bike trip to ashland!

Stillwater MN to Ashland WI, 234 miles in 5 days

Day 1: Stillwater to St. Croix Falls, 32 miles

We hitched a car ride with Josh to Stillwater and bribed him with lunch. We saved about 30 miles, I think. I still think it’s cheating but at least we had biked to Stillwater before.

We loaded up the bikes and started up 95 on the Minnesota side of the St. Croix River, which was beautiful, hilly, and had a nice wide shoulder.

We went through William O’Brien State Park, where I told Kevin a story about my family camping there in tons of rain. We had put all of our stuff in the middle of the tent to keep it dry and called it the Great Wall of O’Brien, and then we ate sausages wrapped in soggy bread. The memories! Every time I bike to somewhere that used to seem like a really long drive away I think it’s really cool that I can power myself there. I’d like to go camp there sometime, just because I can! Also it’s beautiful.

We stopped at a dinosaur because it was just the coolest sculpture.

We also stopped at a garage sale, joking with the guy selling stuff (he and his wife bike also) about what we could fit on our already loaded bikes. He said our biggest two hills were coming up and recommended backroads around one of them, which worked out well. Then we stopped at a little wayside park because we suspected they had ice cream for some reason.

We cut over to Osceola, WI on 243 and as we were coming down into the river valley, Kevin’s nice rack worked its way loose from his bike and just kind of flopped backward. We stopped, and luckily I was able to find both tiny metal pieces that had flown off onto the road and he put it back together. Whew! Crisis averted.

I hadn’t been to Osceola in ages but mom used to take us there to play in the waterfall. Kevin won’t even go in lakes, so we just cruised past the city and headed up State Highway 35, which was also pretty nice- hilly, lots of farms and traffic wasn’t terrible. The shoulder was pretty good. I was pretty excited to be able to bike to Osceola too- it’s maybe a good thing I was an impatient kid because it seemed so far away when I was little and I just rode my bike all the way there!

We arrived at the Dalles House Motel, which we chose because Wendy had told us the bar/restaurant had all-you-can-eat popovers. I was excited that they had a pool and sauna, Kevin was excited about the S&J patty melt recommended by the waitress at the bar- which, by the way, is recessed into a lower level than where people sit, so it looks like all of the bartenders are midgets. I thought it maybe used to be a swim up bar?

We didn’t see any popovers but we did go in the sauna and then I went in the pool because apparently Kevin doesn’t like pools either. We also made reservations for campsites, because I was flipping out that we were planning to camp Friday and Saturday night near big towns in Northern Wisconsin and didn’t want to get there and not have a place to stay.

Day 2: St. Croix Falls to Shell Lake, 61 miles

I got up early and had two wheat English muffins with cream cheese and coffee and talked with the guy at the front desk about how it was 54 degrees and windy. He said it wouldn’t warm up much and the sun wasn’t going to come out, hooray. I asked him about the bike trail that started right near the visitor’s center across the parking lot, and he gave me a map of the Gandy Dancer- a bike trail that is mostly crushed limestone that runs from St. Croix Falls up to Superior.

When Kevin got up, he had a sourdough English muffin and we decided to buy the bike pass and take the Gandy Dancer trail to Milltown instead of trying horrible horrible highway 8 and then 35 again. He told me I wasn’t allowed to sing “Hold me closer, Gandy Dancer” and so I said I would instead sing, “I’m your Gandy Dancer, dancer for money…” and “I want Gandy, dun-dun-dun-dundun”.

The Gandy Dancer was hilly but beautiful and full of signs for tractor crossings. At one point there was a sign for a farm crossing. How a farm could get across that road I’m not sure. The cows seemed interested in us (which turned out to be a trend), and we saw some horses and a lot of corn. It tried to rain but had warmed up to maybe 56.

