Friday, July 1, 2022, Day 31: Timms Hill
The Tour de France started today. We’re big fans and will miss watching it each night, but we’ll follow along via our phones. Maybe their riding will motivate me. I should try to match their mileage each day…probably not.
After a hotel breakfast that in most respects was sub-standard, except for the saving grace that they had donuts (!), and watching some Wimbledon, I started riding toward Ogema, the closest town to Timms Hill, which at just under 2000 feet, is the highest point in Wisconsin. It was 44 miles to the trailhead and I’d meet Sheri there. She got there 90 minutes before me.
I rode some paved backroads and then they turned to gravel. Bummer. I continued down the road for four miles or so and then at the junction my route had a sign saying “Road Closed Ahead.” I checked my map and turned right, rode another mile of gravel and was back out on the main two-lane highway. The traffic was light enough and I had a good shoulder. It was fine. I listened to various podcasts and rolled along.
I turned onto a smaller road and then took a one-lane, one-way road up to the trailhead for Timms Hill. A half-mile down from the parking lot, I ran into Sheri. She’d already done five miles of running and hiking around the park but was saving the summit to do with me. After some lunch, we headed up the trail, but not together. Sheri sensed an opportunity for a Strava trophy. She was warmed up and ran the trail to the tower. This was only a quarter-mile and it gained 130 feet, but still, she looked good running away from me. I just hiked up it. At the summit was a 70-foot tall tower with a public staircase that led to the top. The view was nice up there and the breeze made the temperature perfect.
Just after a group of four guys arrived at the top, Sheri started down. I chatted with them. One was a high pointer, like me. This was his 9th summit. It was Sheri’s 10th and my 21st. One of the other guys was excited about my bike trip and said that I inspired him to revive an old plan he and his wife had about biking across Spain. I hope he gets it done.
Back at the trailhead, Sheri called a campground 28 miles away and booked us a site. Since it was the Fourth of July weekend, we feared everything would be booked up, so we took this one sight unseen. She drove off to set up camp and I rode there, pushed by a nice tailwind most of the way.
The campground was near a dirt race track. They raced until nearly 11 p.m. and it was quite loud at our site. Also, a camper three sites away was cranking up his country music, possibly to hear it over the race track. Redneck central. Oh, and our site was covered in ants. They didn’t bite, but they crawled on me every chance they got. It wasn’t our most restful night and we would be happy to move on in the morning. Still, I was glad to stop and just relax and read my book. And they had a shower.
Speaking of showers, I’ve been through quite the assortment at the campgrounds we’ve visited. In Washington, every shower was a separate room entered via an exterior door. There was no shower curtain, as the room was basically the shower. All these showers took tokens, which you had to buy, so no free showers in the campgrounds we visited in Washington.
In Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota, the showers were free. Some were just concrete alcoves and some had curtains and a chair and hooks. All had hot water.
In Wisconsin, the first campground we visited had a gigantic room as a shower. It had two stalls to shower in, but one was just for wheel-chaired people, as the shower head was really low. In this shower, there was one control: a button. I had no control over the temperature of the water and I feared it would only be cold. I pressed the button and got 15 seconds of water. At first, it was freezing, but after a few pushes, the water was nicely warm. Still, I had to press the button twenty times to take a 5-minute shower. It probably is a great way of saving water.
At the race-track campground, I had to pay for the first time since Washington. This shower took quarters (no tokens) and was pretty cheap: fifty cents for six minutes, which was plenty of time. This shower had zero controls. I put my money into the machine and bright LED numerals started counting down from 6:00 and the water came on. It was quite hot. In fact, it would have been too hot if the pressure was greater, but it dribbled out slowly enough to be bearable, though I had to move my head around to get it completely wet. With thirty seconds to go, the timer started beeping and beeped all the way down to zero, and then the water immediately cut off. I guess there is no excuse for still being soapy.
Saturday, July 2, 2022, Day 32: Hiawatha Trail (again)
I was up around 5 a.m. and doing my puzzles (Wordscapes and Wordle) and out of the tent by 5:20 or so, mainly driven by the need to pee. I made coffee for myself and Sheri. I always pass Sheri’s coffee into the tent for her — just like I did on the JMT. She loves that time in the tent to do her puzzles and read the news while staying warm and cozy and sipping on her boiling-hot coffee. I had some donut holes for first breakfast and then made us pancakes for Sheri’s first breakfast and my second breakfast. They were delicious!
We were now headed towards the highest point in Michigan, which is Mt. Avron and it is located in the Upper Peninsula, or the “UP” as the locals call it. Our goal for today was to make it just over the border into Michigan. Again, we were worried about camping availability, but we’d just have to see.
