Day 65/ 66/ 67 Wisconsin State #6

Day 65 Afton to Menominee
Not wanting to get in trouble by the park staff, we rose early and got packed. Looking to out to the East, we gazed upon the trees of Wisconsin across the St. Crouix river. Our sixth state was only 20 miles away. We climbed out of the park and headed to the nearest town, Afton, a small river town. A small cafe called to us, and we made our first stop for food. Large breakfast burritos surrounded the table, for a couple of minutes...Procrastinating once again, we charged our electronics and decided to head the river for a quick look. A nice ride down a bike trail brought us to the St. Croix river. A dark murky brown river that was not at all appealing to swim in separated us from Minnesota to Wisconsin. We headed north, where we would cross the river into "America's Dairy" land. The 10 miles to the bridge followed the river on a bike path and kept us from the heavy traffic, no shoulder, two lane road that we would have to take if the trail was absent. After a couple wrong turns and U-turns we finally crossed the bridge and were on Wisconsin land! The bike path disappeared after a couple of miles and we were soon on country roads. The further east we headed the greener the scenery became, trees spotted the hills in the distance. Hills!! we never thought we would be happy to say that, but the monotone terrain of the North Dakota and Minnesota flats had driven us bored to many times. Finally we were sweating and panting up hills and free to coast down them, a nice change. Today's total climbing is around 4000 feet over a span of around 50 miles. Halfway on the ride we noticed that we may have been attacking the hills a little to hard, as Evan and Beaus knees started to bother them, hindering their speed and comfortability. We finally rolled into Menominee, a McDonald's sat right on the edge of town, without really thinking about it we found ourselves riding into the parking lot and dismounting our bikes. 20 burgers and five large fries later we sat slipping in and out of a food induced coma. Summoning the last of our energy we headed out for the two miles into camp. The city park allowed camping and were happy to see a disk golf course at the park. Throwing our disks intill dark, we said our good nights as we couldn't see where we were aiming.

Day 66
Menominee to Eau Claire.
Breakfast at McDonald's. Another good part of biking is that you can eat pretty much what you want and not have to worry to much about the side effects of poor eating. After fueling up on eggs bread and grease we hit the road with another beautiful sunny day. Our route today was on and off country roads. At some point we had to ride onto busy highways, thankfully there is a wide shoulder without to much debris. Highway 10 was a direct shot into Eau Claire, so we decided to stick with the highway, hoping it would be a little bit faster paced as well. We found another route to town through the back streets in neighborhoods, which led to a bike path and further more lead to a Wallmart. Cheap food is to tempting, we made a stop to stock up on sandwich materials before heading to the campsite for the night. Calling ahead a staff member said that they had a large campsite that would be able to fit all five of us. Secluded in the back of the grounds away from the numerous R.V.s in the regular sites. Amazed by a huge field we set up our tents a good 20 feet away from each other, just cause we had the room. (Maybe to get away from each others smells as well.) After our rounds of long showers we had dinner and talked into the night till we spotted dark luminous clouds overhead. We ran and took shelter in our tents before the rain got us.
Day 67
Eau Claire to Fall creek
When we first Started this trip, the first two hours of the morning would be spent packing up our gear, while Hank sat reading already done. His wilderness program trained him in very quick packing. After two months everyone is putting on their last pannier in around 25 minutes. Packing our sleeping bags, rolling up our air mattresses, re packing our clothes from the night before, rolling out of tent, disassembling them, rolling them up while cleaning and re-loading our bike with our panniers, has become a very efficient morning procedure. Food has become a very good motivator on this trip. We planned to get out Neilsvillewakeup right when the sun rises to be on our bikes before anyone found us sleeping where we weren't allowed.

 

We have updated the blog for a couple of days after Minneapolis. The rest of the days up to today(8/27), Ludingtion Michigan are written but are awaiting to be posted. They should be online in the next couple of days. Oh yeah, the donate button is up and running once again, so if your wallet can spare it, our very depleted ones will be very happy to purchase us new socks and a run at the Laundromat. Thank you every one for reading our blog, and spreading the word of ptowntopwhat. Comments very much appreciated


                                             Oh Yeah, the donate button is working...

