Gig Harbor Washington to Bar Harbor Maine 2001

I groggily came to life after an hour or two of sleep listening to - what? Someone riding a bike? Stealing my bike!? There was a crash and Gridley yelled, "BB?" I answered and he said, "Good, we thought it was a bear." Oh, shit! I scrambled out of my tent and shined a flashlight at the picnic table. Our dinner pot that I'd hidden food in was on the ground. I heard a rustling sound and discovered a raccoon or two high in a tree with Gridley's grocery bag full of cheese and cookies. We'd made beans and rice with jalapenos for dinner. I wish I hadn't dumped the leftovers, the peppers would have served the little thieves right.

A few hours later I heard Kathryn yelling, "Mike!" No answer. "MIKE!" No answer. Garcia sleeps hard. The raccoons were in their food, too. I had to pee anyway so I got up and ran them off. They were pretty reluctant to go but they'd already finished off the kid's cookies too. I guess they figured there wasn't much left to fight over.

Gridley got attacked, too. First they got into his garbage, then they managed to open his BOB bag and eat some of his cereal. Between his buddy staying late, the raccoons and the bright moonlight, he got about 3 hours sleep.

I got up quietly about sunrise. I didn't want to wake everybody after so little sleep, but they got up anyway. The mosquitos were waiting. Minnesquito. I thought I had it all wrapped up so I could get rolling quickly without getting too eaten up. Then Gridley noticed I had a flat. I had a complete transfusion by the time I changed the tube.

Wisconsin.

So our crack of dawn departure got going about 7:45, still not too bad. We fought our way through the flies on the way to the highway and made the few miles to Wisconsin. Gridley's friend, Paul, told us that, due to all the dairies in Wisconsin, all the roads are paved and reasonably maintained. Traffic was really bad on the state highways we were on, then we tried County Road X. All county roads have letters. X was excellent! Pretty backroads, little traffic. Letters good. Numbers bad.

We wound our way into Spooner, pop 2600, because we'd been told it had a good bike shop. The one in Brainerd was closed while we were there. The shop was excellent. It was one of the biggest shops I've ever seen. I told them I needed a new chain and they offered to install it for me. They're a Rans dealer and checked it over for me. He was concerned about my bottom bracket and didn't have the part. He called Rans and a shop further along the way trying to get me a replacement without interrupting our trip. He finally got a Gary Fisher bike rep, who was in the store, to contact a shop in Manitowoc, where we'll catch the ferry across Lake Michigan this weekend. The part will be waiting for me. So he spent about 2 hours checking over my bike, replacing my chain, cleaning my gears and making all these phone calls for $4 labor and the price of the chain. Maybe people really do get friendlier as we go along.

We ate a big lunch while our bikes were getting worked on. (Gridley also got a new chain and Garcia got a new chainring.) Then we took off for a high mileage, tailwind day. As I pulled onto the highway, a white haired woman on a mountain bike stared at my bike, leaned over and yelled, "Sweeet!" Kept me smiling for many miles. Immediately after I saw another white haired woman on a tractor cutting hay. Are all the Wisconsin men in the tavern?

We stayed on the letter roads, although we sometimes took different ones, and they were pretty nice. We rode by some lovely lakes with hills reminiscent of Gig Harbor. They actually made me homesick. We hit a stretch of heavy traffic with no shoulders and put some distance between us to make it easier for cars to pass. The distance between became greater as Gridley disappeared, I opted for a different letter and the kids dropped back. A couple of hours later, Gridley's and my roads converged and I saw him in the distance. I finally caught up after about 15 miles, when he stopped to take a break. We were over 120 miles when we finally came into Bloomer, the desired destination. Since it was a sizeable town at the junction of a couple of decent sized highways, we figured we'd have our choice of motels. There was only one, but it did have a vacancy. Thank God.

There was message from Kathryn that they'd given up trying to find us and stopped at a hotel 20 miles back. Maybe they can catch us tomorrow.

We got to the restaurant minutes before closing and inhaled baked potatoes, beer, iced tea and also a couple of steaks. Then hit the convenience store for ice cream. These beds are damn nice. Mike can't remember the last time he was on a real mattress.