When we got to Milltown, Kevin stopped at a hardware store to buy a

hat because somehow his didn’t make it into the bags. The only one they had was a Green Bay Packers hat, which the guy gave him

a discount on because it was off-season. I told him it would help him fit in. (He took this picture of himself and the picture of me at the trailhead)

From Milltown we took 46 south to catch up with County Road G towards Cumberland, recommended by Lara. That was a pretty nice ride through lots of corn fields, and there were some pretty big hills. I lied about how many miles it was to Cumberland, and Kevin’s ankles were getting sore from his bike shoes. When we finally hit 63 and rode into Cumberland, I got coffee and Kevin got a Sasquatch burger at a bar that had a sign welcoming bikers- apparently there was a big motorcycle thing going on the next day and we wanted to fit in.

Kevin's picture of his sasquatch burger

We went to a bakery to get bread to go with the broccoli cheese soup for dinner, and got directions to the park and an awesome meat store. So we napped in the park, which had a great swimming beach and a dock you could swim out to and jump off of but it was still about 56 degrees and strong (over 15mph) winds out of the northwest, and we both put on all of our layers and tried to stay in the sun for about an hour.

On our way out of Cumberland, we stopped at Louie’s meat market where they were having some kind of brat fest and the lady cooking the brats had lived in Ashland and also had done some bike adventuring. She said it was great to see young people out on bikes and not in front of the TV or text messaging. Kevin picked up hunter’s sausage and some beef jerky and we were on our way out on 63 to County Road B.

Kevin took this picture of me at Louie's

We had decided that 63 was not fun at all, so tried to stick to county roads. Well this time, we had to take some random little backroads to get between county roads and it turned out that not all of them were paved- they were horrible huge gravel that gave us little traction. The only hill I had to walk up was back on 10 ½ street and it was because I just couldn’t get anywhere with my road tires. At this point it’s still trying to rain and I am cranky- I hate these roads and think they are the worst thing ever. Eventually we get to a paved one and then have to get back on 63 to get into Shell Lake, but it’s Friday evening and everyone and their boat is headed north on 63. It’s now actually raining and we have our lights on and are both hoping that we don’t get killed. I for one was happy to be on pavement but Kevin absolutely loathes 63.

We get to the Shell Lake Municipal Campground, and check in with the lady there. At first she can’t find our info and says there might not be any spots open but it turned out that our reservations were there and that there was actually one other free site. We’re right next to the bathrooms in what I assume is only a tent site because there really isn’t a good space for a gargantuan RV, which is what the rest of the campground is. Fortunately, we were invited to attend the free Christian Rock concert being performed by a guy who used to be a meteorologist going on at the community center (which we could hear from our campsite). I asked the campground guy if the dude would sing about the weather and he said probably not, so we didn’t go.

We both borrowed tents- Kevin had Rachel’s and I had Greg’s- and we set them up strategically so people would stop walking through our campsite to get to the bathrooms. We didn’t have that problem with the people next to us because apparently they liked to pee outside. We made our broccoli cheese soup and bread and went to sleep pretty early because it had been a really long day.

Day 3: Shell Lake to Hayward, 40 miles

I woke up early and foraged for coffee and sour gummy octopus at the BP across the street. Shell Lake had a great looking beach but it was still only 54 degrees. At least it wasn’t raining. Kevin didn’t sleep well and had dreams of going up and down hills all night. Both of us had problems with numbness in arms and hands overnight, and my shoulder (the one that hurt when my arm went numb last summer) was sore so I decided to change hand positions more for day 3.

We decided to go to Spooner, because the lady at the visitor’s center in St. Croix Falls had told us that Spooner had a great information center. So after breakfast we headed out on 63 to county road B to 253 into Spooner, which was a nice, quick little ride. We stopped at the Department of Transportation to find out where the info center was, and the lady there wasn’t much help. We called their 511 helpline, and the guy told me that all the state info centers had been shut down due to lack of funding. So we rode into town and saw a local info center and stopped in there, where the lady was extremely helpful. Her husband was a biker and biked across some country in Europe and a bunch of states- Missouri was really good, apparently. She liked our plan to take 77 to GG up through the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. We wanted to check because the state highways still had fast cars and pretty narrow shoulders, though they were better than 63. She said would love GG through the forest and that we wouldn’t regret it.

