Home Page | Picture Gallery | E-mail Kevin & Cathy
Daily Journal - July 13th - July 16th
| Monday, July 13th, 1998 - Day 29 | |
Alarm goes off at 5am. Three snooze buttons later, I find the alarm clock under the bed. Hard getting up in the AC. Holiday Inn in New Ulm went all out to help out the big riders, including arranging for a bus to take us all back to tent city - about 3 miles down back toward town. Even as we board the shuttle, we see riders are leaving town as early as 5:30am to beat the heat. We heard rumors of a tailwind today - and looked for which way the flags were blowing. Looks like and we may have earned a mild one - finally. Already hot and hazy when we leave camp. We are clearly moving East. Towns are spaced 8 to 10 miles apart - not 30 to 40 as in Montana. There is a Starbucks in our future somewhere - just not yet. Perhaps Madison. We cross the Minnesota river without fanfare, and find lunch in Mankato - sounds like a Green Lanterns sidekick. We are the only ones having lunch at 10:20am in a local diner. Meatloaf sandwich does the trick. Waitress asks me if I want it "commercial". Some discussion later we resolve the confusion. A commercial is where the meat is placed in the middle, surrounded by mashed potatoes, toast is on each side of the meat, and gravy is poured over top. It is a MN thing to our knowledge. Always nice to pick up a local culinary custom. One nice side effect of closely spaced towns is the re-entry of flush toilets into our lives. Oh simple joys. Cathy was ecstatic to find a Gulf station with an air-conditioned water closet. The heat is still the biggest drain. Riding 72 miles is a no-brainer. Riding it in 90+ heat and humidity is another matter. It saps the energy from us both. You need several hours after the ride to fully cool down and feel normal again. Your skin is red for hours from wind and capillary dilation even with 45 spf lathered on 3 times a day. I look like Ernest Hemmingway after deep-sea fishing. Traffic was non-stop - but the scenery, while not bucolic, does offer the eye some diversity. Buildings, churches, bars, houses, trees, cemeteries - all things we have missed in SD. On occasion we pass large lakes. I still consider them mosquito breeding grounds - but they look wonderful for swimming. The Dairy Queen is the most popular stop of the day. Several people are joking we are not following the Lewis and Clark trail, but the DQ trail. Others suggest we drop GTE as sponsor next year and pick up DQ. Free milkshakes and slurpees across the country sounds like a wonderful idea. A few longer hills are nearly unbearable in the heat, but we make it. Team Turtle always perseveres. We make one last DQ stop as we approach camp. There is no reason to arrive in camp too early - you simply swelter. Tonight we are at the fairgrounds - close to food. Godfather's offers a not-so-heart-healthy air-conditioned alternative to our usual tent fare. The local micro-brew is Miller MGD. It will do. Off to bed early. We have 3 days until Madison - including a 105 miler. | |
| Tuesday, July 14th, 1998 - Day 30 | |
Day 30 Today is a nearly 90 miler into Winona. At camp last night we hear they announced that the next tent site is along the Mississippi marshlands - and that the setup crew encountered a deer tick infestation. Cathy is not a big tick fan to say the least. She is not big on small creatures that seek a symbiotic relationship with her body. We find a payphone out of camp and book a room by 6:30am. Day's Inn gives us something to look forward to all day, and a chance for me to perfect the new "Days Inn' theme song. We have no idea where camp is in relationship to the motel, and of course all the work I did printing local maps is for naught when you leave them in the gear truck. On the road we are stopped and noticed by a number of riders who say they have found the web page through word of mouth. Nice to see that people are enjoying the site. I guess there was an Internet coffee shop on the route yesterday, and our site got passed around. We have counted at least 4 people trying to maintain sites - it is a challenge on the road. Luckily our webmaster Scott makes it much easier. Allen stopped us and says his family is tracking the ride. We take his picture. Allen wants credit for the observation that tent area A, being the first ones given out on Day Zero, is filled with Type-A personalities - as they are the ones who got up early and got through registration without any hitches. He is suspect of any tent area A riders. I will have to start taking a sampling. Should the opposite be said of Z? Is there a type-Z? I have a flat shortly before pit 1 - this time it is the front tire. A nice shard of glass right through the tread. In the process of pumping it up, the seam on the tire was not seated well, and at 70 psi, the tube edges out and blows up with a sonic boom 2 inches from Cathy's leg. She is not happy with me. On attempt #2, Rob and Dwaine roll up and give me a hand. It takes n times c minutes to change a flat, where c is a universal constant, and n is the number of riders who help. With the help of a mild tailwind we reach Rochester MN by 10:30. It is strange seeing the name of a city where I once lived (Rochester NY) plastered everywhere. This was always the OTHER Rochester. Nice to be here. United once shipped my dog here by mistake one Christmas. In general, ones' dog shouldn't visit more cities than their owner. The Mayo clinic is everywhere. If we are going to hit a car, this is the city to do it in. McDonalds just starts their lunch menu as we roll up. We decided we need a break today, and consume some super-sized fat balls. It does stay with you for the day. There is a noticeable lack of DQs