jforbess.org

Fifty more miles to go, yeah, my butt is hurting mighty bad. I crossed the river at Osceola. I could have crossed it at St Croix Falls, too, either of them were reasonably safe biking bridges.

There was a roadside bike trail for much of the ride down Highway 95. It was about fifty percent useful, fifty percent annoying. It wound through the back of Marine on St Croix in a lazy fashion, and it had some killer bumps by the end that slowed me down a lot. But the shoulder on Highway 95 was bad enough, and the traffic heavy and fast enough that it was nice to have the luxury to be off it.

The trail into the Twin Cities downtown started in Pine Point Park, well outside the exurban sprawl. It was the perfect route in, well-paved, with a gravel horse trail running alongside. Before I had gone very far, I came across a tree/bush bearing fruits the size of large cherries. Wild plums, it turned out. Basically nature’s GU shots. Awesome. I also tried some very black fruits that I thought might be black currants, but they were horribly bitter. Made me crave ice cream even more.

It turns out St Paul and Minneapolis are very large. I biked through the northwest section of St Paul on the bike path, and it dropped me off right by I-35E. Then I proceeded to follow an on-street bike route until I got lost and called Jim for directions. The shame. Luckily Google Maps was useful, and I knew which major road with a bike route I wanted to head for. I ended up biking past the St Paul Cathedral while dramatic sunlight poured through the puffy clouds. Then I biked down Summit Ave, past the lumber and mining barons’ houses. Impressive. Also, Summit Ave is long. I don’t know how long, but plenty long. With a generally slight downhill grade.

Then there was excitement of crossing the mighty Mississippi, with the added frisson from the knowledge that some bridges over the mighty Mississipi have been known to collapse. And then there was the long bike ride along the Midtown Greenway Connector, a bike trail that took me to within five blocks of Becca and Jim’s house. I guess the hipsters started showing up immediately upon arrival to Minneapolis, and the density of sightings increased as I approached Becca and Jim’s house.

Getting off my bike and knowing I didn’t have to sit on it for more than 24 hours was a relief. The chafing on my nether regions and the tightness in my back need to be addressed before I bike further than a few blocks around town. Chairs with backs are the biggest luxury ever.

Is it breakfast time yet? That’s how all of my days seem to start. A twenty kilometer ride to breakfast. Today’s was over county roads first, and then onto the Gandy Dancer Bike Trail for a few miles. The Main Street Cafe in Siren was one of those marked as worth driving 100 miles out of your way for, and it was a cute little place. I got my own half booth looking out the window, which was nice. The food was good, but I just got the eggs, ham, hashbrowns, toast, so it’s hard to mess that up or shine too much. And then I had a slice of the lemon meringue pie that the author had enthused about. Meh. The crust was so pasty and raw I ended up leaving it. The lemon and the meringue were ok, but certainly it wasn’t the best pie ever. I did buy a cookie for a future snack.

And then it was all trail all the time. Trails are a mixed blessing to a bike tourist. They make the navigation very easy for large chunks of time. They are usually railroad beds, so there are no steep hills. However, in Wisconsn, they are usually a fine limestone gravel which, when you are pulling a heavy trailer with two wheels means there is enough drag that you can’t really ever coast. I happen to like coasting. Especially when my rear end is tender from too much biking too many days in a row. And the result of taking away the short steep hills is very long gradual climbs. So it’s great exercise, with that constant spinning. But it’s tiring.

Oh yeah, and it was raining. The day dawned in a pea soup fog. Oatmeal, maybe. I left my wet fly on the outside of my trailer, but I also left my tent on the outside, hoping it would dry out a little as the fog cleared. Except the fog turned to rain. And I didn’t put my tent in the trailer at the point when that happened, so I ended up having to leave my tent out as it got wetter and wetter. Ick. My last night on the road, and it was going to be in a wet tent.

But the rain pulled out some great scents. Or maybe someone sprays the trail with organic bug spray, because there were a few points where I could smell the strong scent of citronella. And occasionally vanilla, once a kind of honeysuckle, though I thought it was too late in the season, many fresh green scents, and then that one space of dead dead dead animal. Ick.

