Days 1-3: Milwaukee to Marinette, WI

I started my part of the trip on a Sunday afternoon when I caught the fast ferry from Muskegon to Milwaukee. I was a little worried about how I was going to secure my loaded bike on board, but the ferry has hooks that swing out from the bulkheads and hold the top tube secure. Very easy and stable.

Jon met me at the Milwaukee ferry dock, and the ride began with the 11.7 miles to his house in Wauwatosa. I had fears of crashing or equipment failing on this first tiny leg of the trip, which would have been a bad omen indeed. But all went well. Jon's 16 year old son announced, "Here come a couple of losers" when we rode up. Maybe so, but we had made it 11.7 miles.

The trip began for real the next day. Again, I was hoping to avoid the aggravation and humiliation of crashing or breaking down two miles from home on the first day. We waddled out of town on bike paths and city streets, eventually finding our way onto county roads.

We spent the first night in the Long Lake campground of Kettle Moraine State Forest. Nice enough. It had a shower, lots of mosquitos, and a raccoon that was smarter than we were. When it finished eating our trail mix, I actually heard it belch.

The first day was OK. We took our time (too much, probably), didn't have a lot of hills or traffic, and made it to a campground with time left in the day. Dinner of leftover chicken that Jon had carried in his insulated bag.



The next day was hillier and longer. Again riding on county and local roads (especially Irish Rd, which took us many miles), we rode through various small Wisconsin communities that I had never heard of, buying orange juice at BP stations the whole way. (Half the gas stations in the midwest are BPs, it seems.)

Eventually, we found ourselves on the Fox Valley Trail, a converted rail bed. Very nice hard pack. Clay-like more than gravel-like. We ended up riding about 25 miles on that trail, all the way into De Pere (just south of Green Bay).

That night was the first of several spent in campgrounds located in the middle of towns and cities. In De Pere it was the county fairground campground, right on the Fox River. Very nice, even though it was just a big grass space with picnic tables, water spigots, and electric boxes. It had a shower and, across the street, a (you guessed it) BP station. Lots of traffic noise, but with my ear plugs for sleeping I heard not a thing.

The next day, our third full day, we spent a good deal of time trying to get out of Green Bay. After winding around on city streets on the northwest side of town, we made it onto the county road along the coast. By the end of the day, we had made our way halfway up Green Bay (the body of water) to Marinette, where we stayed in a town park campground. Also quite nice, except for the locals shooting fireworks at us. The worst ride of the day was to the grocery store along US 41. Not worth the beans and franks we bought there.

This night was our last in Wisconsin.
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