The heat has diminished a bit as have the headwinds (somewhat) so we've been able to ride more comfortably the last few days. We are currently in Luddington, MI, having taken the 12:55 am ferry over from Manitowoc, WI. Luddington sits on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan and our hotel is only two blocks from the water. It's still hard for me to think about a body of water this ocean-like that is not salt water!
We've had some great encounters with "road angels" over the last few days. We were riding just west of Neillsville, WI, thinking about where we were going to stay that evening, when a cyclist turned around and pulled up next to my bike. His first words to us were "my wife is in Africa." While I was struggling to ascertain what this had to do with anything in particular, he followed up by saying that he had his house to himself and wanted to know if we'd like to stay the night. As he lives two miles down a gravel road, he lead us to a nearby supper club, where he corralled Justin into giving us and the trikes a ride there in his pick-up. He then set us up with drinks and a great 11-year-old cheddar cheese, gave us a tour of his beautiful home and property, told us where he kept the keys to his truck in case we wanted to go back out for dinner, and then left for a couple of hours to run an errand. An hour later, our British friends come waltzing through the door with Justin's mother - who had been asked to give them a lift after our host spotted them on the road a little while earlier. This man was either incredibly kind and generous or had the bodies of cyclists buried all over his 70 acre farm. Fortunately for us, and cyclists everywhere, Rick was the former. He was a teacher, furniture maker, trader in industrial lighting, and everyman philosopher, who has a big heart and a passion for cycling. He talked about his talented sons (architect and chef), his state (politically awkward for someone with more liberal leanings), and his wife, Toni (a Special Ed Director who he has known since kindergarten, who really was in Africa for a few weeks, teaching behavior management techniques to teachers there - a woman after my own heart!). While there we had a our pictures taken holding a limited production $10,000 TREK bicycle, signed by Lance Armstrong, that his older son had won for designing the color scheme of one of the bikes ridden by Lance in one of his Tour de France victories - ok, this is only interesting to bike geeks.
Rick finished his incredible hospitality by setting out a breakfast of granola, blueberries, yogurt, and eggs before driving us back out to the paved road. Thank you Rick for your amazing generosity and thoughfulness.
Great ride that day through Wisconsin dairy farms where we stopped at a few dairies to buy local cheeses. What was to be a quick stop in a cafe/bar for a drink and an afternoon snack, turned into a lengthy conversation with four local women in their seventies who were very interested in our trip. We learned about cheeses (did you know that white cheese curds are better than yellow ones and you can tell that they are fresh if they "squeak" when you eat them?), the polio outbreak in the 1950's and the efforts of Bill Gates and the Rotarians to eradicate the disease forever, and the nephew of one woman who was killed last year while training Afghan villagers the skills they needed to become more self-reliant. We left there with presents of cheese and gatorade powder (left over from the supply that the woman had purchased to send her nephew).
After camping in a park in Amherst Junction and dining on squeaky white cheese curds, we headed into Waupaca for breakfast at a local restaurant/gas station. For the next two hours we were treated like rock stars! The owner, Jim, himself rides a recumbent trike, and introduced us to several patrons and members of his family. He called the newspaper, and had his son Todd interview us and take our pictures when the paper was unable to come out on short notice. A local cardiologist paid for our breakfast while a string of interested well-wishers stopped by our corner booth to ask questions, offer words of encouragement, and to give us donations for our charity. A second patron tried to pay for our breakfast, then asked us to put the $20 to our cause. Jim and his son loaded us up with Wisconsin t-shirts, gatorade, and a generous donation and promised to send Jake a Wisconsin patch (as they didn't sell any at their store). One more example of the "kindness of strangers."
Just so you don't think that I'm done complaining, or that life is too easy out here on the road, the trip east from Waupaca was not fun. Jake and I both had flats and used the last of our 20" tubes. The road conditions were highly variable and we were essentially kicked off highway 10 just before crossing a bridge into Appleton, WI. The police officer felt that it would be too dangerous as there was no shoulder and traffic flow was very heavy. While I know that his intentions were good (and ok, maybe he saved our lives), but we had to add an extra 10 miles going in and around Appelton on really bad roads, with a series or really bad directions, before we could re-join highway 10 again east of the town. Then, we decided that we could still make Manitowoc by nightfall and take the late-night ferry instead of camping 20 or so miles west of there and taking the mid-day ferry the next day. By this time, my legs and knees were hurting and I was just a wee bit fussy (although I'm sure that I hid it well from Jake). But, as night fell, we limped into the ferry dock after a 109 mile day only to find the Brits in the ferry office, arranging for passage for the following day. We all went out for a nice dinner before we boarded the ferry and they set up their tents next to the ferry office. So, in the end, it was the best of days, it was the worst of days.
An uneventful ferry ride (where Jake and I attempted to get a little sleep) carried us over to Luddington, where we dis-embarked at 6 in the morning. We breakfasted, found a hotel that would let us check in at 8:00 and tried to catch up on our sleep. We also manged to get some laundry done and see the latest Harry Potter in 3D before running into a very nice couple from Wisconsin (Wally & Jenny) who were also making the trek from Washington to Maine. As we were talking with them, our British friends came cycling up, and we all had a lovely time picnicing in a local park - where a series of locals warned that they would all probably be kicked out for trying to camp there. We left them all rather late with an invitation to sleep on our floor should the local constabulary decide to roust them from their temporary domiciles in the middle of the night. It's now 9 am and we haven't had anyone come knocking, so they all all fine or we'll be bailing them out of jail after we have breakfast - we do have our priorities!
We now continue our ride east through Michigan where we will cross over into Canada before returning to the states around Buffalo. At this pace, we will likely make it to Maine a few days earlier that planned, allowing me a couple of days to adjust to life off the bike before returning to work on the 25th.
I hope you are all well and finding time to get outside and play.
Take care,
Rob & Jake
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