Mile 3095.3 - The city by the lake

Today started with a breakfast grandma had spread on the table by the time I got out of the shower. We spent a good part of the morning just talking and that was nice. In the early afternoon she had a hair appointment and since the weather was fantastic for only the second time in the last week, I wanted to get out on the bike.

Grandma lives a few blocks from the Congress Ave bridge and I rode on the road surface because there were people walking on the sidewalk. A driver asked why I wasn't up on the sidewalk. I'm a vehicle, I told her. Sidewalks are for pedestrians.

I made a straight line for Menominee Park which runs along a portion of the western shore of Lake Winnebago. I got to the park and rode north a little bit, stopping at a bench almost on line with the end point on the breakwater. From that bench, I was within a mile of the place where I was born. I sat for a while, watching the lake's relentless waves. After a while, I saw someone on a bike riding out to the end of the breakwater. If they could get out there, so could I. Jumping back onto Penny, I rode past several people fishing, some people strolling and a few fellow cyclists.

The point at the end of the breakwater is called Ames Point, after a man who was always fishing there. Counting that as the starting point, there's about a 6 mile loop that goes through the park. It passes the beach, sports fields and tennis courts, and then swings around the Menominee Park Zoo. I have some fond memories as a child of going through the zoo with my grandparents, parents and brothers. We would sometimes ride the little kiddie train around or go paddle boating in the little bay, well protected from the waves of the lake.

As I was coming back up to the bench near the entrance I started at, I got a phone call. On the other end of the line was Jennifer Espino, a reporter from the Appleton Post-Crescent. Rick Peterson, the man in the university communications office I had spoken to yesterday had talked to one of the editors at the Post-Crescent and she was given the assignment. I relaxed on a bench, being warmed by the bright sun and cooled by the breeze off the lake, and we talked for about 45 minutes. She finally ran out of questions and I had said all I had to say. She told me it was a great story and said she would talk to the photos editor and get a photographer to meet me as I was coming into town in the morning. Awesome.

I rode back to grandma's house to share the good news. A little later we were both hungry for dinner, so she suggested an Italian place a couple miles away. I offered to drive soon learned that I do not enjoy driving a car in which either of my grandmothers were a passenger. My grandmother doesn't have the greatest sense of direction and there was construction all along the street the restaurant was on. Next time she can drive herself and I'll just meet her there on my bike. I bet I'd get there first.

Day 49 - Oshkosh, WI
10.9 miles in 43:00 so 3095.3 miles in 253:39:03 and a top speed of 28.1 mph