After a great – but way too short – weekend with my mom and Mike visiting, we’re on to our normal rest day activities. I’m at the laundromat early so I can give my clothes time to dry on on a humid day using our makeshift drying rack/portable fan system. So that gives me some time to do a catch up post on our progress.
On the donation front, we have not been doing great. Being two introverts, we’re relying to heavily on our signage and business cards to speak for us. We really do need to step that up to meet our goal (one more month!).
The rest of our time in the Minneapolis area was awesome! Whitney flew in and it was great to finally see her in person again – I believe this is our longest time apart since we met. We also finally got Bob to a baseball park (Brewers @ Twins), and spent more time hanging out with Chris, Doug, Mike and Meg.
Leaving was bittersweet – dropping W off at the airport on the way out was especially tough – but time to press on.
We spent one more night camping in Minnesota, where our issues with raccoons began. Bob woke up in the middle of the night to find trash strewn everywhere because we forgot to put away our garbage, and in the morning we discovered that some really nice ham Chris had sent with us from her cousin’s shop had been stolen from our cooler, with some dirt left inside as evidence. We had become lax about food storage now that we’re out of bear country, leaving the cooler outside. The next night, after crossing into Wisconsin, we left our water container on top to make it more difficult. But that didn’t stop them from trying – the raccoons there woke us up a few times throughout the night trying to find a way in, and we had to shoo them off. Our guard dog Sammie slept through both incidents. Next time I sleep in the back, we’ll prioritize keeping the cooler locked inside with me.
I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the cycling in Wisconsin. The bike trail system here is wonderful – mostly well groomed rail trails. I spent very little time on anything else. You do have to have a trail pass here to ride them, but $5/day ($25/yr) is well worth it. I’m definitely going to look into the Ride Across Wisconsin in the future. One of the trails features a set of 3 old tunnels – I only went through one of them, and it caught me by surprise. It was a bit surreal to walk alone through a ~.75 mile dark tunnel in the middle of a bright summer day.
We decided to do a long ride into Madison on Thursday and spend an extra day there to explore, since neither of us had been there. We camped in a county park in McFarland, which was in the middle of town on a highway. It was quite nice, except for the traffic noise and an occasionally belligerent neighbor. Usually we stay in state parks, but being in town was very convenient – and mosquitos were less of a nuisance (thanks again Chris for the thermacell!). We day-tripped into Madison, and went out for lunch and drinks. I’d heard “good things” about it from people that went to school there, and I see why. There’s lots of lakes, parks, cycle trails – more diversity than what I saw in the rest of the state, and a pretty lively downtown. I’d probably prefer a quieter suburb like McFarland at this point in my life, but Madison would be a cool place to live near for restaurants and entertainment options – at least in the summer.
Sticking to the trails did prevent me from seeing a lot of the towns along the way, which is part of the fun. But it also kept me from being tempted by donut shops. I have however eaten a lot of cheese (and a lot of lactaid) throughout Wisconsin. I’m pretty sure any changes to my waistline from this trip will be negligible – fortunately that wasn’t an objective of the trip!
The next day I biked into Milwaukee where we met up with Mike and my mom.
It was great to see them, and very cool that they took the time to fly out! We didn’t do much tourism, but we did get Bob to another baseball park. The game was a good one, but it was extremely humid once they closed the dome for rain that I don’t believe ever came.
As I conclude this post, Bob and I are on a surprisingly-expensive ferry across Lake Michigan, and Sammie is (hopefully) asleep in the truck below deck. We’ll dock in Muskegon in 90 minutes or so, our first stop in the state of Michigan. I’ll then hop on the bike and head north to camp in Ludington for the night. We’ve got a couple of nights at state parks planned – but we still need to book one for Thursday night. Friday we’ll stay in a KOA in Port Huron, and cross over to Canada on Saturday, with the goals of visiting Niagara Falls and going to a Blue Jays game (MLB park #3).
Time to apply sunblock and try to book our gifted Hyatt stay (thanks Brian!) before we dock!