It was a long slow slog up to St Croix Falls, which surprised me, since it’s on a river, I thought I’d be progressing down. Only once I got to the town itself and plunged down the city streets to the main drag. I found an overlook, and the library, and ducked into the library for some wireless just as the rain kicked in for real. I sat trying to decide if I wanted to push on three miles to the close campground, or fifteen miles to the far campground. It was only 2:30pm, so it seemed as though I should push on, but it was raining, and I didn’t know where I would eat breakfast the next day if I stayed in the further on campground, so Interstate State Park in Wisconsin won the day.

I figured out how to bike to it without retracing my path all the way up to the bike path. I was offered a choice of north or south campgrounds, the north has showers, grass pads, but is less remote. The south has pit toilets, gravel pads, and is more remote. I took the north space because gravel pads are horrible. Unfortunately, by less remote, they meant “Next to the bridge across the river where all the trucks will be engine braking.” Eeew. Oh well. The good news was that my tent wasn’t very wet at all, despite being in a soaking bag. And the weather cleared as I set it up, so it dried while I showered, ate, and went for a mini hike to overlook the river.

The other amusing bit about the north campground being “less remote” was that it was actually just on the other side of some trees from the downtown main street. They were thick trees, but I could have saved myself the mile bike ride out to the country and back down. Of course, I wouldn’t have been able to pay for my campsite, so there might have been repercussions.

I woke up as the sun burned through the clouds, got up, read while I waited for the sun to dry off my tent, when all of a sudden I was sitting in a dense fog. I swore, fearing that rain was moving in, and packed up my tent and gear. But it was just a pea soup fog out of nowhere. It lasted a few miles down the road, and then burned off to a hot humid day.

I was definitely dragging again today. I can tell I’m mentally preparing for my next destination, Minneapolis, rather than living in the moment. Of course, the scenery along State Highway 35 was pretty bland. Trees, an occasional house for sale, a tavern at every crossing of roads. My rear end is noticeably sore.

I changed my mind about three dozen times as to where I should camp. The original plan was to head back into Minnesota to the St Croix State Park. But when I realized it was at least fifteen miles further, and that I was going to have to backtrack the entire way the next morning to return to Wisconsin to hit one last great Wisconsin Cafe, I looked for something closer. On the Wisconsin side of the St Croix was Governor Knowles State Forest, which apparently had a camping ground fifteen miles away, but which would require no backtracking in the morning. And then on the way to that, I saw a sign for Hap’s Landing — Camping, and decided I should aim for it.

It was closer, it was on a lake, it was full of mobile homes and RVs, and there were two huge chocolate labs who wanted to play fetch. But they knew how to play fetch well. Well, one of them did. One of the other camp residents mentioned how I should have kept going and camped at Norway Point, right on the St Croix. It would have been nice. But I suspect there weren’t any showers, and it would have been further away from breakfast in the morning. That’s how I’m consoling myself. Plus, there was an awesome sunset over the lake, and who knows how visible it would have been over the sharply bluffed river. That’s my story and I’m sticking by it.

If I had packed up four minutes sooner I would have had my tent in the bag before the rain started. Four minutes. Instead, I stood under a tree waiting for the rain to pass for at least fifteen minutes if not more. Since this is really the first rain I’ve had, I can’t complain too much. I managed to get my tent in the bag mostly dry, loaded my rainfly into the cargo net on the outside of my trailer, and headed to breakfast. Since I was at a city campground, it was less than a kilometer to breakfast, a nice perk when it’s 55 and misting.

After a full breakfast I went over to the coffeehouse for internet. Usually I feel guilty for wasting a perfectly good biking day on the internet, but the rain washed those pangs away. I managed to notice a used book section in the back of the knicknacks section of the store before I left, and picked up two good books, Willa Cather’s My Antonia and a novel that appears to be about a woman on a bike tour. I think that the book cover designer would flunk Chip Kidd’s class, should he teach one, because there is no indication that this book is about bicycling on the cover. While it may be intended to be a Great American Novel that happens to be on a bicycle, if it wants to get the attention of people who don’t know if they believe it’s the next Great American Novel, but do like books about bicycling, it should be more forward.

