The sofa is ripped. The bathroom light worked intermittently. The bed is saggy. And yes, we did pay to stay here. The only other motel is a mile or so out of town and the forecast is for storms, so we wanted to be close in.

We should have noticed when we rode in that there are a bunch of windmills along the route. Obviously we’re riding in a wind tunnel. These are the electric generating type of windmill. Big suckers... all over the hillsides. A large sign boasts proudly as we drop into town, "Lake Benton—The Wind Capital Of Southwest Minnesota". Would we have ridden through here if we had known this? One lady told us that it seemed to have gotten windier after they installed the windmills.

The librarian let us use the computers. Access is supposed to be limited to those with a library card, but since we didn’t have one, she let us log in under her name. We got our e-mail---four out of sixty weren’t junk. We had taken ourselves off mailing lists before we left home, but we seem to still receive some drivel. Since we aren’t writing back and forth to people every day, we’re not getting many personal communiqués. It’s hardly worth doing. We did also check our bank account to see how funds were holding up.

This is a friendly town. Lucky we didn’t pop in unannounced last weekend. The high school reunion for all of the town’s previous graduates was the big social event of the summer. Every restaurant, bar stool and bed in town was booked. Other than that most of the tourists seen here are fishermen. A big walleye tournament is scheduled for later in the month.

There are two weather fronts converging on us, and it’s supposed to be yucky tomorrow. Hopefully, it will be better. It’s weird to me because it so windy and stormy, so it seems like it should be cold, but it’s 80 degrees outside. Even in the shadows away from the wind, it’s hot. It’s not like the California coastal weather I’m used to.

Well, we walked into town and had dinner at the Family Steak House/Country Supper Club. They had a choice of the "quickie restaurant" or The Supper Club. The supper club came with a relish tray, soup, rolls, salad, food, potatoes, more rolls, but the difference was that the supper club took almost two hours, whereas people were in and out in 45 minutes on the other side. We figured it must have been for the plastic flower ambience. The waitress was really slow. It was so slow that people were walking out of the supper club side and going over to the quickie side.

My First Century! And it was done on a loaded bike! It was fairly easy though. For a 100 miles we had tailwinds that really helped. Really, really, helped. Most of the time we had a good shoulder. I was blown into the ditch once by the combination of side wind and truck vortex. The last fifteen miles from Sleepy Eye to New Ulm was more "traffiky" so it was kind of hairy the last few miles. Yes, there is a town named Sleepy Eye.

One recently paved section of the road was still closed to local traffic. We were going to take the detour, but a couple people stopped us and told us to take the closed road, which only needed to be striped. So should we take the six miles of brand new fresh pavement with nobody on it except for us or the fifteen mile of detour? Perfect riding conditions. The rolling hills flatten out the further east we go. The farms are really well kept and neat. It’s still pretty windy here. I understand why they put those windmills up in Lake Benton.

Bob gets slightly confused     

What about your whistle?

We passed through downtown right as the Glockenspiels started to ring their afternoon chimes. Unfortunately there was nowhere to stay close to the center of town so we road east a bit. We passed the Super 8. Why? I wanted to stop. Bob kept riding with me trailing after him. Another mile down the road he turned around. I was yelling at him, "Why the hell didn’t we stop back there?". I had not looked at the odometer to notice that we were now at the 99 mile mark. Our mile back enabled me to announce I had completed my first hundred mile day.

We left New Ulm fairly early this morning. Supposedly the wind was at our backs. We knew the winds would be strong, but since we were heading east we thought we would be OK. Well, it was really strong, and I wasn’t happy. I was scared. There were a couple of times when I was blown out into the road, and I was unable to get back to the side until the gust eased up. Luckily there were no cars coming at those moments. There were a couple times when we stopped and got off the bikes.