Day 63/64

   More thank to David and Angie for having us and showing us a good time! Come to Portland!!
We left Davids place and rode to downtown Excelsior to a coffee shop, were Hank got on his laptop looking for a place to stay for the night. After sitting there for an while a lovely lady started talking to us about our trip and her travels in Guatemala. Her name was Candy, and after talking to us for a bit, she offered us a place to stay the night at her son's house, just a couple of miles west of where we were. She left the coffee shop and we decided we might as well take her up on her offer. Since it was around four in the afternoon, an d we still haven't found a place for the night.
         We gave her a call and met her at a gas station about 2 miles down the road. On the way Donald got a flat, as he patched up his tube, Candy sat in her car talking to Evan about Portland. We found out that back in the 1980's she lived in Beaverton and Gresham, working as a apartment manager. Small world.
     We got to her son's house and were introduced to Bradly, her Son and his roommate, Josh. We actually felt pretty lucky because a storm was passing right when we got there, a situation we would usually have to ride through.
         We ordered pizza's, watched T.V. and movies, which has become a forgotten luxury. A huge thanks to Candy, Bradly and Josh, for opening your house to us and letting our feet make the whole downstairs smell.

Day 64
Today we are finally going to make a try to get out of Minnesota. We have arranged a Warm Showers in Prescott Wisconsin. A good 60 mile day should warm up our legs from a two week break. The ride was 70% on bike trails, weaving through downtown Minneapolis, through St. Paul and into the long forgotten and surely missed farmlands. We took many breaks, as we slowly let go of the comforts of Minneapolis. Around 7 pm we were around 10 miles from Prescott when we got a call from from our warm showers host, saying that we are a little to late to camp at their house. Finding the closet place to sleep, we pedaled hard to Afton State Park as the sun was slipping away in the horizon. The campground was not to be found. In the pitch black darkness we had a very hard time finding the campsite, the road went up and down, continuing the same pattern, we gave up and camped and the first field we found. Staring at the stars  and munching on pop tarts before we went to sleep, we gazed in a bewildered daze at the exploded suns and planets of the past that illuminated our nights sky, engaging our minds to think of subjects past our intellect, how super novas could be the missing link in creating the essential elements in making our planet, how water found on other planets could be the beginning stages of a life form similar to our own, and just how small our world is, but inside of it are numerous journeys that can take many lifetimes to explore. The thoughts reflected to us like a mirror, here we were on a journey of lifetime, exploring our own country in a way that opens natures own treasures to us in a very unique way. We look around and are happy that we are doing this with eachother. Wisconsin, tomorrow we will pedal your lands! We hope.

 

        

12 days in a Bigger Portland

We have come to love Minneapolis. It may be a sub-conscious home-sickness, but mostly we think it cause it is such diverse city were everyone is really nice, and its a huge change from the small towns of 200 people we have become accustomed to. We have spent 9 days in the city. And three days in Excelsior, a rich lake town around 15 miles west of downtown. To sum up our adventures we are going to use a picture journal to explain the adventures in a bigger Portland. So much has happened that we would be here writing a novel to explain our adventures in Minnesota. Next to Andrews house is a local bar call "the Hexagon", were we met the best bartender in Minneapolis. The bar its self was a dive bar, but Laura made up for it. Hanging out with her every night we would then venture through different districts of the town. To uptown, to downtown, to dinkytown, to minnehaha to midtown. Going to white sand beaches, then to an underground punk show, to the Brit's pub to watch lawn bowling, and back to the hexagon to see Laura. We meet a guy named Jai who took us around town and invited us to go to his concert in Excelsior. Riding out to meet them at the Bayside grill, we entered the rich neighborhood. Rolling our fully loaded bikes, and not smelling to good we entered a bar nestled right on lake minnetonka. Jai had spread the word of us biking from Portland, and by the end of the night we had hundreds of people coming to talk to us. The next couple nights we stayed at the house of the lead guitarist, David and his wife Angie. They treated us to a couple boat rides and showed us how to party. By the end of the night, Hank had over ten numbers of people offering us to sleep at their place. We can easily stay here for a while. But the time has come for us to leave the great city of Minneapolis. It has treated us well, and spoiled us to the extreme. Tomorrow we head out for Wisconsin, riding a modified route that Hank planned. Saving us 300 miles, and will hopefully make up some of the 11 days we have spent here.

