Day 55-Aug 6, 2015 – W Salem Wi to Reedsburg WI – 72 miles

Day 55 – Aug 6, 2015 – West Salem WI to Reedsburg WI – 72 miles

This was a day of bike paths. We did the La Crosse path, the Sparta to Elroy path, and the Wisconsin 400. These are all rails to trails conversions. The Sparta to Elroy is actually the very first rails to trails path that was built in 1965. 50 yrs! Wow. But these trails are not only for bicyclists they are for the winter entertainment of the locals – snowmobiling! That is huge in these parts. In Minnesota too, all the trails are also are winter trails. Unfortunately, we heard from some locals that they are not open for cross country skiers. Too bad.

The trails were pretty cool. As Gregg said they were both relaxing because we were away from traffic, but physically taxing. The trails are hard packed limestone. That limestone can probably deal with the Wisconsin winters better than asphalt, we did not have a lot of weather cracks and bumps. Yet they were not smooth. We had to navigate through twigs, branches, some bumps, pine combs, leaves, and loose sand, which is our biggest problem.

The railroad grade is gradual but we did climb for most of the day. Any climb, even if slight, wears on you. 50 miles of climbing, its tough. The other issue about these railroad trails is that they are all in a canopy of trees or forests and therefore you get a tunnel vision for the day. To look up is better. But for me the trail seemed like it never ended. The scenery never really did changed much.

But we had some excitement. We had to walk through 3 old railroad tunnels. The first one was almost 1 mile long and dripping with water and temperatures of about 50 degrees. It was pretty exciting. It was scary too. We had our bike lights on our bikes, and I put on my rain coat. I looked up once and thought I saw bats, hard to tell. It was pretty cool to walk these tunnels that were built in the 1870s and to imagine how much hard labor went into that effort.

So, I would say that that was the highlight of the day. We stopped in a couple of towns along the way. Sparta claims to be the Bike Capitol of America (I would argue that Portland OR has better case), and Norwalk is the Black Squirrel Capitol of America. We stopped in Elroy at the “Dog House Tavern” a throw back to some of the cool bars of Montana, they were even playing their barkeep vs patron “horse” dice game like we saw in many of the dive bars we stopped in. The patron plays this game of luck to win back the beer they just ordered.

We finally got to Reedsburg Wi which is not much of a town. Got off the bike path and noticed that our bikes and bags and legs were filthy, covered in a fine dust. It reminded me of Burning Man – it was exactly like that all over everything. It even leached into our water bottles! Before getting to the hotel we decided to stop at a self car wash. We rode down the busy main street, which was actually a divided 4 lane road, to look for the car wash. We were confused and stopped on the road and finally found it. The truth be told we were both exhausted and confused. But when we pulled into the self car wash a cop pulled in behind us and wondered if we were lost and need directions to the campground in town. We told him we were heading to the the Quality Inn down the road. I think he thought we were some riff raff lost in town looking for somewhere to camp. As soon as he saw were were on a mission to clean the dirt off our bikes and be on our way, he understood.

Finally we got to the hotel. Gregg ran around looking for more epoxy resin to glue his handle bar bag clamp together. A few days ago he noticed that the plastic in the clip in device was cracked. Not good. This morning he used some epoxy to mend it and now he just wanted to reinforce it. He found something at a Auto Parts shop.

All good. We got to hotel, went next door for a scoop of custard ice cream, watched the tailend of the Republican FOX debate. And now it is time for dreamland.