Wisconsin and Minnesota

Fri Jul 13th: (1st night in the tent!):
Had plans to play 2 disc golf courses on the way to eastern MN, but ended up staying at the 1st one in Madison WI. The course had on-site camping – nice and convenient. After a round, went downtown – definitely different than I expected – tons of outside restaurants/bars with tons of people – awesome.

I got the tent up ok and figured out how to pay for the camp site. Besides feeling a bit achy in the morning (ground is hard – might have to invest in another bed roll or something!), the little thunderstorm overnight, and the spider infested shower, the price was well worth it!

Sat Jul 14th:
Ok, strike the feeling “a bit achy” from the record re. sleeping in the tent on Fri night…WAY ACHY. I forgot a pillow, so my neck is killing me, and the rest of me isn’t much better as the ground was so hard.

I had plans to make it at least way west into MN today or perhaps SD, but I ran into an awesome biking trail in Sparta WI. I rode 30 mi of a trail that goes up into the hills and then through a few abandoned railroad tunnels. The longest tunnel was about ¾ mile. It was pitch dark in there (needed a light), pretty cold (outside the tunnel = 75, inside = probably 50’s), and soaking wet (almost like raining). Killer ride…definitely worth the stop.

I had found another disc golf course in MN that I wanted to hit, and the bonus was that it apparently had camping too. It didn’t, so I had to scramble a bit to find something else since it was already about 8p. I ended up at a site next to a motor speedway that was having some kind of “ultra light” stock car racing or something (as you can tell, I’m not exactly an expert in that area) – it was pretty cool.

What turned out to suck about the camp was that it was pretty noisy all night...a bunch of people near me were drinking until about 4am...tough after the long ride!

Pics:

Still fascinated by the random stuff at rest stops...


Biking pics - views from the trail!!!!!

Entrance to the abandoned train tunnel

This is in the middle of the tunnel...pitch dark in there. You can see the soaking walls (and of course, the super sweet Specialized Epic Comp!!!!)

Lot of corn fields out here - some corn processing plant or something

1st night in the tent (and camping since about the 6th grade at Sandy Hook NJ in the middle of winter for some boy scout thing). Pretty snazzy job at setting that puppy up!