Thursday, September
24
While the days have still been warm, evenings
are starting to get cool…meaning we don’t need the little fan in the tent at
night cooling us off. Some mornings have
been a bit chilly but have warmed up quickly. Back at the beginning of the
trip, when we left Kentucky, it was 90o. We had a couple extra blankets in the
trailer, but I left them at Marshal’s figuring we wouldn’t need them and the
extra space would be good. Well, we
haven’t needed those blankets until last night….an extra blanket would have been
nice. Woke up in the middle of the night
with chilly feet…put my socks on and debated grabbing my fleece, but it wasn’t
within reach. As it turns out, the socks
were enough to warm me up. Well, socks
and sticking to Kim like glue kept me warm. J
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| Blooper picture but still got the Illinois sign. |
When
we left Lena, this morning, we were only about 10 miles south of the Wisconsin
border. However, the route we took was more
east then north at first….through farm country.
And when we crossed the state line, we were in Wisconsin farm country,
which is just as picturesque as what we saw in Illinois yesterday. More cornfields…just not as much harvest
activity as yesterday. Thought we were
on one of those roads that don’t warrant a state sign…the locals just know
where the invisible state line is. But,
lo and behold, there was a ‘Welcome to Wisconsin’ sign….and because we didn’t
get an Illinois state sign yesterday, we simply turned around and got it today,
as we were leaving. J
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Stopped at Nancy’s Notions in Beaver Dam, WI. Since we were going by, I wanted to check out the retail store…I’ve seen her on TV and have also ordered sewing items online. The store had fabric and I wasn’t expecting that…but otherwise it looked like a typical sewing/quilting store. So, we’re on the bikes, we have limited space and I decide to stop at a sewing store….what was I thinking! But I got a catalog and can order online. J
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Stopped at Nancy’s Notions in Beaver Dam, WI. Since we were going by, I wanted to check out the retail store…I’ve seen her on TV and have also ordered sewing items online. The store had fabric and I wasn’t expecting that…but otherwise it looked like a typical sewing/quilting store. So, we’re on the bikes, we have limited space and I decide to stop at a sewing store….what was I thinking! But I got a catalog and can order online. J
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I started out riding in shirtsleeves but
after about an hour, I needed my fleece.
Arms were a bit too cool. Later
in the day, I traded my fleece for my jacket and knit gloves. Kim wore a sleeveless shirt the whole
day. We are a study in contrasts, for
sure.
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Since
we’re going up and over the top of Lake Michigan to get home and would be in
the neighborhood, we decided to stop in Fond du Lac, for a quick visit with Deb
and Marty Schaefer, friends from way back. Didn’t have their address or phone number with me, but I am resourceful....that’s
what the internet is for. Came up with
an address, unsure about the phone number, so I FB messaged Deb. Didn’t hear from her throughout the day, but figured
we’d stop anyway…I wanted to take a picture of myself standing in front of her
house so I could send it to her. But we
couldn’t find their house…we found the street, but not the house. What I was
imagining was a scenario like boarding the Hogwarts Express at Platform 9 ¾….their
house had to be there somewhere, I just had to know the right barrier to cross
to find it. J Eventually received an answer to my message….they’re
off on a 4 day weekend, so even if we found the house, we wouldn’t have found
them.
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Made it to Fond du Lac at about 4:30 p.m.….since
we didn’t meet up with Deb and Marty, we decided to take a stab at making Marinette, WI. It was 5 p.m. and Marinette was about another
120 miles down the road but we figured we could do that…it was all highway and
it would put us that much closer to home.
However, our ‘game’ was called on account of darkness…put some miles
behind us but we stopped at Oconto, which is about 25 miles from
Marinette. It was just time to get off
the road. Still should be able to make it home tomorrow, providing weather
cooperates...and there’s cheese store
still up ahead that might be open when we pass by.J
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For a couple of days now, we’ve been
looking at the distance between where we are and home….figuring how many days
it’ll take to get back to Charlevoix. We’re
at that point where the end of the vacation is in sight and we’re getting kind
of antsy to get home. Seems like the
closer you get, the faster you want to put the miles behind you. Not necessarily because you want the vacation
to end, but because you want to sleep in your own bed. Yep, that’s about where we are. J
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Hotel has a hot tub and after busting our
butts for 2 hours, doing 65-70 mph in traffic, I was looking forward to a soak
to, as Kim put it, ‘melt away the miles’.
Well, the hot tub was available but the whirlpool part of it didn’t
work, so it was more just a soak in a really hot bathtub. Relaxing to a certain point, then it was just
hot. I’d have to say, though, that it
did help take away the stress of the road.
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Today’s miles: 257 miles Total mileage: 4171 miles
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