Gig Harbor Washington to Bar Harbor Maine 2001

The sun was already shining white around the curtains when we woke up at 6. We must be approaching another time zone. We raided the breakfast bar and were on the road before 7:30. The weather was cool and sunny. The slight wind was mostly from the north. We'd be going mostly east.

Colby, Wisconsin

We studied the bike maps I got from the bike shop last night and mapped out a route to avoid traffic and bad roads. We were very anxious to get off the highway after we backtracked through Colby. County Road P would take us the first 25 miles or so. We refused to believe the road closed signs. There were side roads about every 5 miles so we wouldn't have to backtrack very far whenever we found the closure. We never did. We rode brand new perfect paving with virtually no traffic for 25 miles.

Wisconsin bike path

I stopped at the Piggly Wiggly in Mosinee for water and lunch. Gridley had been telling me about cheese curd for days so I got a bag of orange and white curds, like uncompressed cojack, some triscuits and oranges. I sat on a picnic table in the shade across the street and thoroughly enjoyed my picnic and waited for Gridley to show. We'd hit some cracked pavement that he couldn't stand. I don't know if he detoured looking for smoother roads or just rode really slow, but he never showed.

I got the maps out again and wrote out the route all the way to Manitowoc. (The plan is to meet there tomorrow, have a layover day and take the ferry across Lake Michigan.) The roads were great in spite of meandering all around the state, climbing endless hills, and being semi-chased by dozens of dogs. The maps really route you around the traffic and traffic is what I like the least about riding. Dogs are weird. They almost never give me a serious chase, even if they just chased a regular bike. I don't know if it just isn't a challenge because I'm too slow or if regular bikers look like they're running and I look like I'm lounging.

Endless rolling hills

I really saw the heart of Wisconsin today - the farms, barns, cows and tractors. Cheese is probably Wisconsin's first industry. I'm pretty sure road building is second. There were hundreds of dump trucks hauling dirt and asphalt to road projects and I rode a lot of brand new pavement. There were a lot of farmers baling hay, too. Regular sized bales that get catapulted out of the baler into a trailer. Enormous rectangular bales that get shot out a chute. Big rolls of hay, huge rolls of hay. I'd seen these white sandworms of hay, like it was shrink wrapped. I finally saw a farmer blowing a truck full of hay into giant condoms. Seems like the hay would just rot, but I guess they know what they're doing.

I started looking for a place to get a milk shake and some iced tea at about 60 miles, maybe 1pm. Daily ice cream is mandatory. I finally found one in Manawa at 100 miles at about 4:30. I'd planned to camp somewhere around Manawa, but it was a little early and I couldn't find a place anyway. None of the few places on my map that say they have camping actually do. So I decided to just keep riding until I found something.

I thought a park at 135 miles and sunset was sure to have camping. Nope. So I rode on into Appleton, much farther than I ever expected to go. It was almost dark when I found a sleazy motel and grabbed a room. They took forever to copy all the information from my driver's license and charge me a $3 key deposit. The nastier the motel, the more paranoid they are. I can prove how tired I am. I rode 148.8 miles and was too tired to go get dinner and make it 150 miles. I cooked the ramen noodles I'd been carrying for a couple of weeks and finished off a lot of snacks. Guess I'll find a big breakfast tomorrow. Definitely not a breakfast bar in this place.

The one saving grace of this dump is the deep, relatively clean, bathtub. I soaked and read for a long time. Then Amanda called so I could wish her a happy birthday. We had a great, long talk. I'm starting to get homesick. A few more 150 mile days and I'll be there.