Really pretty riding though. We’re starting to get into some lake country. It was pretty, and we had a good shoulder until we got to Le Centre, and then we were on Highway 99, and there was no shoulder. There were mondo, huge potholes in the cement road. That was a bad eight-mile section. Then we went into a more remote section, and it was just rollers – up and down and up and down. It started to get windier, so we couldn’t enjoy the scenery. Many groomed farms and beautiful rolling countryside. Finally we decided to go kind of southeast which then put us where we had more of a side wind. It got us to a town sooner, but I said that I was not going any further. Bob looked at my face and said OK.

The final mile to the motel was straight into the wind. 3 mph. Barely could stay upright.

This Spam® game is pretty cool. If you uncover a frying pan you win $100. If you scratch off a Hormel®, it’s $500. The more Spams® you get, the more money you win. We’ve won every time. We like Spam®.

We forgot to mention that yesterday we stopped and had a drink at a local gas station in the middle of the state. When we got back out, our bicycles had blown over because it was so windy. One of Bob’s riding gloves was gone, and my riding glasses were gone. We found Bob’s glove blown across the parking lot under a truck’s wheel. We figured my glasses were picked up by someone after they had blown away from the bicycles. They were one of the first presents that Bob ever gave me. Bob doesn’t give presents frequently, especially not on holidays or birthdays. They’re very special when they are given to you. Anyway, I kept those glasses for a very long time, and I’m very sad that I lost them.

I like the way they plant the corn following the curvatures of the hills. No corn field was like any other. The corn wound around the hill, then a patch of wheat, then more corn. I figured wheat grows better on the top of the hill. The corn is about one and a half to two feet tall. We have been watching corn height as we travel. There are many puddles from the rains and many drowned out spots in the fields with mud washing into the furrows from the heavy rain. Minnesota has been barraged with an excess of precipitation in the last couple of weeks.

We noticed people have different kinds of dogs here in Minnesota. The dogs did not chase us in Wyoming and Idaho. Those were working dogs—Australian shepherds and other collie dogs. Here there are unchained dogs chasing us. Most knew their perimeters and followed along barking. Some followed us down the road, but didn’t try to nip at us. Mostly they seemed to want to chase us since they were bird dogs.

Plus we were really surprised when we got past Kenyon that we dropped into canyons with trees. The countryside reminded me of the Figure 8 Loop behind Pescadero or riding around Napa and Calistoga. Wind blowing through the trees. Remember we have not seen trees for a while now. It was not like South Dakota.

    Deb overlooking the Mississippi Valley

There was an unexpected climb up the limestone bluffs before we reached the crest to drop into the Mississippi Valley. Zillions of tiny butterflies flitted through the sky and evasive action was required pedaling up the hill because they settled on the roadway and I didn’t want to ride over them needlessly. I had to maintain enough speed to keep enough wind movement so the few mosquitoes and little flies wouldn’t bug me. I waited at the top for Bob and enjoyed the cooling breeze. Soon we were able to view Wisconsin and The Mighty Mississippi.

In the center of town is an old hotel with kitties for each room. Their rates were higher than we wanted to pay. We didn’t want to take off our panniers and leave the bikes outside. Also the stairway was too steep and narrow to lug the bikes up, so we found a motel a little south of town. I ate my first pheasant tonight. It could be good, but I think they overcooked it. He was a dry, little bird.

Turned out to be a needless rest day. We were watching the forecast this morning which showed a line of thunderstorms moving through the area and winds from the south. We decided not to fight it and stay in our motel room here. Well, it hardly rained at all. We heard a couple of claps of thunder, saw no lightening. It did not even rain five minutes.

Started out the morning overcast, muggy in Wabasha. We headed south along the Adventure Cycling (AC) Route to a section that looked like the swamps of Louisiana with water on both sides of the road, except it was moving, running water. It has been raining a lot here, so I think the water level may be higher than normal. Minnesota has been deluged for the last couple of weeks.

We thought we might see some cycle tourists since we are now on the AC route. Nope! We rode south along the river until we crossed at Winona. Then we tried to find The Great River Route bicycle path. We overshot by a couple of miles and backtracked to it. It was an uncompressed gravel path with rocks 1-2" diameter. Not good for road bicycles. We debated riding it. Then I dropped my drawers to pee. The mosquitoes swarmed over my exposed rear end. That was it! We are not riding through this unknown stretch of swamp!

