Day 33 - Thur, June 26, Ladysmith to Marshfield, WI

DAY 33 - THUR, JUNE 26, LADYSMITH TO MARSHFIELD, WI

98.5 mi
6.42.34 st
TTD-2040.46

I woke up about 4:30, went back to sleep for about a half hour, then got up at 5:15. We weren’t extremely hungry this morning, (I wonder why after all that ice cream.) so just had tortillas and bagels with the rest of the milk. We were on the road at 7:00. It was clear and cool and very comfortable riding. We went down hwy 27 and had a great first 30 miles because of the coolness and the good road.

I really like the barns in Wisconsin. These are a couple of my favorite ones so far. It has been sad to see how many of them are falling into disrepair, due to lack of use.

We turned onto hwy 64 and it wasn’t bad either, until we came onto some construction. They were digging up the road, so what was left was grooved and rough to ride. After almost six miles, we came into Gilman where we stopped for a break.

Later we came on more construction where they had the road torn up in spots the entire width of the road so we walked the bike through those places.

A few miles before Medford we cut off on county road O. Somewhere on this road we hit the 2000 mile mark for the trip. My computer has only five digits, so put a 1 in front of all those 9's.
Then we turned south onto hwy 13, which was not a great road. Only about a 2’ shoulder and a little rough. At Stetsonville, we stopped for some lunch and ate the leftover chicken from last night on tortillas. Speaking of food, the Name of the Day is "The Brat Barn". Yup, we're in Wisconsin.

We kept an eye on the skies all morning because the forecast for today is for thunderstorms to start tonight and go into tomorrow morning. That’s why we’ve decided to push on to Marshfield instead of stopping at Medford for the night. We don’t relish the thought of sleeping in the tent in the rain and then riding in it tomorrow.
At Abbottsford, the road and shoulder turned ugly with large, poorly patched cracks. At Colby, it got even worse. Any bit of good humor I had after riding the six miles of grooved pavement earlier was now jarred out of me (along with several of my teeth, it felt like!). We stopped in Unity for Gerry to rest his back and shoulder. I walked across the street to the fireworks stand to ask the man if the county roads would be a better option. His opinion was that the county roads are worse. He said 13 is “a good road, the best”. (That’s because he’s not on a bike on the shoulder.)

We took him at his word and stayed on 13 and it did get better at Spencer. It changed from a concrete roadbed to pavement for the road and shoulder and was pleasant to ride the rest of the way to Marshfield.

We got to Bill and Carolyn’s house (Gerry's sister) at 3:35, hot, sweaty, dirty and sore. Gerry’s back is strained and the back of my left knee is killing me. Gerry checked the weather channel about 8:00 tonight and it’s been raining in Medford. We made a good choice.

Resting in Him,
Gerry and Pat