Happy Fourth of July! We all added small American Flags to our bikes or personal decoration today as part of our celebration of the day.
I got separated from the group and didn’t get as many pictures as normal, plus some of the narrative is second hand.
We started off at 6:00am – bright and early – with scouts out for the first open cafe that was serving breakfast. We saw one in Friendship that claimed to have the “Best Breakfast in Town” and the smells oozing from the building seemed to verify its claim, but it didn’t open until 7:00am. The next one was open and we parked our bikes and entered. One way we could tell it was open was that there were a bunch of other bikes parked out front. The food was great, the portions heaping. Those who ordered hash browns got mounds “twice as large as any human should need, but he ate them all anyway” according to Dick Burkley. (see picture 1) {{popup day5breakfast.jpg day5breakfast 1490×870}}Breakfast in Friendship
So we didn’t really get started on our ride until about 7:10. But for the first morning this week, the air was actually cool and some people actually put on long sleeve shirts for a while. Food must have been on our mind today, because about an hour and a half later, we spotted an ice cream delivery truck. We flagged it down and asked if we could buy some ice cream bars. He said the smallest amount he could sell us was a box of 24. John Jensen bought a box for $10 gave bars for free to our group and then sold the rest for $1 each to other riders who had stopped and cleared $5 on the deal. – Thanks John! (see picture 2) {{popup day5icecream.jpg day5icecream 1355×666}}John the Ice Cream Bar Man!
The next town was the Wisconsin Dells. The 4th of July traffic was heavy, but the route this year got us through town and back out in the country faster than last and soon we were at Mirror Lake state park for lunch. Patti and Ruth picked a lovely spot near a swimming beach, with running water and facilities. Bob Boylan and John Taska joined us. Patti Taska and their dog Heidi arrived before we all finished. It was a nice, restful, delicious lunch, but when we started out again the temperature was no longer cool. Twelve miles later we were in Baraboo, where we had planned to stop for ice cream. I looked all over for the place but didn’t find it. The rest of the group did find it and said it was as good as last year.
Next we climbed up and down into Devil’s Lake. Some people went swimming at the South Beach. Then we rode a few more miles to the Devil’s Head Lodge where we are staying tonight. By staying here we cut 12 miles off our ride today of 77 miles, but we will add 12 miles to tomorrow’s route. It also moved our ferry crossing from today to tomorrow. After showering many of us went swimming at the Lodge’s pool. I wish I had gotten a picture of the laundry drying area. It was quite a site to see everybody’s biking attire hanging out to dry. At this point we are all washing each day to have something to wear and hoping we have something that is dry. Many of the riders had on red, white, and blue jerseys or some other decoration to help celebrated the 4th. {{popup day5bae2.jpg day5bae2 1176×904}}Ingrid and Martha show one example in the 3rd picture.
We had a great dinner in the main dinning room of the lodge. John and Patti Taska joined us. Tomorrow we will have breakfast here at 6:30am and try to be off by 7:00am. It will be a 79 mile ride tomorrow to Richland Center. It seems amazing that we only have two days left. Hope you all had a great Fourth of July!
kws