Deb crossing the Mississippi River into Wisconsin   

    Deb at the Wisconsin Border

When we reached Trempealeau we examined the path again. It was a hard-packed compressed rock base here, so we decided to ride it to Onalaska. Very easy. No traffic. An occasional train on the parallel tracks. Passed by and through many lakes and swampy areas filled with birds (no gators).

Onalaska is right next to LaCrosse, Wisconsin. We left immersed in heavy fog. I guess all the lakes along the Mississippi contribute to the ground effect. We rode for an hour or so before the fog dissipated to show a clear sunny day. It is definitely humid here. The minute you stop riding the pesky mosquitoes swarm all over. We had put on DEET before we left the room, so that stopped them on the exposed skin, but everytime I stopped to go to the bathroom I had to swat my butt incessantly. Bob was laughing.

Bob had two flats today. I haven’t had any today.

We rode the LaCrosse River Bicycle Path from Onalaska to Sparta, which was 21.5 miles and stopped for breakfast. Then we rode the Sparta to Elroy Path which was the oldest rail-to-trail path in the country. 33.5 years old and 32 miles.

Bob at the Giant Penny Farthing in Sparta      

Now we have a retro motel room. We were going to camp. In fact we have already paid the $6 camping fee, but it is clouding up and it is very humid and there are bugs. For $35 we didn’t want to camp. It is a wonderful room with slingback Danish-modern naugehyde chairs and Formica table tops from the 50s. It has the original décor. Bob is happy here. The room smells a titch musty and there are a few holes in the screens, but we think most of the mosquitoes will be kept at bay.

We were able to walk through the two short tunnels without flashlights. They were short enough that you could get enough light, but the long ¾ mile one was pitch black inside, and we got wetter inside the tunnel with drips inside the mountain than we did yesterday in the rain.

Wisconsin has many interlinked bike trails. The Great Rivers Trail links to the LaCrosse River Trail which links to the Sparta/Elroy Trail which links to the (something)400 Trail. There are trails in other parts of the state also. Many people want to ride on the Rails-to-Trails—don’t want to ride on the highway. They like the easy grades, lack of autos and safety for themselves and their children. There were lots of families out today, lots of overweight middle-aged people who were all sunburned, but they’re out having fun. The trail went through enough shady areas that even though it was so hot today it was really cool today under the trees.

I’m sticky. It’s sticky here. I’m the "one who never sweats’. But I’m sweating here.

There’s not a lot of creativity in road naming here in Wisconsin. We left the motel, went into town and had breakfast, and went down Road O. O turned into G and back to O. Then onto 12/16 and turned onto HH and then N. In the Wisconsin Dells we went from 13 to 16 back onto another O. It turns out that the county roads are lettered roads, and each country starts the alphabet over again. So there’s lots of Os, lots of different numbers, and then there’s AW and EE and other weird things so it’s kind of hard to figure out where you are. So even if you are on road O, you need to know which county you are in. We thought it would be fun to spell out words as we rode or make up a Bicycle Bingo game as we passed each letter.

Outside of Elroy we were in the "land of the round barns", which are octagonal. We do not know the advantage of this construction style. We will have to look that up later.

I have the Wisconsin Bicycle Federation maps. We’re using these to navigate our way across the state following the green roads (green is a good bicycle road). On county Road O this morning we rode 15 miles and maybe 7 cars passed us. There was one short, steepy where a poodle came wiggling out onto the roads for pets. I shooed him back then noticed a vehicle cresting the ridge. We all had a panicky moment when Mom and Pop and Bob and I watched…praying that Little Doggie would make it off the road. Other than this one steep hill the rest of it was beautiful rollers passing through valleys and fields.

Wisconsin Dells… a combination Boardwalk, Great America and Disneyland…a zoo with a diameter of one block. Only one block off the main drag is pleasant, tree-lined residential community. We headed south out of Wisconsin Dells then veered onto another County Road O where maybe another 7 cars passed us on that section into Portage.

