I woke up shortly after sunrise on Day 40 and immediately my thoughts were on the other campers who made so much noise last night. As I lay there, several thoughts of revenge for their rudeness went through my head. I could quietly walk around their campsite and cause some mischief that would not be discovered until long after I left. I could go over to the metal trash cans and start to play loud, crashy music with the lids. My favorite thought would be to go around to all of their vehicles and quietly relieve their tires of air. I was certain that I could get that accomplished without waking them and again, would be long gone before it was noticed. But that is not the kind of person I am, and while I entertained these thoughts in my head, I set to work on making breakfast.
Breakfast was one of the wild rice bratwurst I had picked up the night before, the last packet of hot apple cider I brought from New York, some instant oatmeal and one of the three remaining bottles of beer from last night. On the label of the New Glarus Crack’d Wheat beer, there is a short paragraph about the quality of the ingredients, and it ends in a line proposing a toast to adventure and friends in Wisconsin. I do agree with the sentiment, I just wish I could call my camping neighbors friends. I washed my dishes in the water pump at the campsite then struck camp. I did take a moment to take a picture of the loud campers’ tents. From this picture, one really wonders how they could not have known I was there. Maybe I am invisible as well as silent.
Packed up again, I started to ride out of the campground and saw one of the loud campers from last night groggily stumbling away from the bathroom. He looked up at me then quickly turned his head the other way. I wanted to greet him loudly and ask why he was so quiet now when they all seemed so full of noise and opinion not even 7 hours before. But instead I rode up into the cluster of parked vehicles and made a clear show of writing down their license plate numbers. Karma works in unexpected ways.
Now I don’t like to make generalizations about groups of people, I am the kind that likes points out counterexamples to generalizations. But I did notice one thing in common on all of their plates: the word Minnesota. So, to the owners of a black Ford F150, plate # 586 DNZ; a taupe Ford Focus, plate # 130 ALG; a taupe Ford F350,# D 9473; a blue Ford Explorer, # NEE 440; and the white camper, a Rage’n RVT whose plate was on the side opposite me, I hope you all enjoyed the rest of your stay in Wisconsin. As one of the signs in Tom’s Burnt Down Café read, ‘You’re not in Minnesota anymore, you can be nice now’.
Riding back into town towards the ferry back to Bayfield, I passed by the graveyard on the island. Propping Penny up against one of the stone pillars at the entrance, I wandered around for a while, looking at the markers. I saw a number of people with birthdates in the late 1800s, the earliest being from 1876. There was a father and son from the 1910’s that had both died of drowning in consecutive years. There were also lots of military veterans with flowers and flags still up from Memorial Day. I spent probably 15 minutes wandering around before heading back to the bike. As I started riding away from the cemetery, I looked up at the sky and thought to myself ‘I think it’s going to rain on me’. Sure enough, not 30 seconds after I thought that, I felt the first drops. I looked back up at the sky and thanked it for corroborating my observation.
By the time I made it back to the ferry dock, it was raining. I took what shelter I could behind the ticket booth, then once the ferry had arrived and let off its passengers and cargo, I ran onboard and under the small covered section. The rain didn’t seem like it was going to let up any time soon, so I fished my rainpants out of a pannier and covered the very not waterproof sleeping bag in a plastic shopping bag.
Back on Highway 13, I started seeing something I hadn’t since Superior, heavy trucks on the road. Most of the trucks take US 2 between Superior and Ashland, avoiding the extra miles as 13 vaguely follows the shoreline. But I started to pick them up here again. By the time I got near Washburn, the town between Bayfield and Ashland, I was wet and a little annoyed at all the traffic. I found Rachel’s Café, the place where the pizza I had for dinner last night had come from. So I went in for lunch. It took a few minutes for me to find someone to order from, but eventually I ordered another pizza.
As I was waiting for that to cook, I went back out to get my phone charger from the bike. In the courtyard outside, hiding under an overhang from the rain was a family of three. The father asked if I was going cross country, and that, of course, started a long conversation. The son was one of the bakers and his parents had come by on his lunch break. From the bits of conversation I overheard, it sounded like the son was preparing to propose marriage to his girlfriend. His mother seemed willing to give him her mother’s wedding ring for the occasion, but wanted to make sure that that the son was certain before she did. Anyway, we talked a bit and they were a nice family and wished me luck and safety on my journey.
Back inside, my lunch was ready. As I ate it, I checked the weather maps on my phone. It was all rain west of me. Ug. As I was getting everything together to leave, one of the owners came out and seeing my bike helmet, asked if I had ridden there. Happy to talk to her (and delay going back into the rain a while longer), we discussed a wide range of topics from the local food and arts scene, to cycling in general and political activism. She was also telling me that they were only a couple weeks away from rolling out a new menu that included a lot of northern Italian fare and featured a good deal of local produce. It was a really great conversation and I gave her my card and assurance that when I am next in the area, I’d stop in again.
Then back out into the rain. When I had gotten up that morning, I wanted to go about 90 miles to Phillip. By the time I got to Ashland, the rain started coming down harder, and I called it a day. It was only 3:00, but I knew that I would just be riding through the wet. My socks were already completely saturated and when I stepped off the bike, I could hear the squish of water in my shoes. I stopped at the Crest Inn and was able to get the ‘riding your bike through the rain’ discount. I got into the room, shed all the wet clothing and promptly took a hot shower. It’s funny that the first thing I want to do when coming in out of the rain is take a shower. But cold rain and hot shower are very different kinds of wet. I really wish there was a hair dryer in the room, I would have applied it to my shoes.
A couple hours later I took the hotel owner’s suggestion and grabbed dinner at a place half a block away. I went in looking for a sandwich, but saw that they had a Reuben pizza on the menu. Intrigued, I ordered that. Yes that meant I had pizza for 66% of my meals today, but it was really quite good. There aren’t a lot of places with the moxie to put sauerkraut on a pizza. I then retreated back to the room to watch the Cubs play the Brewers and attempt to catch up on my posting.
Day 40, Madeline Island, WI – Ashland, WI
31.7 miles in 2:19:04. Totals now 2788.8 miles in 233:52:36 and a high speed of 32.5mph
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