I realized today that our route through Michigan, along the entirety of the UP, plus the entire north-to-south distance of the main mitten (MM?) would be nearly 700 miles long. I rode just over 700 miles in Montana, so Michigan is nearly the same length as that huge state. We’ll be in Michigan for more than half of the rest of our trip. That’s surprising.
I rode the Hiawatha Trail for 30 miles to Minocqua. This is a very nice, smooth, double-track dirt trail — a rails-to-trails project that goes over a number of low trestles. Each one is named and the length noted on a sign. I took photos of some of these. It was such pleasant, mostly shaded riding, as I was riding through a forest, but crossing many streams (hence the trestles) and weaving among lakes.
I saw quite a few runners and even a few cyclists. The closer I got to Minocqua, the more I saw of each. Sheri drove to Minocqua and then rode her bike south, towards me. We met eight miles south of Minocqua, so Sheri got in a 16-mile ride. We passed some really fast-looking female runners. We chatted one up and she was just finishing a 13-mile training run. She is planning to run Chicago and the California International Marathons (Sheri and I have both run this latter marathon).
Also, on this trail, I ate a bug. Not on purpose and it wasn’t the first bug I’ve eaten on this trip, just the first one that I remembered to document. Despite the fact that a lot of the world eats bugs and they are supposedly a good form of protein, I don’t think they were thinking of eating flies out of the air. I’m not sure what kind of a bug it was. It flew directly into my mouth and was too far down my throat to cough up, try as I might. Once I knew it wasn’t coming up, I took a big swig from my bottle and washed it down. Hopefully, my stomach acids will render it harmless. Like I said, I’ve done this at least twice before and I seem to be fine.
But that reminds me of an idea I had for a new creature. Baleen whales, like humpback whales and blue whales, eat by scooping up swimming pools of water in a single gulp and then filtering out the zooplankton, like krill, as its huge tongue pushes out the seawater through the baleen bristles. I think there should be a creature that is super light and quite large, like a giant balloon — say five feet long on average, but with monsters getting more than ten feet long. Maybe they produce hydrogen gas in internal pockets so that they can float along. These creatures would live up in the forests of Minnesota, like around Eagle Mountain, and they would glide through the forests with huge mouths open, scooping mosquitoes out of the air by the hundreds. There wouldn’t need to be laws about harming these creatures, as humans would clearly see their value and love to follow them down trails. Wildlife managers would try to introduce them to other parts of the country, but because they are so big and so light, they can only exist where the wind is light or in dense forests that don’t allow strong winds to blow. They could be called Bloaters or Bug Balloons or Skeeter Eaters. Some wish they could live in a world without war. All I want is a world without mosquitoes.
Sheri and I biked back to Minocqua, chatting all the way. It was so great to be able to ride and chat with her, as this had been a rarity. We crossed a couple of cool bridges including a big one, for bikers and pedestrians only, that crossed over to the island where the town was located.
Minocqua is a super nice-looking town in a lake! Well, on an island in Lake Minocqua. Very much a vacation town. We overhead conversations like “Oh, hi. When did you get here,” like people came here for the summer. Such a life of luxury… I’m sure most people just come for the weekend and this was the long Fourth-of-July weekend.
After a 90-minute break to walk around a bit and then have a nice relaxing lunch while sitting on a bench on the dock and watching the boaters and the water skiers, I got back on my bike and continued north, towards the town of Land O’ Lakes — you know, where the butter (or is it margarine?) comes from.
I rode east for twenty miles and just before I turned north, I spotted a rider pulling out onto my road and heading in my direction. I increased my effort to chat with him. He appeared a bit more burly than I, and I didn’t expect it to be hard to chase him down, but it took longer than expected. I had to turn in just 1.5 miles, so I didn’t have long to chat. He was from Madison and up here for the long weekend. After a few minutes, I had to turn left. I’m usually very in tune to car noises and can detect when a car is closing on me and I heard nothing. We were riding two abreast, mostly in the bike lane. I bid him adieu and broke hard to my left into the on-coming traffic lane (which was devoid of cars) and then left onto my new road. Just as I was doing this a pickup came by and yelled at me. Since we were going in different directions, it was all over in one second, but I must have cut in front of him. He was rightfully pissed, as I did not signal. I was lucky he wasn’t closer and I could have been killed. I’ve made stupid mistakes like this before, even when climbing. I’m still alive but only by luck. Eventually, I won’t be lucky. Hopefully, I won’t make that mistake again.
Our first choice campground was booked solid (no surprise there), but Sheri found us a forest campground that was five miles off my route. We threw the bike in the car and drove out there. It was paved all the way, so I’ll probably just ride that distance back to my route tomorrow.
The campground was primitive (no showers, pit toilets, and only a pump for water), but at least it wasn’t by a race track. We set up the tent, read, and wrote. While Sheri took a short nap, I ate and drank (chocolate milk), and drank (Diet 7Up), and drank (Coke). Then we decided to drive into Land O’ Lakes to get some dinner.
