August 1 - Drive to Madison, Wisconsin

The disadvantage of having locomotives shuffle cars around in the railroad yard behind the trailer during the middle of the night is fairly obvious: a poor night's sleep. The huffing, puffing, and hissing that accompanied the bells and whistles made it sound for all the world like an old fashioned steam engine although I am sure that was not really the case. Out of desperation we turned on the fan for the air conditioner in the hope that it would drown out the intermittent clanks, hoots, hisses, and chug-chug-chug. It kind of worked in that we did finally get to sleep, but we couldn't sleep very deeply or very long until some really loud crash, bang, or klaxon wail would wake us up. Once again, the Quiet Campground had eluded us.

The advantage of having locomotives shuffle cars around in the railroad yard behind the trailer during the middle of the night is perhaps less obvious: we got up really early and didn't make any attempt to get back to sleep! Thus it happened that we had breakfast, packed, hitched, and were on our way out of the campground by 7:40 a.m., one of our earlier starts. We swung around Duluth to Superior, Wisconsin, on the other side of the river before turning south on US Route 53. The section from Superior down to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, was along an almost deserted 4-lane road cutting through second growth forests for mile after mile. There were precious few signs of people in that far northern section of Wisconsin, and the woods seemed deserted although I'm sure that was a bit misleading. We occasionally hit a crossroad or even a small town, so some people were there, just not too many.

We found a Culver's for lunch in Eau Claire, so Monika choose the roast beef and I had the Philly Cheese Steak, and we both had mashed potatoes and gravy. We finished by sharing a hot fudge sundae with the flavor of the day, chocolate strawberry. It was nice to be back where we could have treats like this, and it gave us courage to face the flood of traffic we encountered as soon as we joined Interstate 94. The heavy traffic continued for the rest of the drive down to Madison, but when the freeway expanded to 3 lanes in each direction, I could just hide over in the far right lane and let everyone pass me and that helped a bit. I do hate holding up traffic by driving 60 mph, but the day was becoming progressively hotter and I didn't want to blow another tire by driving too fast! We edged around Madison on the east side and curled back to the Lake Farm campground just to the south of the city. We were surprised at the $20 charge for a site with just electricity, but after 8 hours of driving we were too tired to go search for a cheaper spot so we gave in and paid the fee, rationalizing that it would only be for one night.

After unhitching, leveling, and connecting the electricity so that we could turn on the refrigerator and air conditioning, we chased down the start box for the bicycle event we wanted to ride the following day. Sunday is a great day to drive in a strange city; the traffic is usually very light and you can drive slowly and still mix in with the other Sunday drivers! We wound our way around Lake Monona to the Mechanic's Row Bicycle Store and found parking next door that was reserved except for weekends, which was lucky for us. The shop was having a good summer sale, so I picked up spare inner tubes, an inflation cartridge, and bells for each bike while Monika registered us. She finally got me out of the shop, which was a good thing as our budget wouldn't have taken much more!

After registering, we drove back to camp for a light supper and worked on the computers for a while listening to folk music on a local Public Broadcasting System station. Since our bike ride came with just written directions and no map, Monika used the "Streets and Maps" software to help understand exactly where our planned route was. We also wanted to know where we could park the truck and start the ride because I really didn't want to drive back downtown and search for a parking space there during a normal weekday. I worked on the journal and when we were finished we still had time to read for a couple of hours and yet turn in early, hoping for a good night's sleep for a change. I made sure we finished "The Da Vinci Code" because I really didn't want to worry about "what was going to happen next" again while trying to get to sleep. That stratagem worked, and since we were not camped next to an airport runway, railroad yard, saw mill, or interstate highway, I got a really great night's sleep at last.