Thank you Andrew and Randy for letting us stay at your house, and to David and Angie for showing us a great time, taking us on the boat and letting us stay at your place, hope we didn't make it smell to bad. Drive that RV out to Portland and we will return the same favors. Josh, thank you for the access to bike tools. . Thank you Laura for taking care of us! We will send you a large case of Oregon pinot noir when we return. And please keep in touch, all of you are making our journey better and better

Pictures of minneapolis

I apologize for the order of the pictures. Blogspot is very temperamental about where i can  place pictures, so they are scattered all over the place. Hope you get a glimpse of our adventure in the Twin Cities.
 

  

 

 

 

 

52 53 arriving in a bigger portland

52 it was a sad morning. we packed up and road to Hardies for breakfast, our last meal with the englishman. Making fun of his accent, his height and calling him french, is how we said our goodbyes. Reminiscing about our last two weeks as we chowed down on greasy breakfast burritos. Having alex travel with us has been great. I think excpiecally for Alex, traveling alone can be hard and I'm pretty sure he thoroughly enjoyed his American experience with us. Attempting a century a day to make it to the coast by September first. He wrote us a goodbye note in Evan's journal:

bonjour
A message from Alex the Frenchman
I have much to thank you crazy lazy bunch of retards for. Without my American Experience I would never have known what a spork is, would never have discovered the delights of snuss, would never have eaten a Mcdank, such wonders amaze me still.
and now a message for each of you:
Evan: Go home!
Beau- Stop sleeping in the street
Hank- nice mustache, come cycling in Europe
Kane- I hate your face
Donald- Think manly thoughts and the beard will come.
And now i Bid you adieu for the time has come to leave. Someone keep Sonia warm for me.
Alex, the foreigner

Watching Alex ride off a couple of tears rolled down our cheeks as we stayed for lunch as they switched the menu from breakfast to lunch. Our maps took us into Minneapolis via country roads, making the journey a 120 miles. Hank decided to re-route the ride down to 60miles following 169, a direct shot into town. The interstate was not as bad as we thought. A very wide shoulder, and not horrible traffic, just a bunch of debris, that we would point out as we headed south in our very practiced paceline. Hank and Kane began to miss Alex even more as they tried to bend i8nto the others very,very small slipstream. Hank led the group off the interstate and onto a country road that followed the Mississippi river. Camping 20 miles outside of the city in a KOA in maple grove, we watched videos and photos of Evan's and Hank's San Fransisco trip, and Donald threw his rain fly on a tree to let it dry, knocking three baby birds onto the ground in the process. We sat and watched the mother teach her babies how to fly and rescue them.

53Portland has won the most bike friendly city for 6 years in a row, last year Minneapolis was given the platinum award. This got us very excited to see the cities bicycling infrastructure compared to Portland. Riding into town was a little harsh, the streets were split and littered with potholes. After 20 miles of dodging road hazards we saw huge building peaking over the horizon. Riding closer and closer certain areas reminded us districts back home. Pedaling through "Beaverton" and weaving through cars in "Hawthorne" we entered downtown. Gigantic building towered over us as we tried to figure out were to pull over and sit down and find our bearings. Our first conversation was with a homeless drunk complaining about the government. Reminds us of home. Hank stated to search online at a website called WarmShowers. A huge network of fellow cycle-tourist that offer their home for bikers coming through town. Offering either a shower, bed, lawn space for tents, kitchen space, laundry and sometimes even food. The first person he called was excited to have us stay with him. On our way to Andrews house, we passed an old museum made from an old mill sitting on the river. Lured by the modern architect hidden inside an old mill from the late 1800's we stopped and strolled in. Unfortunately the museum was closing in 20 min and we could not take the glass elevator to the top. Bored and tired we started for Andrews house, riding on a bike path that follows the Mississippi river. Finding his house in a neighborhood that resembled Belmont, we set our tents up in his backyard and went on a tour of the area. After visiting the local bar we headed back to the house and met Andrew. A very friendly guy who invited us into his house for a beer and a chat. Introducing us to the bike systems in the city, he showed us massive trail systems that spread throughout the city. We talked more about our tour, and also some of his past trip to Europe and the pacific coast. saying goodnight, we went to sleep, eager to explore the city the following morning.