I had taken to hand drawing maps from the Gazetteer, customized to fit in the handlebar bag. We were taking county roads and backroads and I hate getting lost on bikes because it's a lot of work to get back if you are off track.

Kevin's picture of one of my maps

Out of Spooner, we headed east on state highway 70 which I thought was fine but wasn’t Kevin’s favorite. So we decided to head north on county road M to county road E, which was hilly but pretty. Then there was a detour that we successfully navigated and we hopped on 27 up to Hayward.

Hayward is the home of the American Birkebeiner ski race, which I want to do next year. Or at least the Kortelopet. We went to the info place there to see if there was a pizza place nearby and refill water bottles. They told us about a coffee shop with wifi and a good place to eat. We got coffee, the wifi didn’t work and then we went and bought clothes at the thrift shoppe. Then we went to the moccasin bar to see the largest muskie ever caught- this thing was like 67 pounds!! Way to go, Cal Johnson.

weight: 67.5lbs, length: 60.5'', girth: 33.5''

There were other huge muskies on the wall and then some creepy dioramas featuring dead forest critters boxing and other stuff. I found a tick on me and threw it in the toilet.

Then we went to the Angler Bar to eat and had margaritas, I had pizza and Kevin had a nasty burger (that’s what it was called). After all that, we biked down 63 for 4 miles to get to our RV campground and it was starting to get dark. We got there and the people were really nice and all about us burning this pile of sticks they were looking to get rid of. We chatted with them for about half an hour, 45 minutes about snowmobiling, the god damn government and not being able to camp anywhere for free, and I don’t even know what else, and they brought over free firewood and a fire ring to throw in the grass.

Kevin's picture of the campsite

We had a fire and a pop from the pop machine and then the fire got a little out of hand but we got it with the water bottles and we heard coyotes (that’s what they sounded like anyways). We still weren’t sure which way we were heading north the next day and I was anxious about it, so we thought we’d stop back at the info desk and ask Hayward people about 77 to get a second opinion. I wanted to leave early but Kevin hadn’t been sleeping well and didn’t know when he’d wake up. There was no gas station to get coffee while he was asleep so I hoped I wouldn’t be up for hours with nothing to do.

Day 4: Hayward to Mellen, 67 miles

I woke up at quarter to 6 and listened to music, trying to go back to sleep. My shoulder was fine and I didn’t have numbness at all, so I was excited about that. There was still no sun and I had been cold during the night but not too bad. There was a lot of dew so I opened up the tent to air it out a little.

I got up around 7 and walked around, stretched, ate, scared the geese, and by the time Kevin got up I wanted coffee and was cranky and antsy and wanted to go.

At least the sun had come out and it was starting to warm up, finally. We packed up and got to see dude buddy’s solar oven- he was cooking a roast in it. He told us not to hit any elk on 77 and we were on our way back up 63 to 77.

We stopped at the info desk and the ladies there liked our plan for 77 and GG, and we found out that the National Forest campgrounds are pay-at-the-site and they were maybe $12. So I made sure I had cash and we went to the grocery store to get easy mac and candy, and granola bars. Oh and cheese curds.

We headed out on 77 which was great- hilly but decent shoulder. Until the elk reintroduction area- about halfway through our trip on 77 the shoulder completely disappeared. We had about 14 miles of no shoulder through winding roads with no passing zones and cars who are supposed to go 45. There were lights that are set to blink when an elk with a tag gets near it, and we kept seeing them light up but no elk. Then we saw a huge buck just saunter across the road, and the light didn’t light up. We later read about the elk mating season, the rut, and how the elk bugle at each other. We wanted a picture of the thing so we thought it would be a good idea to throw bugles at it, but we didn’t know what flavor they liked.