I decided to backtrack (gasp!) on the bike trail, because I didn’t feel like dealing with a major highway that intersected an Interstate. There were two big hills immediately off the bike trail, but then the Minnesota countryside settled into slightly rolling trees and fields. Not incredibly interesting, but pleasant. Except for the ba-dump ba-dump ba-dump of my wheels on the cracks of the pavement. I tried to decide if my smaller wheels were more susceptible to the divots, and decided they probably were. Eit.

I almost hit a deer in the road. A cute little spotted fawn. It was close enough and sudden enough that I hit the brakes, but far enough away that I didn’t really need to. It probably weighed the same as my bicycle and myself, so hitting it would have been slightly traumatic.

When I crossed the border back into Wisconsin, I waffled a bit whether to take the green marked county road, or head to a grey back road that would significantly shorten my route. I decided to follow the county road, since I didn’t want to deal with gravel or steep ups and downs. Ha. The county road was undergoing construction, so there were large sections of gravel, and it had at least two big ups and downs over rivers. I never push my bike except up steep gravel hills. There were two here. Gah.

Then off in the distance I saw a blinking red train crossing light. After being caught by two loooong trains in downtown Kearney, not to mention the handful of times in Brownwood when a train was between me and my motel bathroom, I dreaded the potential wait. But the crossing was almost a mile away, and the train was moving quickly, so it got its 125 cars across before I had to slow down. (Also, I was dragging by that point.)

As I was biking I was craving an apple. Crisp, tart, juicy, there’s a reason they are the default fruit of America. But there were no stores between me and my campsite, so no apple for me. Except…there was an apple tree in the state park between me and the waterfall, with a few windblown (or squirrel jiggled) apples on the ground. I picked up two. Excellent.

The Pattison State Park contains at least two sets of waterfalls. I went to the larger, more easily accessible of the two. Apparently they are the fourth highest waterfalls in Wisconsin, or the Midwest, or something. And they are pretty. But even more attractive, I thought, was the view over the valley through which I had biked that afternoon. Looking out over the slightly misty treetops was a view that’s not common in Wisconsin.

Then I amused myself by taking surreal arty photos of reflections in the lake.

I was smug as I pulled out of the campground and got right on to the paved bike trail, avoiding the piles of dirt being bulldozed in the road immediately outside the driveway. I was less smug after I deposited my dirty dirty laundry at the laundromat and went looking for the cafe recommended by the ranger. It wasn’t open until 11am on Mondays and Tuesdays. I had a hard time remembering which day it was, but when I went across the street to check the library which was closed, but opened at 9am on Tuesdays, I deduced it must be Monday. Eit.

Since I hadn’t figured out where I was headed yet, anyway, I decided that I should aim for Cloquet, the closest big town with a nice cafe listed on the bike map. After my laundry was clean, of course. Ah, clean clean clean laundry.

The highway from Carlton to Cloquet had a surprisingly well-paved shoulder. Crossing I-35 was surprisingly painfree. The cafe I was hoping for was nowhere to be found, but there was a Mexican restaurant that had Huevos Rancheros as a Lunch Special. Nice. Then I headed east for County Road 7, but was horrified by the multi-laned no-shouldered Hwy 33, and kept going straight, directly to a coffeehouse where I had a latte, may have seen Jessica Lange, (another local pointed her out) and asked for directions to County Road 7 via the backroads.

The county roads were nice, except for the cracks which were too frequent and too deep to be ignored. Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump. So it goes. I got chased quite a distance by a hound dog. Not dangerous, just amusing.

I stopped at TJ’s County Store just before I got back on the Munger Trail. Every flat surface on their property said “Our Wurst is the Best”. I was tempted to get a few links, but they only came in frozen packages of six, which seemed a bit excessive, even for me. Instead I got baked beans, string cheese, an apple and a nectarine. So healthy. I sat outside and talked to my grandmother as it was the day after her 91st birthday. She was very chipper, which was nice to hear.

Another ten miles to a campsite, where I set up next to Moosehead Lake. Someday internal combustion engines are going to be outcast like smoking. I can hardly wait. The boat jetting around the lake was loud.

