In the last couple of days we have picked off 2 more states, Iowa and Wisconsin in our quest to ride in every state in the USA.
Monday, June 15
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| Camped next to the lake at Waconda State Park |
We spent the night in the Waconda State Park near La Grange, MO (north
of Hannibal) with maybe 5 other campers in the whole park. The geese greatly outnumbered the people. It is a very nice park with a number of small
lakes made from gravel pit mining many years ago.
It was nice to have a fairly unremarkable day. We started off
with a fairly flat 26 mile ride through La Grange and Caton, Mo along the Mississippi
river, then looping back through corn country to the west. Very quiet roads and a very relaxing ride.
As we rode through La Grange a small plant had its safety record posted
- 26 years and 1 week with no time lost due to a work related incident.
Wouldn't you hate to be the one to break that record?
While riding through Canton we passed a “Repurposing” shop (i.e. junk)
and saw a yellow 10 speed bike that looked just like Ted’s first Western Flyer “road”
bike that he had in the 70’s. Ted has
been tempted to hunt one of these down on eBay before. We drove back by and stopped to take a second
look. The bike was in need of a lot of
work, but the owners were quite proud of it and wanted $45. Ted didn’t want it that bad and we would have
to haul it around with us for another 6 weeks so we passed on it. If he changes his mind it will still be there for a long time.
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| Roller Damn across the Mississippi at Davenport, IA |
After our ride we took care of RV needs (dumping and taking on water)
and hit the road to head to the Quad Cities area. We found a really nice
county park with RV hookups about 6 miles outside Davenport, IA. For dinner we drove
into Davenport to try out the brewpubs. Great River Brewing was open and
had a great IPA. Then we walked to the
Barrelhouse for a good supper. Despite some very heavy rains we have had
a relaxing day and evening.
Tuesday , June 16 – Davenport, IA riding the Great River Trail
From the campground we rode back toward Davenport and picked up the
Great River Bike Trail which runs from the Mississippi headwaters to the Gulf
along the Mississippi. We started at
Credit Island, riding through downtown Davenport, then across the bridge to
Rock Island and then north through Moline, IL and ending at Hampton. Along the way we were in river side parks,
industrial areas and the river levies.
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| John Deere Plant in Moline, IL - Deere world headquarters is across the river in Davenport |
On the way back we stopped in downtown Davenport for lunch at the Front
Street Pub. One of the owners came over
to our table and asked if we were from NM.
(Ted had his NM Zia bike shirt on)
Turns out she grew up in Aztec, NM near Farmington and Durango, CO. So we chatted for a while about NM and the
Quad Cities area.
Talk about weird, the couple camping across from us in the New Glarus
Woods SP are from Las Vegas, NM. And
when the ranger came by, he indicated that he used to live in Gallup. This is a very small, dry campsite outside
of New Glarus, WI. Who could imagine?
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| Visiting "American Pickers" |
Wednesday, June 17 – Rails-to-Trails in Southern WI
It was an exceptionally nice day with temps in the low 60’s as we set
off from New Glarus Woods SP to New Glarus, then on to Monticello and Monroe,
WI. first riding the Sugar River trail
and then switching to the Badger Trail at Monticello. In Monroe, we visited the Minhas brewery, the
oldest brewery in the mid-west and then had a lunch of local cheese, sausage
and beer at Baumgartner’s Cheese store on the square. Monroe is also home to Swiss Colony. We are sure everybody has received a Swiss Colony cheese and sausage package at Christmas at one time or another.
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| Riding along the Sugar River trail |
We are now camped at the Blue Mound SP, just west of Mt. Horeb,
WI. From here we have easy access to the
Military Ridge Trail that runs about 40 miles in the area.
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