Hoping for a Tail Wind

Hello Wisconsin

After several movie references, this entry’s title marks my first TV reference. And so far America’s Dairyland has been amazing.

My first day, I caught the tail end of a festival in St Crioux Falls by my good friends in the OLS Crew. Met tons of people, had a hug bonfire and saw some great bands – like Phrym8, Bottom Feeders and Kanser. I even got to whip around the parking lot in the “medium bus” which earlier that day spent 60 minutes stuck in a mud puddle which apparently was where everyone was peeing the night before! (see the pic below). Shouts to Jake, Kyle, Nick, Tessa, Bob, Gust and everyone else; especially Bryce, the owner of the lovely stretch of land.

After that, I needed some time to plot out my next week’s route and deal with some mechanical issues. I had been offered housing by Bob and Cheryl Mundle via warmshowers.org, so I decided to only bike a half day – about 35 miles – to Amery. I was certainly in for a treat as my shelter for the night was Bob’s boathouse: literally 2 feet from the shore of Wapogasset Lake. Talk about waterfront accommodations!

I did some kayaking on the lake before my gracious hosts provided an amazing dinner and allowed me usage of their computer. Bob is a retired pilot and is truly one of the most interesting people I’ve me on this tour; he’s travelled far and wide via bicycle, boat and plane -and truly lives his life with passion and zeal. In fact, the morning I left, he biked the four miles into town with me, and shortly thereafter was hopping in his plane to meet friends and do some sailing on Lake Superior. Talk about a full day!

So good job Wisconsin, both on the hospitality of your citizenry and on those tasty cheese curds.

Minne-pocalypse

Holy crap. Three days into Minnesota and I’ve got some serious new experiences. Day one was pretty typical: 95 degree heat, back country roads, state campground. That would be it for typical.

I’ve biked thru the Buffalo winters, I’ve biked sweltering 110 degree heat and I’ve biked in Vermont rains, but I’ve never experienced what the land of 10,000 lakes had in store for me.

Day 2 here had me waking to hard rains and 50 mph windgusts beating against my tent. After waiting for it to subside a bit, I broke camp and escaped to a nearby covered shelter. Finally hitting the road at about noon, lightning, thunder, rain and hail kept me company most of the day. About 5pm I saw my first ever tornado in the distance! It wasn’t super close, but close enough to make me crap my pants and pop for my first hotel of the trip. The weather channel later confirmed my sighting.

Day three made day two feel like kindergarten. I got out early as I had 90 miles in front of me. Cloudy, light rain, not too bad. About 2pm I stopped for lunch and the clouds broke, giving me some much welcomed sunshine. After lunch the clouds came back. By 3pm it was nearly dark. Then the end of the world came. An amazing deluge of water, accompanied by 65mph gusts overcame me. No amount of raingear could save me and unfortunately I was on a bike trail between towns. No shelter anywhere so pushed on. Trees began snapping everywhere and I couldn’t see 5 feet in front of me. Finally after 15-20 minutes (it felt like an eternity) I found a rest stop and got out of it. Cars on the nearby interstate even had to stop and when I walked in the crowded place of refuge, I instantly became the center of attention, thoroughly soaked and squishing with each step across the place. Amazingly, the whole thing passed in 40 minutes, after which the sun took it’s triumphant place in a clear blue sky, drying me off on remaining 35 miles into the aptly named St Cloud. The damage I saw along the trail proved just how powerful the storm was: trees were ripped out of the ground, roots and all!

A lot of people say they “only fear god” when trying to demonstrate how fearless they are. Even if thats true, I wonder if they have ever feared god the way I saw it all unfold these two days. As my man Billy Drease told me, “the true power of nature, no CGI”.