We went to a cool food shack called Dari-Maid. You ordered at a window and then got to buy the world’s most expensive vanilla coffee malt ($8.50), which was delicious. We also ordered burgers and fries. Our cell connection at the campground and in town was very weak and it took a long time to even upload my Strava track. I only really need the connection for plotting my route to the next stop and I am pretty dependent on it. I do have maps downloaded in a couple of other apps, so I wouldn’t be completely stranded, but I do like my Google Map directions.
On the way back we stopped at a couple of historical markers. We were camped at the headwaters of the Wisconsin River, which starts at Lac Vieux Desert (a big lake where we were camped) and flows 300 miles to the Mississippi River. It was a major transportation route in the 1700s and 1800s. Nowadays it has so many dams on it that it is called “The Hardest Working River in America”, though I wonder if the Colorado River works harder. The Colorado works so hard that it dies before it reaches the ocean in the Gulf of California.
Back at the campground, which we naively assumed would be so much quieter than the racetrack site, we were serenaded by loud music and constant fireworks until well past 10 p.m. Our site was a good distance from other sites and we could barely even make out a vehicle in the next site because of the dense woods, but we could hear fine.
Sunday, July 3, 2022, Day 33:
It was nice and quiet this morning. I wished I had some fireworks to light off at 5 a.m. Just kidding. I don’t begrudge my fellow campers their USA birthday celebrations. We’ll be hearing more of that tonight and tomorrow night. Hopefully, on the night of the 4th we’ll be somewhere we can see fireworks, but I doubt it.
It was also cold this morning, at 46 degrees. I drank my coffee in the car to stay warm. Our goal today was Baraga State Park in Michigan, which will be another new state for me. I will be crossing into that state within three miles of my camp this morning.
I rode three miles of pavement and seven miles of gravel before emerging onto the highway. Sheri had just gone by but didn’t see me. We met nine miles down the road on my turn-off on Bond Falls Road. After second breakfast, I convinced her to drive to Bond Falls as well. It seemed like a big deal with all the signage and it was just four miles away.
She drove to the trailhead for the falls, down a steep, paved road, and then followed a paved trail out to a boardwalk running underneath the falls. I was able to ride my bike down the path and out the boardwalk to below the falls. I met Sheri there and we walked around the boardwalk and up along the falls. It was really nice. There is a hydro dam just above these falls. Above them? They could have got a lot more power by building a bigger dam and utilizing this drop, but they would have obliterated the falls, of course, and maybe the topology of the land wouldn’t allow it anyway.
I used the paperboy weave to get back up the steep hill down to the parking. It must have been nearly 20%. I think I could have maybe done it head-on, but it would have been standing at 2 mph if I could turn the pedals at all. Thankfully, it was only about one hundred vertical feet. I went by the hydro dam just above. It didn’t look like much. I wonder how much power it produces.
I continued on nice, paved, twisty roads back out to the highway and then crossed it and got on a rails-to-trails route that paralleled the highway. It was a bit loose and a bit dusty but not too bad. It did seem to have more flies out here, though. The biggest drawback is that this trail was open to ATVs and a couple came by me going the other way and I had to ride through their dust cloud. But then, even worse, a couple came by me going my way. This time I rode in the dust cloud much longer.
I met Sheri at a ranger station along the highway and had lunch. We decided to meet one more time before the final stretch to our campground at Baraga State Park, between Baraga and L’Anse on the shore of Lake Superior. I had second lunch at this next stop. I only had 19 miles to go, but it felt warm (it was only 75 degrees) and I was sweating a lot. The rest in the shade revived me.
I rode five miles of pavement before my route turned to gravel. And it was soft gravel. I’d weave back and forth across the road looking for the firmest ground. It went gradually uphill for five miles and the sun beat down on me. My pace was about 9 mph here and a frustrating pace because it was variable, depending upon the softness of the road. Also, I was surrounded by flies again.
I looked up how fast a fly can fly and, for a house fly, that is just 5 mph. How were these horse flies keeping up with me at up to 20 mph? Were they a super species? It turns out they were! More research informed me that the male horsefly can fly at 90 mph! Though only when chasing a female horsefly. I suspect the flies were helped by flying in my draft. This would explain why they were primarily behind me. I could see them by their shadows. I was to them what a semi-trailer was to me. When those big trucks pass me going in my direction, I get a big pull from their wind. Of course, if they are going the other direction, I get a retarding blast, but it isn’t as powerful, as they are a lane further away.