I woke up and headed to Superior, looking for coffee and wireless. I took the county roads instead of the Tri County Corridor, and was much happier. It was cold and grey, and the wind was strong. Once in Superior, my unerring sense of coffeehouses failed, and I was reduced to asking a few older gentlemen where I mind find coffee and wireless. Neither of them could tell me for sure about wireless, but they both made good suggestions. The one I followed ended up being closed, but I sat outside and used the wireless to pinpoint a better coffeehouse in Duluth. And a bike path to get there.

There was a surprisingly well-marked and well-bridged route from Superior to the Duluth waterfront, except for five blocks in the middle. I was forced to pull out my laptop and recheck the pdf I had downloaded. And sketch the path on paper, for god’s sake. But after I knew I had to follow US 2 to get over I-35, I was set. The signed bike route wasn’t the prettiest, but it led me through the warehouse district with minimal fuss. Straight into the wind. Oh yeah, the wind was about 25 miles per hour out of the east. Which made it a cross breeze on the bridge over I-35. Scary. The warehouse district smelled like milled pine and hot apple cider. Then I saw the Amish Furniture warehouse, and it all made sense.

I found the lake shore, which despite the wind and the temperature and the mist in the air, was still full of people out for their Sunday walks. I felt like a wuss, since I was only out because I had to be, and if I were in my own hometown I’d be sitting in my house reading the paper. I located the coffeehouse and indulged in a lot of internet, and then thought perhaps it was time to do some laundry. I headed up the five blocks to the laundromat, but realized I wanted a shower before I did laundry, because the idea of putting clean clothes on my three day unshowered body seemed a waste. So I turned around, and tried to get a Minnesota bike map before heading out of town, but failed. But one of the bike stores I stopped in had a lot of good advice, some of which I took.

I got on the Munger Bike Trail and headed southwest to the nearest State Park. It was a beautiful trail, climbing many meters above the lake through rocky bluffs. Sadly, I was a little tired for all of that climbing, but I still enjoyed it. It was a luxury to be biking out of the wind. I had planned to bike further up the shore of Lake Superior, but I decided that headwinds of 25 mph were a perfectly good reason to change my plans.

My campsite was sadly close to other sites, but I didn’t care enough to look for a better one. Plus, after my gloriously long hot shower, I set up my stove, and one of the next door neighbors came over to chat and offered me a full-size Twix bar. Oh, the goodness.

There was another bear before breakfast for me today, but it was in the woods along the highway, and it was heading definitively away from me.

While I was sitting in the cafe in Port Wing (another from the book, great sausage patties, disappointing atmosphere), I overheard a local mentioning that Senator Feingold was going to be in the local community center that afternoon. I didn’t catch which community center (it could easily have been a town twenty miles away), and I was only slightly tempted to try to see him. I would like to thank him for voting against the original DMCA, the only senator to do so. Instead, I headed to the Brule River State Forest campground only to find it was full. Since it was only noon, I decided to head to Amnicon Falls State Park instead of seeing if they would squeeze in me, a biker.

I thought it was going to be a nice easy roll along the bike path along US 2. Unfortunately, it was also an ATV trail, and the heavy vehicles had chewed up the already sandy trail, making it an off-road biking experience. I fell once, but was generally impressed with my ability to pedal through the gravel. I felt as though I was plowing the trail with my trailer tires many times, and started wondering how feasible a human-powered plow would be. But then realized if we had to give up our internal combustion engines, returning to the horse and ox would be the smart move.

When I arrived at Amnicon Falls it was full as well, but it was 3:30pm and I was pooped from the gravel, so I threw myself on their mercy. The young guy minding the counter pointed me to a private campground five miles up, but when I asked why Wisconsin didn’t follow the lead of Oregon and California and keep a section of open space for bikers, he said they did have a space that was partly spoken for at the moment, but when the senior ranger arrived, he let me have it. It was probably the nicest space in the place, right alongside the river, but across the river from all the other campsites.

Amnicon Falls is very nice, and would have been much nicer a few days before when it was hot and sunny, and taking a dip in the river sounded good. Today was chilly and grey, so I just walked along and admired the rock formations and the minimal falls.

