Day 39 - Wed, Jul 2, Wisconsin Dells to Lake Mills

DAY 39 - WISCONSIN DELLS TO LAKE MILLS

78.8 miles

5.53.18 st

13.3 avg

TTD - 2217

Last night was the night of “Rac-attacks”. After getting into bed, sleep didn't come quickly as we waited for the neighboring campers to quiet their dog, then for another one to turn off his headlights after roaring in on his motorcycle. It was also very warm and humid.

Not too long after dropping off, Gerry heard noises out by BOB. He shined the headlamp out and, sure enough, there were two beady little eyes shining back. Raccoon again. He scooted away from the garbage bag that was sitting on BOB when the light shone on him. Later, I woke up to rustling and poking by my head. He was just outside the tent, sniffing for the pita bread that was inside by me. I smacked the tent wall and he scurried away. We didn’t hear from him again in the night.

We got up at 6:30, ate, packed up, then stopped at the bathroom to wash off the bug spray and apply sunscreen before taking off at 7:50.

The temperature was already 73 degrees and very humid. It didn’t take very long to be totally soaked – from sweat and humidity. The haze that you see in this picture is the humidity in the air.

When we reached Portage, we stopped at the city park for a short break. While we were there, the clouds built up and it started raining. We were thankful that we were under a picnic shelter, especially when the thunder and lightning came.

While we were waiting it out, a young guy came walking in and sat down at one of the tables. He said he was meeting a friend there. During the course of conversation, he said that he is an alcoholic. He was quite interested in the bike ride and had a bunch of questions about it. He told us about when he had a close call with lightning. I wanted to ask him what would have happened if he had gotten hit and died, but the subject got changed before I could get it out. When he saw his friend, Hazel, coming, he told us that she’s having her 70th birthday on the 4th and that she has quite a colorful mouth. And she did.

The rain finally let up so we headed out. We rode a little slower in order to stay behind this storm all the way to Columbia.We got down the road a ways and I saw another dark cloud closing in on us. That didn’t bother us – until the lightning came. We saw a house with the garage door open, so pulled right into the drive way. I knocked on the door and asked the guy (Mike) who answered if we could take refuge on his porch. He said sure, and invited us into the house. I declined, but we sat on his porch and visited with him. After about 20 minutes, we could see the lightning had passed so took off again.

I liked how this tree overhung the road and was trimmed to let traffic pass.At Columbia, when we headed out of town, we saw a sign that hwy 89 was closed, so we stopped at a hardware store to inquire about it. The lady there called the police station and found that the detour for that road was to take hwy 73. So we headed straight into a strong headwind. Ugh. Then the road turned that made it a cross wind, then a headwind, then a cross wind, then…

When we rode through Marshall, some highway patrolmen were supervising an extra long load through town. As we rode by, one of them gave us a thumbs up and said “Sweet ride!” (We've gotten many thumbs up from people on this trip.)

We went on to Waterloo (passed by Trek bicycle headquarters) and stopped at the city hall to ask about road closures and motels. The lady said there are no motels in Waterloo, so we had no choice but to go on to Lake Mills, another 10 miles....against the wind. Sigh.

I don't think that I've mentioned that there have been record rainfalls and floods throughout this whole region, which is the reason for so many road closures.

We reached Lake Mills a little after 3:00 and, because of the severe thunderstorm warning in effect for this area, we checked into a cheap motel there. We asked the man (and his wife) if they have a discount for tired bikers. He said no, but he could give us a soda. His wife gave us a couple of bottled waters instead.

This was not one of my favorite riding days. The humidity annoyed me today. I felt like I was wearing it. We saw on the weather report that it was 83% today. No doubt. You could actually see it in the air. Add that to the wind....and I was ready to stop for the day.

All evening I felt like I had bugs crawling on me. I did. We finally figured out that the window didn’t close all the way and there was a hole in the screen where someone tried to get in. The only thing that got in is the insect population. (The perils of a cheap motel.) Duct tape to the rescue!

Jason called us to tell us of his good news this evening (see above).

One more day til Milwaukee,

Gerry and Pat