The towns are small. It doesn’t take very long to get through them, so even if there is bad traffic it is only for 5 minutes. Wisconsin is a great bicycling area. If someone ever wanted to take a week long tour it wouldn’t take much to have a very enjoyable ride although much of it is very repetitious. There is a lot of corn grown in the United States. Did you ever really realize? Being from California I didn’t know it. We have ridden through really, really, really a lot of corn.

Mostly wind at our backs. The scenery is not dramatic. Most of the Wisconsin River was not visible from the road. These are functional farm roads and they do not follow the river banks for the scenery. Going through the Dells area we rode through oaks and pines. Alongside the road was solid with white daisies mixed with white Queen Anne’s Lace and yellow dandelions, yellow mule ears and purple lupine. A very pretty section. We also saw our first cranes today—probably sand hill cranes. They are really long and tall. Kind of crane-like.

Left Portage bright and early as we always do. Crispy morning. We like the coolness of the mornings. There is not much mugginess yet. With a light windbreaker the wind is refreshing. As we were riding the country roads we found more cranes and deer. It was the morning of cranes and deer. Guess what? More corn!

Later we heard cranes squawking as they flew across the field. Bob likened them to the sound of a creaky door that needed oiling.

The first 15 miles this morning maybe 3 cars passed us. Peaceful, rolling hills. I told Bob it was 50 miles to Waupun, but it turned out to be only 35-40. We had lunch there. We almost didn’t go into the diner on Main Street. There were no patrons and we questioned ourselves, but decided to venture in. I ordered stuffed shells. I thought I’d get 3 shells…anyway it came with a salad bar and a mondo, huge plate of shells (enough for 3 starving adults) with a homemade tomato sauce and a creamy ricotta/mozzarella stuffing. Oh, it was so good. Bob had a big turkey and gravy. This plus a grapefruit juice and each of us chowing down on the salad bar for a whooping total of $8.35. They gave us the senior citizens discount. I was dismayed, but didn’t turn down the discount.

I asked some of the locals eating at an adjacent table what the remainder of our day would be like. We wondered if it were going to be less hilly or more hilly than what we had ridden. They said "It’s pretty much flat". Well, Bob was almost ready to go back and inform them it was not flat. Obviously it had been a while since any of them had not been in their cars. It was up and down continuously. No stores, no cafes. Up and down. Hot and humid. Started rationing our water. If necessary we could have stopped at someone’s home for water, but about 5 miles from Plymouth we finally came to a gas station/store/post office which had some soda to sell us.

Now we are in Plymouth, the original Cheese Capital of the US. This city was chosen by the National Cheese Council for this honor. Our motel was downtown for a switch, so we were able to walk around and explore. Most of the restaurants were too expensive. We ended up at a pub and had a hamburger. I’m pretty happy. We rode 93 non-flat miles today.

We woke up to a drizzly, rainy morning outside. The Weather Channel said there would be intermittent rain coming through. We waited around a bit until the major portion passed us, so we got a late start. It was about 8:30 by the time we left town. We picked out a route that would keep us off the major roads. It continued to rain. About 10 miles out of town we realized that if we hurried, we could catch the ferry across Lake Michigan today instead of tomorrow as originally planned. This would also save our having to spend an extra afternoon and night in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

We hustled our little butts on up the road, and it turned out to be 38 miles to the ferry, and we got there in plenty of time. And guess what we found! Some other bicycle tourists who were also traveling cross-country. These are the first people (two separate couples) we found who were traveling west to east. We first fed ourselves because we hadn’t had breakfast or lunch yet, and then we went down and found them and sat with them for the entire crossing which took four hours. The time really flew. We all got rooms in the same motel. We had dinner with the couple from Gloucester, Massachusetts. We all had different plans for the Fourth of July, so we didn’t anticipate seeing them any more after tonight.

It was really fun having someone to talk to other than bartenders, waitresses, and gas station attendants. We had a pretty fun day.

Seems like we have been in the rain more than 3 times, but we haven’t actually ridden in it. We have skirted and evaded it mostly. The weather has been a major factor in our daily decisions.