Mile 2757.1 – Madeline Island

I still have plenty of time to make it to Appleton for my reunion, so I decided to take the ferry from Bayfield over to Madeline Island for the day. The day started with writing a bunch of posts, trying to get up to date, but blogspot was down, so I wrote them but wasn’t able to post them. Sigh.

I went down to breakfast, which clearly outstripped all other breakfasts I’ve been served so far. It started with the fruit of the day, which was a blueberry and rhubarb crumble. I love rhubarb, especially the fact that every part of the plant except the stems that we eat is poisonous to humans. I would like to know who initially tested all that out. After the cobbler was a basket of croissants and chocolate muffins, then my entrée, eggs scrambled with locally harvested wild oyster and chicken of the woods mushrooms. I love how meaty those mushrooms are. That came with a side of roasted sweet, purple and Yukon gold potatoes. It was all quite nice.

I then went back to the room, finished the blog post I had been working on, and since I had 45 minutes before checkout and hadn’t drained the hottub from the night before, I added some fresh hot water and gave myself another nice little soak in it. As I was checking out, I mentioned that of all the places I had stayed in the United States, this reminded me most of the hotel and restaurant that I had worked at in Italy. Everything was done with a sense of style and refinement, and I appreciate that. I told them that I will come again, but make sure that I have at least three days next time. As I started carrying all of the panniers and lastly Penny down from the room, it started a conversation about my travels.

So yes, Old Rittenhouse Inn in Bayfield, WI. I loved it and would recommend it to anyone who is staying even vaguely near the area.

I rode the couple blocks down to the ferry terminal. I got to purchase a round trip for one person and one bike. Penny cost me half of what I spent on myself to get on the boat, which together was less than taking on one car. So Penny and I were carried for 2.6 miles to the ferry dock on Madeline Island. I’m not sure how I’m going to show that on the final route map, but I’ll figure something out.

Madeline is the largest and most populous of the Apostle islands. It had been inhabited long before Europeans realized that the world was round and even attempted to sail west. The population varies, from 2500 people in the height of summer to 1/10th that amount in the dead of winter. In fact, the ferry stops running when the water freezes over (usually sometime in January) and island students take a windsled across the choppy ice to school in Bayfield until February when the ice is thick enough to drive a car over. There is part of me that would love to come back in February with my mountain bike equipped with big, knobby tires and ride across the ice. The other part of me realized how uninviting the weather is that time of year and might be happier going to The Bahamas.

One of the most immediate things that I liked about the island is that there is a bike lane on the road for the 7 miles road between the town on the western end and Big Bay State Park, one of the island’s biggest attractions. Also, the island is very pretty.

I got down to the park, had a bit of lunch at a table overlooking a rock outcropping into the lake, then took a short hike down a trail. Since I couldn’t bring Penny with me, I was too nervous about her and all of the gear to leave her for more than five minutes unattended, even though I had seen only five other people in the 45 minutes I’d been in the park. We rode around to the beach side of the park. I ignored a sign that said no bikes, but did at least dismount and walk her from that point. Down at the beach I took off my shoes and got my feet into the cool water. I understand that for several weeks between July and August that it is pleasant to swim in this water, but it was too cold for anything but my feet to go in.

Barefoot, I walked along a 1/2 mile boardwalked trail that leads through a bog and sand spit to one end of a lagoon. I was walking Penny along with me, fully prepared to pay any economic or karmic consequences if she were to damage anything. Thankfully, she behaved. All along the path there were signs identifying the plants and informing us about the horribly harsh conditions they have to deal with to survive. The acidic soil is sandy and constantly shifting, the wind drys out everything in the winter and the snow in winter is measured in yards. But the birch and white pine and red pine and sugar maple, the wintergreen, bearberry, huckleberry and blueberry along with dwarf juniper, reindeer moss and ferns all survive somehow.

There was one point that a squirrel hopped up onto the boardwalk about 20 feet in front of me and, well, yelled at me. He was standing on his hind legs looking at me and clearly letting his displeasure at my presence known. Maybe he was telling me off for bringing the bike, I don’t know, I don’t speak squirrel. He let me get within about 6 feet of him before scurrying back under the boards. Past him, I got to the lagoon and turned around.

Eventually I made my way back to the park entrance and then rode around the to the other side of the bay, where the Big Bay Town Park is. I decided to camp there instead of the state park as I thought it would be less crowded. I found a spot within site of a group setting up their site and pitched my tent. Then, grabbing only what was most needed and valuable, I rode back into town for dinner.

I ate at Tom’s Burnt Down Café. Apparently Tom has had a couple fires along the way, and the current incarnation is open air, with tarps and what appeared to be an old sail as cover. The few walls are covered with handpainted signs with witty and funny sayings. I had a few beers and a pizza from Rachel’s Café, whose location I learned was in Washburn, the town before I get to Ashland back on the mainland. I was clearly the only non-local there in hour plus I sat at the bar, a group that included a small parade of well behaved dogs. On my way back up to the campsite, I stopped at the grocery store, picking up some more beer to take with me and some wild rice bratwurst that would be breakfast.

When I got to the park, the neighbors were gone. I went down to the water with my beer and just sat for a long while until it started to get cooler. I went back up to the tent and laid down to read. The group from the next site over returned a short while later and were a little loud. After the sun set, I dozed in and out of sleep, waking up to the random loud noises coming from my neighbors. At this point they were not at the tents a couple dozen feet away, but by a camper near the entrance to the park, yet I could still hear them clearly. The park sign states that quiet hours are 10-7. I’m a pretty easy going person, I don’t begrudge other people a good time and I understand how exciting a game of Eucher can get. But by midnight, I really did just want to sleep. So, I strapped on my sandals and walked over to them. In a calm voice, I informed them that it was midnight, they weren’t the only people in the park and asked if they could refrain from hollering. I was immediately accused of being rude. No, I responded, this is me being calm and respectfully asking that you acknowledge the park rules. I live in Brooklyn, I can show you rude. One of them claimed that they didn’t know anyone else was there, which I find funny considering that my tent was within sight of theirs. One of the women, Ann, I know her name was because I had spent the last 5 hours hearing them, started to get huffy about it and I replied with a shrug and sauntered back through the dark to my tent.

When I asked them to be quiet and they responded by calling me rude, I think that’s bad manners. A few minutes after I got back to my tent, one of them let off a short blast on an air horn, to which the rest of them laughed. That, my friends, is bad karma. Not long afterwards, I saw flashlights headed to their tents as they none too silently went to sleep themselves. Finally though, it was actually quiet and I could hear the water from the lake flowing into the lagoon a few hundred feet down a cliff below me.

Day 39, Bayfield, WI – Big Bay Town Park, Madeline Island, WI
28 miles in 2:03:33 for 2757.1 total in 231:33:32 and a top speed of 23.5