Day 5 - Hayward WI to Glidden WI

Today’s Miles: 65

Total: 251

I’m going to continue on yesterday’s post. Both Ethyl and Monte have done many marathons and cross  country ski events in their life.  In fact Ethyl has run the Boston Marathon and done the Birkebiener 32 times. I guess it is a pretty well known cross country ski event.  I had never heard of it, but Tim and Nancy say everyone in Seattle area know what it is. She just kept saying that she wished she could try the type of touring that we are doing, but realized she is probably too old now.  Monte is 78 and I’m not sure Ethyl age, but she and he are quite the couple.  Also, on the making syrup from the Maple trees.  When they boil that syrup down, it takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.  Now I understand why the real stuff is so expensive.

A picture of Ethyl and Monte at the Birkebiener.

Them today.

They served us wild rice infused waffles and had their maple syrup that they made.  It was delicious. They were the kindness people.  We mentioned that we would probably ride into Hayward because we needed more bagels and Ethyl goes and pulls a bag of bagels out of the refrigerator and gives them to us.  There are many wonderful people in this world.

Again, not too much to mention about the ride today.  It seemed there were a lot fewer hills, but we did have many to climb. We had a lot of miles to cover.  Stopped for lunch at this little quant café and had a pesto and tomato sandwich and wild rice soup.  I have to say that Ethyl’s soup was better.  Also, the pesto sandwich probably isn’t what I normally would get, but it hit the spot and gave me the fuel I needed for the afternoon.

I actually thought how crazy it is that I was in this place in the world at this spot.

We actually averaged about 11 miles an hour today, so that is our new high.  I mentioned this once before, but you can’t believe the number of lakes in this State.  They are everywhere.  Ethyl mentioned that people from Minneapolis come in here and buy up much of the property around the lakes.  We did meet a group of them that were on a bike ride and we were taking a rest by the side of the road and they stopped by to see what we were doing.  They were very nice and in fact, invited us to spend the night in their vacation homes.  It would have been fun to do so, but we had many more miles to cover.

We are staying in Northern Lure Resort just outside of Glidden tonight.  It is on the shore Gordon Lake.  Another pretty view.  I did talk with a fisherman and he was a little disappointed in the fishing.  There are not that many people in the resort.  We had dinner in the lodge and I just couldn’t resist the double hamburger.  It really was delicious.  But maybe, it was the hunger that made it so great.

Beautiful Lakes.

Dinner tonight!!

Day 4 - Cumberland WI to Hayward WI

Today’s Miles: 60

Total: 186

Wonderful day of riding today.  There was really nothing that was note worthy.  Rode by many farms and dairies.  One thing that I noticed is that there are a lot of silos and dairy barns, but until the end of the day of riding, I didn’t see any that were still operating.  I imagine that the small dairies are disappearing here as well as home.  I haven’t seen any big dairies, however.

It was a day of riding the rolling hills.  I don’t have an altimeter on my bike anymore, so I can’t tell you how much we might have climbed, but the climbing up a hill at 5 miles an hour and coming down the hill at 20 miles an hour gets a little old.  10 minutes of climbing and 2 minutes of rest going down.  That is just the way it is around here.  I rode Iowa years ago and it is much the same. I guess I better not be complaining.  I’m the one that signed up for this, right?

We have been averaging about 10 miles per hour each day so far.  That doesn’t sound like much, does it?  When you think of riding 60 miles in the day and average speed of 10 mph, well, you can do the math.  That means 6 hours in the saddle.  We stop about every 10 miles or so for a little rest, so it is not uncommon for us to be finishing the day at 4 or 5 o’clock.

We are staying the night at a warmshowers host near Hayward WI.  It is the home of Ethyl and Monte. They are a wonderful couple.  They wanted to cook us dinner and they like to prepare food for their visitors that represent the area.  Ethyl made this soup that had wild rice in it from the shores of lakes in the area.  They go out and gather the rice plants and take it to a thresher to process the rice.  We had the soup, plus Wisconsin cheese curds and corn on the cob.  Very delicious. They took us out after dinner to show us the 80 acres of woods they own behind their house.  There are a bunch of maple trees back there and in March or so, they tap the maple trees and gather the sap and make maple syrup.  They have a place outside to boil the sap using wood as the fuel.  Monte says that he starts the fire first thing in the morning and has to boil a large pot full of sap all day to get the sap down into the form to make syrup.  They have about 100 trees on their land and Monte says they have to collect the sap twice a day. It has been fun to get to know them and see how the maple syrup thing works.

Well, talked to late in the night.

Wisconsin Dairy farm

Little town of Haugen were we stoped for a chocolate milk

Kind of hard to see, but a Mennonite buggy coming down the road.

Fall color coming on a select few trees.

Day 3 - O’Brian State Park MN to Cumberland WI

Today’s Miles: 60

Total: 126

Good night for the first night in the tent last night.  I have always contended that you have to be completely exhausted to be able to sleep camping.  It seemed that all of us were up quite early and had a nutritious breakfast of hot chocolate, coffee and oatmeal. And we were off.

We crossed the St. Croix River and were in Wisconsin.  There is a definite difference in the riding today as compared to yesterday.  The hills are here.  It isn’t anything to big, but just up and down. We also ended up riding about ten miles on another rail trail.  This one was not paved but crushed rock  It was called the Gandy Dancer Trail. Rail trails are great because to allow the train to operate, they need to keep the grade at about 2% up and down.  Great for the cyclist.

Ther Gandy Dancer trail

These two pictures are of my riding buddies.  Nancy & Tim from Tacoma, Washington .

Had lunch of PB&J in Balsam Lake and then just crossed over farm ground in Wisconsin.