on the route today - just Kwik Stops. Missing those cold slurpees. As we approach Winona, Pat - the manager of a Kwik Stop goes out of her way to make us copies of the phonebook maps, and helps us figure out how to get to the Day's Inn without having to go all the way to camp first. There is a noticeable change in the terrain as we begin to descend into the Mississippi valley. Later we are told that the glaciers that flattened most of MI missed this area. There are towering cliffs. This is the first real downhill run we have had in days. My hands hurt by the time we reach the bottom. We were going to stay on route 14 straight into town, but the Kwik manager told us it went straight over the hills - a 1000 foot elevation climb. Luckily the ride route went around the hills on route 61. We could have been in the Alleghenies. Once outside of town we left the route and headed a few miles to our motel. It felt strangely exhilarating to leave the marked route for the first time - a sense of freedom and self-determination. Day's Inn was tent city with walls. Seems we were not the only ones with hotel fever, and an aversion to Lyme disease. We have nothing with us except our bikes and clothes on our bodies. We decide to eat first. We look like brightly colored road grime, but a local family restaurant takes us in - and of course seats us in a center table so everyone can have a look - which they do. Back at the room, AC is turned to full blast, 30-minute showers, and a quick wash of our biking clothes leaves us content. With no alarm clock, we will depend on our newly adjusted body clocks to wake us. The weather channel reports of severe thunderstorms moving over MI tonight. I hope they do - I'd like to see the heat and humidity drop. Star Trek movie on HBO provides mindless prattle to ease our minds off the road and to sleep. | |
| Wednesday, July 15th, 1998 - Day 31 | |
We sleep soundly and wake up at 4am before drifting back to sleep, pulling ourselves up at 5:30. There are fresh doughnuts from a local bakery in the lobby. Perfect fuel for the day. It is only a 71-mile day - the shortest in some time. We join the route a few miles down route 14. It is a relief to see other bikers - as we are without today's ride map and are totally dependent on the route markers on the road. Five miles down the road I discover a broken spoke on my back wheel. This has been my week for wheel problems. Cathy decides to keep going, with the plan I will sag to pit 1 to get some tech help. It is a pain giving a thumbs up to every biker who passes while waiting for the sag van. It will be a long wait, as the sag vans don't leave camp this early. 30 minutes later a fellow biker Jed stops who actually has my size spokes and a truer tool. He is able to get the wheel functional again. Some people can ride with a broken spoke, but with my weight I will ruin a wheel in a matter of minutes. I owe him a beer. Thanks Jed. I need a refresher course in bike repair. I've gotten lazy with bike shops doing all my work at home. I sent messages ahead to Cathy via support vans and fast riders, but the underground message network is flawed and she never gets any of them. We follow a beautiful route along the western side of the Mississippi River for miles, including a bike trail following train tracks along the river. The river is wide and brown, with many estuaries filled with pond lilies patches as far as you can see reminding me of Kauai. We cross into La Crosse. Hard to believe we have biked all the way from Seattle to this grand river. On the other side we are in Wisconsin. La Crosse is a great working town - an Old Style brewing plant, waterfront park, steamboat tours. At pit 2 Jason helps me true up my back tire. I share some Starburst and turkey jerky while waiting. Got to keep your bike tech happy. We find 3 other spokes that are cracked and replace them. I clearly hit something hard recently - the road quality has degraded rapidly since SD. In Madison I will have the wheel trued with a machine to test all the spoke tensions. For lunch an A&W does the trick. There is no such thing as low-fat consumption on a long bike ride. Food is fuel. Calories matter. The route now follows the Mississippi on the eastern side. Bird sanctuaries line the route. Finally we cut inland. It had been much cooler today - upper 80's. But moving inland the heat picks up. We have a long climb to 1400' with steep rolling hills before we reach Viroqua. The farmland is incredible - with picturesque barns at every turn. There is a small Amish community that settled from PA at the turn of the century. We pass a number for farms that are still operated without power tools. One Amish family is selling homemade doughnuts and juice. The line is 30 bikers deep. These are truly some of the best doughnuts I have ever eaten. Made with local four, fresh farm milk, and a hint of maple syrup. Probably fried in lard. Some people are loving the hills, others are hating them. Cathy and I have become Zen bikers today. We are map-less, odometer-less, and speedometer-less. Be the ride. The hills are not bothering me at all. Hills are 90% mental once you are in good enough shape. I think we both have grown stronger physically and mentally - I should hope so. At camp I find Cathy. She had a great day too. Missed riding with her and vice versa. Cathy spent the day riding with Patty and Allison - both from Maine. Lots of good pictures today. The last few days were not filled with Kodak moments, but today makes up for it. We check with camp services and find care packages from many of our friends and family. Thanks so much for your support and cookies. It brings back memories of getting packages at camp - we feel so special. We contemplate the Super 8 a few hundred miles from camp, but tent city looks fine, the weather has cooled off, and no ticks in sight. Tomorrow is a long day rolling into a day off in Madison. | |
