
Lakes Naval Station and then got onto a gravel trail. It was getting quite windy say 10-20 from the northeast. We were lucky however because there was
foliage all around and sometimes over our trail and we were not affected by the
wind.
However, about 10
miles down the road we were on a wide open trail and it was terrible. The wind picked up, apparently there was a
front going through. John carried my
panniers because I could barely move forward.
We were on and off
trails; for a while. We were on hwy 32
which had a nice shoulder and it was good biking there. Somewhat further on we
crossed into Wisconsin.
When we got into
Kenosha we had to bike through the city but there were some bike signs in the
city and we had the Blommer book. It's
a nice city to bike in. We were so
excited to see our motel - the Best Western.
It was a long hard windy day.
Money spent today:
$82.84 Dinner
$121.56 Best Western
Mileage: 48 miles
Started: 7:25
AM Finished: 2:30 PM
Average: 9.7
Biking Time: 4hr
54min
Weather: Sunny,
windy, temp. 55 degrees starting out. A
beautiful morning.
Started out from the
Best Western, going through the city to get to the trail. It was a gravel trail and in places they had
laid way too much gravel and like for areas of 100 feet it would be really
tough going.
The day seemed to go
quickly and in short time (lunch time) we were in the Milwaukee area having
lunch on the Oak Leaf Trail, in one of the parks overlooking Lake
Michigan. We stayed on trails for a
while and then started taking some roads through the city. Again, they were pretty nice roads. The
drivers were courteous and there weren't that many cars.
We thought there
might be a problem at the very end of the day when we had to bike on hwy
100. However we followed our GPS which
suggested we turn at a particular street; then we got a little lost, took out
the Milwaukee Bike Map and it showed us exactly where to go for the last 5 blocks
and got us to hwy. 100; which did have a sidewalk. But we did have to cross the
hwy. It wasn't totally impossible but
it was darn hard. There were so many
cars. Luckily we were able to stop in the middle of the highway; then all these
cars would come up by us and want to turn to.
At any rate it was pretty tricky but we got across.
We checked into the
Day's Inn and John got a car because we were going out to Terry and Kristie
Kurtenbach's house, our friends from New Hope. But I wanted to say that by the
time we left the motel there were even more cars on 100 and even more cars
wanting to turn and we would have had a heck of a time crossing that road.
We drove out to
Terry and Kristie's and had the greatest time.
We even got to visit and pet their llamas. We visited till shortly after
dark (got served steak on the grill - yum) and then drove back to our
motel. It was a good day.
Money spent today:
$98.84 Day's Inn
$31.48 car rental
$ 8.05 groceries
Mileage: 54 miles
Started: 8:45
AM Finished: 4 PM
Average: 10.8 !
Biking Time: 4
hr 58 min
Weather: Sunny,
windy, but the wind was at our back,
temp. Just nice out.
Started out from the
Day's Inn, got on the sidewalk on hwy 100 and biked a couple of blocks, turned
onto a good biking road and after 2 miles got on the Berlin Trail. An extremely nice blacktop trail with many
bikers and walkers.
After about 9 miles
that ended and took us to Waukesha, where we biked through the city without any
problem to find the Glacial Drumlin Trail.
The first 14+ Miles were paved and again it was really nice with many
bikers and some bladers. They did
require that you purchase an annual ticket or daily for $4 each; which we did.
All this time Sandy
had been calling Greg and the plan was that he would drive to county road N and
then bike from there to meet us. We
just happened to meet at a resting area with a bathroom and picnic tables so we
had lunch together and then all biked back to county N. This part of the trail
was crushed gravel; the road part was ok but the weeds were growing onto the
trail. We did see some herons and a
hawk and a turtle.
After we got to
county trunk N Greg put his bike in the car and he took my panniers and Sandy's
panniers so we made record time for the last 10 miles. That evening Pat’s other brother Dick had a
cookout for us - hamburgers and corn on the cob and potatoes and vegetables,
all great.
Sunday we will still
be in Watertown, organizing our stuff, buying some groceries and cutting tree
limbs on the farm.
On Monday we start
back for Mpls.
Money spent today:
$20.00
cash Grocery
$12.00
cash biking fee
$ 2.00 cash can't remember
what it was for.
NO BIKING TODAY
.
Money spent today:
$55.46 groceries
$36.32 groceries
Mileage: 53
Started: 8:30 AM
Finished: 4PM
Average: 10.4
Biking Time: 5 hr
Weather: Sunny, nice, Sw winds 5-15, We should be
going North and West, high should be 82.
