Saturday July 28, 2007, 56 miles (90 km) – Total so far: 2,044 miles (3,289 km)
|56.03 4:44 Pedal 36 mph max speed (yep…) 11.8 avg 90 degrees all day long
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I was up at 7am Jamie took a while to get moving. We all drank a lot of beer last night. While Jamie was still sleeping I looked at maps.
A few days ago I got an email from Andy and Bree Dammon, they would be heading back from Wyoming tonight and they wanted to try to meet up with us on the road. I found a state park campsite that was a good distance from Madison. I called Andy and told him the plan. They were real excited to see us.
Prem took us to the best breakfast place in Madison. We all ate like kings. The whole time we were in Madison Jamie and I kept making Prem figure out how much we each owe on our restaurant bills. It’s not every day you have a mathematician hanging around. We had a lot fun with Prem. He kept us laughing the entire time in Madison. We thanked him and rode outta Madison.
Riding out I needed some sunflower seeds so I stopped at a gas station. A guy approached me in the parking lot and said ‘Let me guess, you must be homeless.’ I laughed really hard. He was a local cyclist and really interested in hearing about our trip.
We quickly found the next bike trail. Our good friend Dale Oswald leant me a beautiful Madison bicycle map that really helped with getting through Madison. The Military Ridge Bicycle Trail was really nice. Just as nice as the other trails we have been riding. Some crazy guy rode by and told us there’s a great burger place in the next town Riley and he would like to talk to us about our trip. But we never saw that burger place so we just kept riding.
Thinking about burgers was starting to get me crazy, so Jamie and I stopped at the next big town and grabbed a burger. It was really hot outside but the air conditioning of the brewery made me feel sick and run down. I would have rather sat in the heat and breathed fresh air.
We rode the rest of our bike trail, it was really nice. Eventually we got off and started riding north to the Wisconsin River to go meet the Dammons. As soon as we got off the bike path we rode about .5 a mile and we flew down this gigantic hill. Both Jamie and I freaked out. We hadn’t ridden down a hill like that in weeks. It felt so amazing. The landscape radically changed very quickly. It threw us some really nice rolling hills that had some pretty tough climbs. We rode through valleys with hills on all sides. Aside from the corn it almost felt like we were back in the Appalachians.
Riding into spring green we went past Taliesin. This is where Frank Lloyd Wright used to live with all his apprentices while they worked on his buildings. Frank Lloyd Wright never really had his own traditional architecture firm. He started his own school of architecture where he took in all these young men and who lived on his farm and worked on his projects.
We stopped in at the Taliesin Visitor Center. I decided I want to take a tour of Taliesin tomorrow. I need to see this. The tour of the house and architecture school is $53 which is absurd, but if I don’t do it, I will be mad at myself for the rest of my life.
Our cell phones haven’t worked for hours. I was started to get worried about meeting up with the Dammons. We rode to the state park and when we got there we couldn’t find them and then my cell phone magically worked for a few minutes. I got a voicemail from Bree saying they were at the other campground in town.
Jamie and I rode really fast to the other campsite. We were really excited to see the Dammons. When we got to the campsite I stopped at the office to find out what site they were at. Jamie just rode around the campsite. We both got lost looking at the map. I found the Dammons but Jamie disappeared. After a half hour of waiting for Jamie, Andy drove around looking for him. Turns out a family at the campsite offered Jamie a beer so he said ‘OK!’ and drank a beer with them.
It was really nice to see the Dammons again. We got to meet the youngest son Chad who was already out in Wyoming when we were in Napoleon, Ohio. Chad’s 2 friends, Jake and mark were also with them. They’re nice guys. We sat around and got caught up on everything that has happened since we had seen them last.
Jamie and the girls wanted to go swimming so we all went down to the Wisconsin River for a swim. Jamie and I took out a canoe. While we were hanging out on the beach all of a sudden about 10 canoes of middle-aged drunk people rolled into the beach where we were hanging out. It was a pretty debaucherous occasion. Jake helped some drunk lady get outta the water and she wouldn’t stop going on and on about how he rescued her.
Back at the campsite we all sat around talking for the rest of the night. Chad, Jake and Mark scored some firewood and built up a fire. We cooked some pizzas over the open fire and drank some beer. We stayed up late telling stories and laughing all night. Both Jamie and I were really happy being in good company of the Dammons again.
Leftover pictures.
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