Mile 3124.6 - Get back to where I once belonged

It has now been 50 days since I left San Francisco. While most of that time has been spent riding, I've had a lot of non-riding time in the last couple weeks, since getting to Minneapolis, really. Today I'd be arriving in Appleton for my reunion, the only set date I needed to be anywhere by. After the weekend, I'll be almost clear of the bottleneck, just my parents in suburban Chicago and a couple more friends in Illinois and Indiana to see.

Even though I don't usually eat breakfast for at least an hour after I wake up in the morning, I got out of the shower to see the dining room table spread with food. It was only just 7:30, and that's long before I would start to feed myself. There was only a place for me set, as this grandmother just has a cup of coffee for her first meal of the day too. After I ate what I determined would be a satisfactory amount of food in her eyes, I pushed away from the table. As I was repacking and double checking my route for the day, the photographer from the Appleton Post-Crescent called and we decided to meet up on County CB out by the airport, around noon.

I spent a few minutes maintaining Penny, took a picture of her with grandma, then got back on the road. Though I was going less than 30 miles, it was good to be moving forward. Just across the Fox River as it takes it's course through Lake Butte de Morts and Lake Winnebago, is the trailhead for the Wiouswash Trail. It swings back west as it hits Outagamie County, after which I would have to switch to county roads. The trail was great, however, another old railbed turned rec trail. Now whenever I look at train tracks, I see a bike path.

I passed several people along the way, but for many miles it was just me, the wild raspberry and sumac and the trail. At one point my phone rang. It seems that Mr. Peterson at Lawrence had been busy. The call was from the newsroom of WHBY radio in Appleton, and he wondered if he could have a few minutes of my time. Of course, of course. This wasn't a live interview, he asked questions and taped my responses. It lasted about 15 minutes and while I always have more to say, I at least said enough that I wanted people to hear. As I type this monday morning, I still havn't heard the actual piece that aired, but I have evidence that it did. Someone who had flown in to Appleton for the reunion told me that the cab driver who picked him up was talking to him about it. This is the post on WHBY's website: http://www.whby.com/news/whby/news/451d9059296a/

As I was wrapping up that conversation, a cyclist with panniers and a handlebar bag went by me. It didn't take too long to catch up to her, and I asked about the bags. She was riding 20 miles today, getting ready for a long trip she and some friends were taking. It was a nice talk, but then I got to my turn off. She continued northwest with the trail and I headed northeast towards Appleton.

Several miles later, I got to the corner of the Outagamie County Airport. The property stretched for several miles to highway CB. I turned and started along another side of the airport's exterior fence. The photographer had no problem picking me out, but as I stopped to talk to him, he said he didn't like any of the shots. The side of the airport grounds isn't the greatest backdrop after all. He said he would catch up to me on campus and get me again there.

I do not know why there is no bike lane, path or trail from Lawrence campus downtown to the mall or airport on College Ave way past highway 41. There should be. I would have ridden that. Instead I got to deal with a good amount of mall traffic and others moving from the interstate towards downtown. Even once you get downtown, there's not a good place for bikes on the road, so most other cyclists I say was riding on the sidewalk.

I don't like that, I really don't. It is not safe for you to be riding there and it's especially not safe for the people trying to walk there.

I got back onto campus and there was the photographer again, set up across from the picturesque Lawrence Chapel waiting for me to come into frame. Once he was satisfied with the pictures he got, we talked a moment. I then rode around to the new Richard and Margot Warch Student Center. This building is really fantastic. It has a dining hall, cafe, shop, conference rooms, offices of student publications and other organizations, a much better cinema room than the old on in the arts building, and mailboxes that you keep the whole time you are a student there.

I walked up to the registration table and told the girl working my name, class of 2000. Her eyes perked up and she said 'you're the guy riding his bike, right?' I think the nametag in my folder of registration stuff should have read 'The Guy', because all weekend long I heard 'Oh, you're the guy...'

Day 50, Oshkosh, WI - Appleton, WI
29.35 miles in 1:39:50. Now 3125.6 miles in 255:18:53