| Thursday, July 16th, 1998 - Day 32 | |
Humidity has dropped dramatically, allowing the evening air to cool quickly. We have been leaving the sleeping bags in dry bags on the gear truck - two less items to carry, and using a couple of flannel sheets for the past week. By 2am we are both freezing, but too sleepy to realize it. I finally wake up and realize my makeshift pillow is stuffed with my polar fleece pullover. I forgo my pillow for warmth, as does Cathy who had stuffed her pillow with a pair of polar fleece pants. We sleep much more warmly. With the drop in temperature, the dew is heavy, and dripping from our uncovered tent mesh onto us. Any movement brings a small rain of dew. Alarm goes off at 4:30am. I look out the tent and see the moon setting against the horizon. Normally this would be a beautiful sight - normally I would go back to bed. But today we have a long ride into Madison. Bike tech has cleaned my back cluster and derailieurs from the crud of seven states. My tire pressure has dropped to 40psi on my rear wheel - either an indication of a slow leak, or that the tech let air out when working on the bike - I pump it up knowing I can always replace the tube on the road. We are on the road by 6am. The route is steep long rolling hills as we wind our way up and over the farm filled canyons. The valleys are thick with fog - sometimes moving over the road. It creates a serene and surreal biking experience, as the morning sun starts to peek over the canyon tops. It unfortunately makes for dangerous biking - both with visibility from cars, and for seeing other bikers on the fast downhill runs. There are two steep 2-mile climbs that require my lowest granny gear. Cathy being the stud-women she is, manages to avoid her granny. She also beats me up the hills in half the time. The big hills continue for the first 25 miles, then give way to rolling farmland. By 9:30 we make a town, and find ourselves starving from the climbing. A Hardee's lures us with their morning menu. Amazingly, we eat 4 sausage biscuits - 2 each. Diet-coke gives us a caffeine edge to make it through the miles.. We have a chance to talk with employees and customers about the ride. Back on the road, we notice signs from farmers offering their restrooms and water for us - a very generous offer, and creating lots of social opportunities during the day. We are in dairy country. A "Got Milk" question to a cow by a fence yields no answers. Cows have a drier sense of humor. We make pit1 in good time and push on. On long days like this we are constantly watching the clock. Approaching pit2 we are passed by a sag van - and lo and behold, Dave - BigRider Dave the coiner of the phrase "shame train" and "I will die before sagging"- is sitting in the front seat. Dave asks us if we want a ride with total irony in his voice. At pit2 we find he left late, got a leaky tube shortly out of camp, and couldn't bum a tube because no-one was behind him. In desperation he spent the next 10 miles trying to keep his tube pumped up, and finally was overtaken by the sag van, which sagged him all the way to pit2. Poor Dave. There are some great bike stickers someone has make that instead of "DC or bust", say "DC or bus". Wish I had one to give to Dave this morning. My tube does appear to be leaking slowly, but we choose to pump more air in and see what happens. I can change on the day off. Cathy and I seek out food in Spring Green. Cathy notes that this is Crayon color in the 100 pack. We stop at the Post House, which claims to be the oldest operating restaurant in WI - 1857. Food is local. Soup is a potpourris of farm-fresh veggies - wonderful. And strawberry pie earns a slice each. Back on the road we pass the Frank Lloyd Wright museum and "house on the hill". We don't have time to stop - wish we did. The ride takes us along but seldom on route 14, which is getting truck-happy as we draw closer to Madison. Some riders are choosing to take 14 in and avoid the extra mileage and hills of the country roads. This defeats the purpose of the ride, and also creates the potential for a long walk. We ride for several miles with Mark and Fred from D.C. Mark has rigged his bike with huge steer horns he picked up in Montana. At first the ride crew said no way - too dangerous - but corks on the sharp horn points swayed them. He has a Steve Martin arrow through his head, and colored spoke balls that move around as you ride. Mark is not shy. We stop at a local cheese maker and have a great time asking inane questions about cheese. They are loving it. We are the 300th riders to stop today. Finally we have to push into Madison. The route sheet says luggage trucks will be locked at 7pm. It will be close. The last 20 miles are hilly - some very steep. We are tired, but the thought of a real bed and a day off brings us in. The last 5 miles is a maze with at least 25 turns. We are getting the full tour of the Madison suburban structure and history. At one point we make 3 lefts in a row, which by my calculation is how one turns around. So be it. We fight the traffic on University Way - which should be renamed the University Highway, and pull up to our high-rise dorms. Getting luggage and bikes up to the 13th floor requires patience for elevators, but the rooms are wonderful with views over the adjacent lake. A quick shower, some Szechwan and Tsing Tao beer from across the street, and, and we are asleep by 10pm - completing a 110 mile hilly ride. The moonrise seems like 2 days ago. | |
Previous Journal Entry | Next Journal Entry 