After I was almost totally settled in for the night at about 7pm, a father and son came in on bikes and shared the area I was given. They were biking from Minneapolis to the UP, I think. They were also disappointed by the surface of the Tri-County Corridor, the bike path I had struggled on earlier. The father had spent a year biking in New Zealand and Australia with his wife twenty years ago, so we exchanged stories.

There’s nothing like a good shoulder to make this bicyclist happy. I think I had a decent shoulder all the way to County K. That was after the Lake Eggs Benedict. A hash of smoked trout, tomatoes and spinach replaced the standard ham. The smoked trout was excellent; it tasted as though it had been grilled rather than placed in a room with 200 hundred smokers each with three packs of American Spirits, which is how I feel many smoked food items taste.

It was a beautiful day, reminiscent of my bike trips to Maine and Big Sur. Blue sky, 70 degrees, cool breeze. I inquired at the Apostle Island Visitor Center, and they told me the State Park on Madeleine Island was booked until Sept 1, though there was a first-come, first-serve county park. I didn’t feel up to paying ferry fare to see if I could camp, so I kept biking around the Peninsula. After I spent two hours in the library, of course. Damn internet addiction.

I decided to head for Herbster, which I had found mention online of a campsite right on the beach, and since the people at the Visitor Center didn’t know of it, I figured it was less likely to be full. Camping on Friday and Saturday nights is hard for us bike tourists in mid summer. Most campgrounds aren’t full except on Saturday nights.

An interested tourist I had chatted with about bike touring in Bayfield had mentioned a nice hike to sea caves near Cornucopia, and I asked when I got there, but discovered the path was at a beach a few miles back. Not worth it, I decided. The hills were rolling, but long rolling. By the time I got to Cornucopia I remembered that I hadn’t paid my credit card, due that day, so I was forced to search for a wireless point. Luckily, there was a very cute coffeehouse with wireless, still open for a half an hour, and I popped in.

Another few miles down the road to Herbster, where I just barely missed getting a beachside camping spot. Luckily there were more sites back into the woods. I set up my tent, and then got warned about bear sightings. A few minutes later more potential campers came through, paused near my site for a few minutes, and then called out, “So is there a lot of bear activity around here?” “Well, the host warned me they’d been seen, why?” “Because there’s a huge pile of fresh bear scat right here on the road.” “Oh.”

I heard a bit of rustling in the bushes during the early evening, enough to make me consider moving closer to the beach and the other people, but it stopped by dusk, and I relaxed a bit.

I sat on the beach reading a bit before dinner. A lovely late afternoon. Sun, wind, and Lake Superior.

I got an early start today after I was woken by a bear. The adrenalin made it hard to go back to sleep. I heard some movement in the bush, a kind of gallumphing. I was a little paranoid about bears, since there had been a sign warning of them. The sound seemed too small to be a bear, maybe it was just a deer like the one I’d seen on the camp road the day before). But the movement sound was short enough that it was still around. I looked out and there it was, staring at me from twenty feet away, a cute little bear cub. Scary. And me with locally-made all-beef summer sausage on my breath. We stared at each other for a short time while I wracked my brain for all the ways you’re supposed to deal with a bear. None of them came to mind. Then the little bear turned and gallumphed away. I think it circumnavigated my campsite and went to bother the other walk-in site.

I headed for Ashland, home of crazyguyonabike.com, I think. Well, the server is actually in Chicago, but you know. I expected it to be three and a bit hours away, but it was only two and a half, because it was all downhill. Even with the headwinds. Damn you, headwinds! Highway 13 took me through town to Main St, which I followed unerringly to a hippie coffeehouse, a bakery and a food co-op. Yay for Wisconsin foodies. After a latte and a pain au chocolat, I headed for the library for The Internet. But it was a beautiful day so I was able to pull myself away after an hour and a half of accomplishing little.

And it was a beautiful day. 70 and clear blue skies. An unfortunately strong wind out of the northwest, but still beautiful. The food co-op yielded lovely localy-grown cherry tomatoes, plus dried split pea soup and dried fruits and nuts, and the bakery yielded spelt sourdough and local fennel/lavender chevre. I sat outside the coffeehouse eating my lunch. The tomatoes were sweeter than some of the blackberries I ate yesterday.

