SHOWERS, WILDLIFE AND WHOOPS

Tony's View

Just cause you might be curious, we did run into some showers today. I woke up early a couple of times and kept a watch on the hourly weather. We decided to get up around 6:00am and we were on the road at 6:30 to try to beat the rain. It looked bad at first with the dark skies and winds, but we didn't run into rain until mile 15 and it rained until mile 22. As you can see from the picture to the right, Joan was cold, however, I was sweating. The picture to the left showed the powerful wind and the crazy waves. The wind was coming from the east pretty much all day and we were heading north.
They weren't tail winds but at least they weren't head winds. Back to mile 15 when it started to rain, I was taking a bio break when the rain started. I put my helmet on and we took off. I forgot to put my cycling gloves on, and didn't realize it until we were miles down the road and it stopped raining. That was the first whoops😏. I also got wet before I put on my raincoat and by then it was too late. Good news was that my raincoat didn't get wet! Yes, that was the second whoops😏. We did have some great roads today with many following the roaring Lake Michigan and some going through woods like the picture to the right, well kind of. That brings me to my next whoops. When I planned the trip I used Google Street View to make sure we didn't end up on any gravel roads. As you can see below, I missed one and we ended up on a gravel road. It was only 1 mile long though and we were able to bike it, slow, but bike it and not walk.


 We were just lucky as Joan noted to me. Good thing it wasn't raining when we were on the gravel road. When we were on this gravel road, we had tons of bugs swarming and following us. We tried to pick up the speed, but the gravel didn't allow. Just to finish off the rain, it started raining again at mile 40. You know, I had finally dried off from the rain, not the sweat, for some reason that comes all day. It rained for about another 8 miles and that was the end of it. Overall, we were excited with our luck to avoid the rain. It was enough rain to require the bike to be washed, because it was really gritty. During this again beautiful ride, we did run into quite a bit of wildlife. We saw several mama deer with their fawns, 2 with 2 fawns and 1 with 3 fawns. We saw turkeys a couple of times and one time there was 7 of them together. We saw pelicans, and even bear poop. At least, Joan said it was bear poop.

 The scenery was beautiful as in the picture to the right. Besides the scenery, the noise of the roaring waves when we were riding next to it was super cool. Below is the Door County sign.  We have heard a lot about Door County and were excited to get here.

 Oh Yea, there was one more whoops. This gravel road to the right was narrow and it looked like it was rarely used. A little muddy and water puddled too. This one was just 1 3/4 miles long too. So, we were on almost 3 miles of gravel roads today, but we went 60 miles. Not too bad. Yes, at the end I was worn out, but Joan was a real trooper again with the high mileage. We got to our hotel which is a Best Western around Noon and they didn't have the room ready. Therefore, we found a local bicycle store and I bought a new pair of cycling gloves. We got back to the hotel, and Joan went in and got some old towels from the front desk to clean the bike before we bring it inside. I started cleaning the bike while she stood there. I said that you could help and she said she thought she was exempt from that? Really she is and I agreed to that, but my sad face😞😞 got her to help. Yea for me!

Joan's Extra

Bonding with the Mariachi guys

Our route took us by 2 huge utility campuses, and surprisingly right through one of them. The sign said, "Only Authorized Personnel Beyond This Point," but true to the theme this year, Tony went thru that too. I'm grateful that there were no security patrolling the area.
I am also grateful for Tony pushing it and pedaling so hard to get us to Sturgeon Bay before the anticipated storms. After the face-biting downpour from last year in the Finger Lakes, I eagerly jumped out of bed to get on the road this morning.
The other wildlife spotting to note was 2 herons of some sort. We could have used the experts from the Florida DeLand bird sanctuary at that moment.
Lastly, we enjoyed some yummy tummy-filling Mexican food tonight with a sweet Mariachi Band. I'll bet Wade & Linda never saw these guys in Mexico!