With eight miles to go to the next junction, I put on my tunes for motivation. I hoped the surface would switch to pavement at the next junction. I did about one mile per song. The terrain crested and I got some free downhill riding. I also got more shade. After seven miles, the road turned hard left and turned to pavement. Unfortunately, my route was supposed to go straight, and indeed that was directly towards the camping, so I went straight…for about a hundred yards. Then I sunk in so deep that I couldn’t pedal. My measly 40mm tires didn’t give me enough surface area to support my prodigious bulk. I had to turn back. I could see on my map that I could ride the other three sides of a rectangle and still make it to camp. I was only three miles away down the sand road, but it would be more like eight miles to go around on pavement, but it was that or walk my bike for possibly three miles.
I went back to the pavement and rode just another mile before Google Maps directed me onto a gravel road. This road was fine and three miles later I was at the campsite. Sheri already had the tent up and was pumping up the sleeping pads. The campground was dense, but it was pretty. All the sites were manicured grass and there were lots of trees, but it wasn’t in a forest like the previous night. These were landscaped trees. The only drawback was that our site was right against the highway. A two-lane highway, of course, but still it had a lot of traffic in the afternoon. It was the only site open, though, and we hoped for quieter roads at night. Maybe the traffic noise will be drowned out by the inevitable fireworks.
Sheri went for a walk to check out the area, and I took a shower. These showers were nice. A separate room with a chair, plenty of hooks, a shower curtain, a shelf for soap and shampoo, temperature control, the works.
That night, there were really good fireworks from the bay in Baraga. I had to wake Sheri up and get her out of the tent. We watched for thirty minutes and it was impressive for such a small town.
Monday, July 4, 2022, Day 34: Mt. Avron
Happy Birthday, America!
Traffic was an issue during the night. Big trucks went by often enough that Sheri didn’t get a good night’s sleep. I woke early and it was raining, so I stayed in the tent doing puzzles and reading the news until 6 a.m. I made coffee in the rain and hopped into the car to drink it. When Sheri was ready, I made her a cup in the rain and served it to her in the tent.
The forecast was for rain all day. It was warming up and, temperature-wise, I could have ridden, but it would have been miserable and we are not into misery. We went into L’Anse for a great breakfast at the Hilltop Cafe (highly recommended). Afterward, I proposed that we drive up to the Michigan highpoint and bag it. That way we’d at least get something done today. If the rain then stopped we could move on in the afternoon.
We followed Google Maps directions and they were not ideal. I should have just followed the directions from my book. Either way, you’re on gravel and dirt roads, but we took smaller, rougher roads than we needed to. We had to do two stream crossing with maybe 18 inches of water. No big deal in the Jeep, but would have been wading on a bike. Our route also had many ruts and potholes and we bounced around enough that we heard a clunk and then Sheri says, “the bikes fell off.”
Sure enough, the bike rack was sitting completely upright in the middle of the dirt road. We were going slow enough that the rack didn’t tip over and the bikes appeared to be undamaged. We got out and were immediately swarmed by mosquitos — by far the worst of the trip. It was raining pretty hard and we both thought that would eliminate the mosquitos, thinking if they got hit by a raindrop it would kill them. We had to spray ourselves down before we could work on the rack. We removed both bikes and re-inserted the rack into our hitch. Apparently, I didn’t crank it down hard enough when I installed it 4000 miles ago. I cranked it hard this time and we loaded up the bikes and continued.
Soon after we merged with the normal approach to Mt. Avron, which was marked by light blue signs. This road was much smoother gravel and way easier to drive. We drove another five miles or so and I was shocked that we drove within a couple hundred feet of the summit. My guidebook said that we’d do two miles, roundtrip, to bag the summit and some of it would be cross country. I guess my guidebook is a bit out of date. We did see a sign, though, that indicated a hiking route that would probably be this 2-mile roundtrip. We realized that on the way back, but we didn’t have a strong desire to hike longer in the fog of mosquitos.
There is a decent-sized parking area just before the summit. We parked there. It took longer for my Coros watch to find the satellites than it took me to walk from the parking lot to the “summit?” “Highpoint” is the proper term here. We took photos and did a tiny loop out to a viewpoint where we could at least see out towards Lake Superior. It was hard to tell what was clouds, water, or fog. Even in crystal clear weather, I imagine that this view is underwhelming. Even with this loop, I got just 0.2 miles…Zero point two miles… Victory is mine!
We drove back to L’Anse and did some grocery shopping. It was pouring and the forecast was to continue until the next morning. Plus, the back tire on my road bike was going soft. I bought this $80 fancy road tire in Bismarck. It had significant damage in two spots and was clearly leaking air. I think I rode too much sharp gravel on a tire meant strictly for smooth tarmac. We decided to check into a hotel, dry out, fix my bike, and relax.
We checked into the Baraga Lakeside Inn at 2 p.m. and got to watch Nadal win this 4th-round match at Wimbledon. I had brought a spare tire for my road bike and I proceeded to swap tires and then used my fancy reservoir pump to pop my tire onto the rim, first try! Sweet! This pump is awesome.
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