what I'm doing now
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I already dislike it since it tells me repeatedly that it's over capacity.
Day 1:
We hitched a car ride with Josh to
We loaded up the bikes and started up 95 on the
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
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
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
Day 2: St. Croix Falls to
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
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
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
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:
I woke up early and foraged for coffee and sour gummy octopus at the BP across the street.
We decided to go to Spooner, because the lady at the visitor’s center in
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
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
Day 4:
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
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
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
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
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
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
I have been to
Me and my bike
TANKS to Josh and Erin who made the drive to pick us up!