Got the smell of pigs along the way, but didn’t see the farm.  Lots of corn and soy beans.

As we were riding, we noticed all these trees that were blown over and crews out working cleaning up the tree debris on the side of the road.  Come to find out, about a month ago they had 6 tornadoes come through Polk County Wisconsin.  We even saw an old barn that was blown down.  I wish I had a picture, but didn’t know what took place at that time.

I don't know if you can see the trees in the background.  It is a little far, but they have broken limbs and are down.

We are in Cumberland Wisconsin tonight.  It is the beginning of their Rutabaga festival here and the campgrounds are full.  The owners found us a spot out of the way of the other campers and it is an excellent spot.  We are away, no noise and right over the lake.  You will enjoy the pictures.

I’m not sure what goes on at the festival and things really don’t get going until this weekend, but it looks like the setup is very similar to Cassia County Fair.

Our camp tonight

Cooking Dinner

Beaver Dam Lake

Day 2 – Minneapolis to William O’Brian State Park MN

Todays Miles: 48

Total so far: 66

Had a good night last night.  Slept on a bed and slept quite well.  We got up and decided to just eat breakfast out somewhere.  Found a McDonald’s and that did the trick in getting going.  We did need to do some shopping before we got out of Minneapolis. We needed some of the basic food items (Bagels, PB & Jelly) and gas to use for the stoves.  We stopped at quite a few stores to get the gas and none had it.  Ended up that we went to a recreation store that was a little out of our way.

Getting out of Minneapolis was great.  This place is very bike friendly.  Most busy roads have a bike lane and there was a greenway trail that must have been an old rail trail.  It looked like it could have been a previous subway route.  Anyway, we rode nearly completely on trails today and it was wonderful.

Riding on the Mid Town Greenway

And then we were back in Minnesota farming territory.

One thing that is interesting about Minnesota.  They say that Co-Ops are a big thing here.  Nearly all grocery stores are Co-ops and apparently many other types of businesses and stores are.  Also, this State is really a land of 10,000 lakes.  You see them all over the place. Glaciers dug all these holes and now they are full of water.  It is very pretty.

Crossed the Mississippi today.  Not quite the river that it is further down the way.

Camping by the St. Croix River tonight and mosquitos are eating me alive. No internet connection tonight, so this writing is going to have to wait until tomorrow. Great pictures of our campsite and the river.

Day 1 - Minneapolis - Another Adventure Begins

Today's Miles: 18
Total: 18

Today I begin the adventure. My good friend Lyle got up at 3:30am to take me to the airport. Carey had a meeting at work, so Lyle came to my rescue.  We left Burley at 4 and arrived in Boise with plenty of time.  I wanted to arrive early due to having to check on my bicycle. I must say I love the Boise airport.  Everything just went smoothly and fast.

It is a wonderful thing to see that the bike made it.

This particular trip has been something that I have been looking forward to since I finished the Atlantic Coast trip in 2011. Nancy,Tim and I have been somewhat planning this trip since we rode last year and around March, plans began to be made. Even though it has been something that I have truly wanted to do, I think I have had some real anxiety in the last few weeks about leaving. I think since I know what it is like to be gone for six weeks, I have some trepidation in leaving and committing myself to that once again. I do have a great blessing in my life, however. That is my wife Carey.  She just encourages me on.

Everything arrived in Minneapolis in  great shape and I did something that I have always wanted to do. I just put the bicycle together at the airport and rode away. I had about a nine mile ride out Warmshowers hosts house. However, does it ever happen without problems? I planned on riding through a military cemetery and exit the other side and when I got there, the gates were closed and had to go back the way I came.  The roads were very busy and I got lost a few times. I did finally get to the host about 5:30.

Putting the bike together in the airport.

It really was a humbling cemetery and big.  So grateful for what they did, so I can do what I'm doing.

Our hosts are absolutely wonderful.  They are Jon & Jenny and have had some great bike touring experiences of their own  In 2012, they actually took their two girls and lived and cycled in Argentina for a year.  It was just fun to talk all night. They cooked us a great dinner of chili, tortillas and a delicious tomato salad.  It turns out that Jenny does this food counseling for better health for work.

T minus 2

Here I am again about ready to start another adventure. I am going to Minneapolis and riding East, up through the Great Lakes in the US and Canada and then back in the US around Niagara Springs and heading East to around Portland, Maine.  I will be riding with Tim and Nancy from Tacoma, WA.  If you have read much of this blog, you will know that we have ridden a lot together.  They are wonderful people and I love riding with them.  We have much the same riding style and it just seems we work well together and enjoy being with each other. We have dreamed of doing a multi-week ride again and riding across North America.  Neither of us could figure out how to take the three months we thought it would take, so we have split it up and this trip is going to be half of that dream.  😊

I am just messing with this blog program again to see if I can make things work.  The picture above is a shakedown ride of mine out to Lake Walcott, about a 40 mile ride away, to see if my bike held onto the loaded panniers and if I could balance the fully loaded bike still.  All went well and it was a very beautiful day to be by the lake.

Day 6 Elgin OR to Legrand

Miles Today 30

Total for Trip 289

My Miles Today 0

My Total Miles 231

This day actually took place Saturday, June 17th 2017.  Stephen and I needed to get back to Pulman for Max's birthday party, so we took the car and drove to Le Grande and Tim and Nancy rode their bikes.  I am going to just leave some thoughts.  This was a great opportunity for me to get to know Stephen.  He is a great bike rider and I have thoroughly enjoyed being with him. I do hope we get another chance in the future.  

Also, I just appreciate so much my friendship with Tim and Nancy.  They do all the work in planning these trips and I just join in for the fun and adventure.  I look at it as a great blessing in my life that we met in 2011. They are the best of friends.