Picture of a sign in Clam Lake, explaining the elk situation

We finally got to Clam Lake- the Heart of the Chequamegon National Forest (which Kevin kept calling Shenanigans National Forest) and hung out in a little park and went to the gas station.

I checked out the gift shop and there was a lady getting a new pair of earrings- the lady with her was really excited because apparently this lady had been wearing the same earrings for over ten years.

We lazed around a bit and Kevin decided to wear his flip flops for the rest of the ride because of his ankle, and he also still had problems with his hands being numb. I filled our water bottles and got a sprite cozy that said clam Lake and Chequamegon Junction on it, and we were on our way through the forest on GG.

GG was beautiful and had just been redone. The hills weren’t too bad, and there were lots of trees, marshes, flowers and it was sunny and not too windy.

We stopped at the campground we had looked at, and decided we could make it to Mellen- which would put us closer to Ashland and we’d have a really short last day. That last part of the ride was getting rough for me- I was getting tired, it was after 7 and this was our longest day mileage-wise. We stopped at a scenic overlook of the Penoke Range- the divide between water that flows north to the big lake and south to... well probably the gulf.

We got into Mellen, Mary gave us directions to the motel and it was halfway up a gigantic hill just south of town. Ugh. But she was really nice and told us all about her two daughters, one went to Northland and was going to be a calculus teacher but then she had three boys and Mary told her she better take care of them. We checked into our room and relaxed a little, watched “color cable television” after Kevin got the TV warmed up and then headed into town to get a ridiculous ½ pound burger. Except that town was pretty much closed- it was Sunday night and only one bar was open. So we went to the gas station and then went back to the motel. I took a shower and then passed out.

In the middle of the night I thought I heard mice, so I flipped on the light and moved the food from the floor to the desk. Kevin was not amused.

Day 5: Mellen to Ashland, 34 miles

Kevin had forgotten about the mice thing until he couldn’t find his food and I was being weird about it. We got up and going before 10 (I think that was the first day we were on the road before 10) and stopped at the gas station for coffee and gummy teeth, and to heat up our easy mac.

We couldn't not buy gummy teeth. I mean teeth? Come on!

Then we headed north on 13 to Ashland! It was a short, hilly, wide-shouldered ride. We were biking, biking, I was getting excited that we were almost there and a bug hit me in the neck. Next thing I know I feel a burning, stinging sensation and I say, I-gotta-stop-I-gotta-stop!” and so I pulled over and the stupid bug had stung me in the neck. It was stinging and burning so I took ibuprofen and poured water on it till it didn’t hurt so bad, and then we kept going. It was fine and now it kind of itches.

Kevin's picture of me navigating

Just before we got to Hegstrom, the turn for Michelle’s house, we went down a huge hill to a bridge over the White River. There were “trucks entering”, according to the sign (which incidentally took up the whole shoulder and we had to go around it) and so at the bottom of the hill, before going up the other side, we have to stop. We’re slowing down and the guy holding the stop sign is all, oh not you guys! So we bike on through, and now we have to go up this enormous hill with almost no momentum from going down the other side. Ugh. But we made it, turned on Hegstrom and got to Michelle’ where we had some drinks and watched the Tour de France for a bit and played with her dog Bailey.

Then we headed into town to go to Garret’s to do laundry and get settled at the Blue Goose. We hung out there and Kevin was allergic to the basement, we did laundry and biked to the Deepwater to meet Josh and Erin who drove up to drive us home. We biked to Lake Superior! Well technically to the Deepwater, but you can totally see the lake from there.

I have been to Ashland so many times in a car that it was cool to roll up on a bike and know that I got there by pedaling. It was sort of surreal and just like we had driven up and were biking around. On one hand it wasn’t a big deal and it was just like being in Ashland on a bike, but on the other hand it was a long exciting adventure to get there.

Me and my bike

TANKS to Josh and Erin who made the drive to pick us up!