Winging it in Wisconsin!
After a not so restful sleep, Tom and I got underway reasonably early, with a great clear sunny sky above us. Deciding again to continue along the nice river-side road, we pushed on towards La Crescent staying on state route 61, intending to take it all the way in to town. As it turned out, state route 61 turned into INTERSTATE 61! As in, NO BICYCLES ALLOWED! MINIMUM SPEED 40 MPH!
Oops!
Well, we thought we’d risk it for a biscuit, so put the hammer down and cranked hard for 6 miles. We only had 1 truck give us a disgruntled blast of its horn, and we slipped off at the required exit, without seeing any John Q Law... which was kinda cool!
After a good rest break at the first servo in town, it was off again, with the intention of taking the planned route of SR 16 down along the Minnesota side of the Mississippi. Well, after a momentary lapse of reason, or rather, too busy enjoying the scenery and not paying enough attention, we found we had crossed the old Miss, and had wandered (or wheeled) back into Wisconsin.
Rather then back-track a bunch of miles, we opted to carry on along the WI side, which turned out to be a great choice as the road was wide, smooth and gently rolling, with great views over the rail tracks, the river and the wildlife reserve along that section. I took a pic of the “Worlds Largest 6-Pack” too, at a brewery just inside WI... and it had some cool facts posted out front too;
Tuesday, 31 July 2007
TNT Journal
Eventually, after about 38 miles of sweet WI ridin’ we crossed back over the river, but this time, arriving in Iowa! The planned campsite was a bit off-route by about 3 miles, but it was VERY well worth is, as we were miles from any trains and major roads. The tent sites were right at the back of a very quiet campsite with no huge floodlights anywhere. A hot shower, and a solid feed of chicken strips n fries saw us feeling very happy thank you very much. The night was capped off by sitting in camp and watching a movie on my Powerbook. Sweet!
We met a guy at the campsite who came over to say Hi, as he was riding a bike too. He told us he’d been riding a while, and had covered over 8000 miles already, which we were naturally impressed with... until he mention that a while was over the past few years, and he’d riden the 8000 miles in small sections, with a huge RV as a support vehicle! I felt like telling him I’d walked 250,000 miles... over the past 20 years of my life! DUDE! 8000 miles is great, but don’t say it like you just did it all in the past few months! We had a good laugh about that one!
Waking the next day, and feeling fantastically rested, we again chose to do it our own way. As the previous days riding in WI had been so great, we crossed the old Miss again, and carried on along the WI side for another 25 miles. We had also heard that the IA sides route was unnecessarily steep and hilly, with not much to see again, so the choice was an easy one.
And so off we forged, on our own ‘alternate route’, which ended up being for the whole day, as we didn’t get back on to the ‘official route’ until lunchtime the next day... but that’s the story for the next update cos I am knackered, and the mozzies are starting to bite my fingers as I type!
So I will catcha again soon...!
Cheers,
RWK.