We left Watertown
and got to hwy 19, which was quite flat and had a nice shoulder. After we left 19 the roads got somewhat
hilly. We stopped for lunch in
Columbus. We traveled on Hwy 16 for almost
20 miles. There was a 2 foot shoulder
on the highway and a lot of traffic in Columbus. After Columbus the traffic died down.
There was a strange
elevation on Hwy 16 a ways out of Columbus.
There was a slow rise in elevation, up to almost 1000 feet according to
the GPS. Then we started gradually
going down to about 700 feet.
The sun was hot and
we stopped at a shady wayside in the afternoon for a nap. I was getting pretty tired as we neared the
end of the biking day. We camped just
before Portage at the Pride of America Campground. It sucked. It cost $33.78
and you had to pay to use the showers.
We did see 2 adult
and 2 baby sand hill cranes in a mowed grassy field. They weren’t at all concerned that we were watching them. And we also did get a ride in a golf cart
today, to check out which campsite we might want.
Money spent today:
$33.78 camping
Mileage: 61
Started : 8 AM Finished : 4 PM
Average: 9.3
Biking Time: 6hr 26min
Weather: Mostly cloudy upon leaving, no wind, temp 65
degrees.
We left Pride of
America and went through Portage. We
had to cross the Wisconsin River and we were on the bridge, which had a nice
shoulder for bikers so John stopped to take some pictures. As I was standing there you could feel the
bridge bounce every time a big truck would go over. When 2 big trucks would go over it was even worse. We got off the bridge and turned onto Levee
Road which is an old, very little used road for cars. It was also flat. We went
perhaps 10 miles on there and then turned to go through the Leopold
Reserve. Very beautiful, but very
hilly. We saw 2 bluebirds, and 3 mink.
From there we turned
to go to Reedsburg on some major hills.
I was having a terrible time, couldn’t even keep up at all with John
going down the hills. We stopped at the first park in Reedsburg for lunch. The sun was very hot and there was quite a
wind in our face, when we were on the open road. Of course when we stopped to eat there was no wind to be
seen. When we started to leave, I
checked my tires and I had a flat. No
wonder I couldn’t coast down those hills very well, not to mention going
up. Biking was much easier with air in
the tires.
We got onto the 400
Trail, a nice flat trail and we passed a guy (he was going the opposite way we
were) who was from Rochester and going to Chicago. We didn’t get to Elroy till after 5. We were going to stay at the free campground, which didn’t have any
water. However when we got to the base
of the hill, leading to the campground, I biked up a short ways to see what it
said. The free campground cost $14,
they did have water and it was at the top of this mega hill which I was totally
unable to bike up. So we back tracked a mile and stayed at a city park. There was only one other guy there; a very
nice guy in a camper. After the Pride
of America campground, this place was fantastic; almost deserted.
In the evening we
heard coyotes calling and those sand hill cranes making their funny
noises. It was awesome.
Money spent today:
$ 5.90 suntan lotion
$11.02 dinner
$13.51 groceries
Mileage: 53
Started : 8 AM
Finished : 4 PM
Average: 9.6
Biking Time: 5hr 26min
Weather: Sunny, hot, slight wind.
We got back onto the
Elroy Sparta trail and noticed that it was mostly uphill from the cities until
you got to the tunnels. After leaving
the tunnels there was a noticeable downhill.
When we were heading toward the third tunnel we lucked out and started
going downhill even before we got to the tunnel and actually didn’t even have
to pedal through the last and longest tunnel which was ¾ of a mile long. We just sort of coasted and braked. Then it was downhill all the way to
Sparta. Loved it.
From Sparta we picked
up the Lacrosse Trail. This was mostly
in the sun. A lot of the Elroy Sparta
Trail was in the shade. We camped at
the Veteran Memorial Campground right on the LaCrosse River. It was quite nice.
Money spent today:
$30.00 trail pass
$15.50 camping
$ 3.70 tire patch kit
Mileage : 62
Started : 8 AM Finished : 4 PM
Average : 10.5
Biking time : 5hr
43min
Weather: Hot, humid,
no wind
We left the
Veteran’s Memorial Campground, got back onto the Lacrosse trail and luckily we
had a fair amount of shade. We also saw
quite a few local bikers on this trail.
From there we got onto the Great River Trail. It was neat because we went on this long bridge through a swampy
area. It was just a very nice
trail. We took it to the very end and
it took us to hwy 35 which had a wonderful shoulder. We saw many herons, egrets, and even a bald eagle.
