HOLY HILL! WE MADE IT, OUR RIDE IS DONE

Holy Hill! We made it!

Joan's View

Where is the real entrance to Holy Hill?

Holy Hill - what an great ending to our ride and our day! We made it after 56 miles of major climb to Holy Hill, a beautiful Catholic shrine dedicated to Mary on a high spot outside of Milwaukee. Thank you Jeanne Fuller for the suggestion. OK, although we weren't really thanking you while huffing and puffing up the pitted hills, but it was super worth it. Clyde was even waiting for us at Holy Hill and he had CHERRIES!. We accidentally took a wrong turn on Holy Hill Dr and had to put in a few more hills before we found the real entrance, and Clyde.

Downtown Milwaukee in the background 

Steeple view from another steeple

Clyde and Carol had been there before so Clyde gave us some direction on where to go. We spent some time in the chapels to say our thanks to God. Clyde took us up lots of steps to get to the steeple where we did more steps. Thanks Clyde for all of the steps after the hills that we just climbed. 😕Again, it was all worth it though. He said we could see more today than the last time they were there.

Thanks Clyde for the 178 steps

Carol stayed back at their place to work on what turned out to be another awesome meal. Thank you Carol for sharing your culinary talents with us.

Tony & Clyde looking down from above

Now, I'll back track a little. We left Sheboygan this morning riding a large portion of the way on the same route that we took to get there last week. A big portion of the ride was on the smooth bike trail. We remembered lots of sights that we talked about on the way there, like the freshly painted barns, the perennial garden that I loved, and the bridge in Cedarberg. We made our usual potty breaks (one was in what seemed like a secret garden) and stopped in Cedarberg for lunch followed by ice cream for Tony.

The chairs were even ice cream cones

We had to keep texting the Verhoff's because our ETA kept getting moved back. We made a few more stops, but also we were riding into the wind and up some muscle defining hills. We also rode on some roads where the shoulder was non-existent, and on a curve that can be scary.

Clyde showing off his torpedo throw

We enjoyed a gourmet meal outside on the Verhoff's patio followed by a game of bean bag - Verhoff rules. Carol & I let the guys win.

Tony's View

All I could say was HOLY hill and HOLY wind. They both made me exhausted. I know how it got its name. The original people were going up there saying holy hill while breathing heavily. Clyde said he was surprised when we came up the hill. He thought for sure we would be pushing the bike, not riding it up the hill. It was a great way to end our bicycle trip with the last being the hardest of the week. I already have the hotels and plane tickets set up for the next one. We will be going from New Orleans to The Villages FL next February 2019. I will start working at our Europe tour down the Danube River for September 2019. One thing we talked about this trip was the opportunities to cut weight and increase conveniences for those next bicycle trips.