Finally I pulled myself away and headed to Washburn. The bike map told me I could follow a couple of red lines, or do a lot of backtracking on some grey lines that may or may not be gravel. Having scarred myself for life on gravel roads (not that I’m not looking forward to mountain biking someday soon), I decided the red lines couldn’t be that bad. And, since I hopped on a bike path that covered the worst part of Main St becoming US 2, it wasn’t. US 2 has a great shoulder in Michigan, and it had a decent shoulder here. Highway 13 ended up having a better shoulder than it did from Copper Falls State Park to Ashland, but a lot more traffic. But, a good shoulder definitely makes up for a lot of traffic.

Washburn has two campgrounds and a great used bookstore with coffeehouse and internet. I tried to trade a paperback, but as it was a science fiction anthology, it was unwanted, so I just gave it to him, and paid for the two books straight out. I’d stopped in one of the two campgrounds on my way into town, but the bookstore owner advised that the other one was better. Sitting here now, I’m not so sure. A party of three girls just pulled in next to me, and they are having problems putting up their tent. They haven’t been too shrieky, though. Maybe it’ll be ok.

Actually, I just realized that this is the first night since my first night out that I have camped within sight of other people. Every other campsite has been in a well protected, mostly empty campground, or in the middle of nowhere. I feel like I’m camping in a parking lot here, even if there are trees and grass. But I managed to align my tent so that I have a view of Lake Superior just sitting normally in my tent, despite having to account for the slope of the ground, the tree roots, and the bathroom light. A small victory in the middle of small annoyances.

So, I thought it would be fifteen kilometers from where I’d camped back onto the main road. It was actually twenty-five. The most demoralized time on the road was when I’d gone almost eight kilometers, and was still within sight of the lake I’d camped just before. The best time on that gravel road was when I swerved and decided it was time to stop for a break and then looked at the side of the road and saw raspberry and blackberry bushes. I was trying to decide if the big trampled spots were from bears. I mean, what bear wouldn’t want these tasty tasty berries? However, it’s official, raspberries are far tastier than blackberries, even when both are picked off the bush in the wild.

I was hoping to have breakfast in Upton, just on the main road. No such luck. I was desperately in need of a toilet, but luckily the county park filled that need. Camping was allowed at that county park. Damn them all. I had some trail mix and hit the road. The stretch on the main highway was nice, but then I thought I’d head down County Line Rd to miss the nastier bits of the highway. And of course County Line Rd was gravel. Why that didn’t keep me on the main highway, I don’t know. I guess I thought it would be shorter, too. But it wasn’t. At least I got to eat some apples from a tree on the side of the road. They were soft, like McIntosh, and full of worms. I wonder how you keep the worms out organically?

Also, I am beginning to regret ever meeting Jofish. Well, ever hearing that damn song of his, “On the cover of Wired Magazine”. It’s the default song to get stuck in my head right now, and it’s not ok. Also, I’m craving raw milk yogurt and stewed fruit. Fine, I’m craving everything because I’m in such a huge calorie deficit. But the yogurt and fruit actually popped into my head as something I needed.

Once I finally reached Copper Falls State Park, and was granted a campsite, I breathed a sigh of relief. Now I just needed a shower and some food. But the shower was closed for cleaning for another hour. So I took a stroll to find some food. I walked the wrong direction first, but finally got to the concession that looked remarkably like the one in Big Basin, except that it served real food, by which I mean brats. (And other stuff, but who cares about that?)

I took a stroll around the falls after filling part of my caloric deficit. I hadn’t realized there was scenery like this in Wisconsin. It looks a lot like Ithaca, but I don’t know anything about the specifics of Ithaca’s geology, so I don’t know if it was caused by a glacier cutting out the basalt from a lava flow like Copper Falls were.

Then I got a strawberry ice cream cone. Simple pleasures. Very simple.

As I walked back to the campsite, I came across a deer who had started to leap across the road, but stopped in the middle. Her companions weren’t joining her on the road. She stared at me for awhile, and used a lot of body language that made me feel like an ill-informed baseball catcher or fraternity brother, because I had no idea what her obviously important complex signals meant. Ultimately she leapt back into the woods from which she came, and a few minutes later a car drove by, none the wiser. Ah, the things you miss in cars.