We biked into Alma,
got some food and then biked a mile or 2 more to the city of Alma – park, where
we camped. There were not very many
people and the sky was looking dark after we got there. We got the tent up, John put the tarp up
over the picnic table and it did rain.
Actually it poured. The rain
came so hard that it literally made a little lake where our feet were
sitting. The tent faired ok, no water
got in it. But the wind would be
blowing, gusting out of the west, with the rain just pelting us and John would
pull that side of the tarp down. Then
it would completely change directions and be blowing and gusting from the
east. Strangest thing I have ever
seen. It rained on and off all night
but not so ferociously.
John stopped to talk
to some of the other campers about finding a campsite on Friday and heard that
there was not one reservation to be had in the state of Wisconsin. That theory was confirmed when at 7 AM on
Friday morning, a camper pulled into the campground we were at, to get a
site. None of these sites could be
reserved and the lady from the Alma City Hall had told John that they filled up
every weekend. I guess she was right.
Mileage: 46
Started: 8 Am Finished: 3:45 PM
Average: 9.
Biking Time 4hr
40min
Weather: Cloudy,
wind out of the northwest, temp.- cool.
Tried to leave the
campground but first I hadn’t attached my rack pack and that fell off; then I
changed gears and my chain fell off.
John put that back on. Then we
were just about to go up this small but slightly hill and John’s derailleur
cable broke. Luckily he had the tools
to fix and a spare cable! It
worked. So now it’s 9 AM, we’re about
ready to leave and the GPS batteries die; nothing too bad, it just takes a
minute to change them, but you get the picture. We do get out of there, bike about 1 mile and John’s walkie
talkie flies off his camel back strap onto the highway. I saw it hit the road so I stopped to pick
it up and it was ok. After that our day
got better.
We were done riding
on trails now, we were on the highway; but the shoulders were good with usually
not too many cars. Some areas were flat
and some were super hilly. For a lot of
the time we went along the Mississippi and the scenery was gorgeous. There was one area, going into Bay City that
was a long stretch going uphill - maybe
a mile. But we were rewarded with a 3
mile downhill right into Bay City.
The wind was out of
the north, so there was less humidity.
John had called
around in one of the cities we biked through for a motel to stay in for Friday
night. He found a place in Red
Wing. So we wound up going into Red
Wing on the same highway and over the same bridge as when we first began the
trip. It didn’t seem as bad this time;
the shoulder was quite narrow and there were a lot of cars, but I guess I was
used to it.
We made it into Red
Wing, found out motel, got settled in.
Then we biked a couple blocks back to town and had dinner at Appleby’s.
Money spent toady:
$64.61 motel
$43.13 dinner
Mileage: 48
Started 7:15 AM Finished: 2 PM
Average: ?
Biking Time: ?
Weather: Sunny,
windy, temp. – nice out
Started out from out
motel and traveled on Hwy 61, with a very nice shoulder. We were climbing out of the Cannon River
Valley so we had some long gradual ups. John picked the route back and it was
great because we turned from Hwy 61 onto Hwy 316 and this road had an even
bigger shoulder than the one we were on, plus a lot of it was downhill. Then we picked up Hwy 61 again and that took
us into Hastings – we would have to cross the Mississippi again and we started
going downhill through almost the whole city of Hastings before we even got to
the bridge. There was a lot of traffic
and the bridge did have a sidewalk so we got on the sidewalk. This was a long bridge and about ¾ of the
way across it, another biker was coming toward us. We just stopped and let him go by because there was not much
room.
Once we got across,
we had to climb out of the river valley again and then John started recognizing
the names of the roads, because we had biked there a couple of times before (I
barely remembered them). We were doing
good until we got to our main road – Military Road because it was closed for
construction. However, John checked the
map and got us exactly where we had to be, plus we avoided the really big hills
that we would have had to climb, had we taken the route we were supposed
to. It all turned out fine. We made it back to Tracey’s house by 2PM,
where our van was waiting for us, and we drove home.
This seemed to me to
be a harder trip than any of our previous trips. It was well worth the effort to wind up biking through
Chicago. That was so awesome; I had the
best time there and then the trip all the way to Milwaukee. Biking along Lake
Michigan in Milwaukee was also very beautiful. It was also great to visit Jos
and Michael. It was a good vacation and
we were happy that Sandy could bike with us for part of it.