Road to nowhere

Wisconsin once had the nation’s best system of secondary and tertiary roads. When the economy was dominated by family dairy farms, the milk truck had to be able to make daily pickups all year. That meant well-paved and well-maintained roads.

If a road was named after a person, they were the first white settler to farm there, not a wealthy developer wanting fame. If a road was called “Oak Grove”, it was because there was an oak grove there; it wasn’t a suburban fantasy to sell over-priced lots in a former cornfield.

The roads were used by the people who lived there, the milk trucks, (and bicyclists). These were the roads that made me fall in love with bicycling. As the dairy industry consolidated, with larger farms, each with more cattle, the back roads fell into disrepair. Money for infrastructure is not popular, especially when it serves the remaining small family farms and not the captains of industry.

But these “roads to nowhere” are what we a rode across Wisconsin. Today we are in Manitowoc. The ship doesn’t sail until 2pm Sunday. We can’t get into showers until 1:30. After picnic I pitched the tent and loaded what laundry I could fit into my tiny lumbar pack and headed to the laundromat. Then it was a trip to the Y for a shower, then clean up time for the bike. The chain is only a week old but today’s fresh (and dusty) chipseal ensured that a clean and lube was needed.

First view of Lake Michigan

Future cyclists in training

We rode north and east until we reached Lakeshore Road, which offers only fleeting glimpses of the lake, as we made our way to Manitowoc.

The sky is the bluest of blues…all along the lakeshore and as I sit outside a brewpub in Manitowoc. Various blue sky songs have been running through my head. I settled on this one, as Dickey Betts was always (unfairly) in the shadow of Duane Allman. [You may have to imagine this one or look it up yourself, as both wi-fi and cell service have failed me this evening. We’ll see if either makes a comeback.

Tomorrow we will be incomunicado for four hours (five by the clock due to a time change) as we make our way across the lake. There are no cell towers or wi-fi in the middle of a 100 mile wide lake.

I won’t yell “clear” for you

When I’m riding with others, I point out hazards (gravel, debris, holes). At an intersection I will call out “car left” as a warning if I see a car approaching from the left that a following rider might not notice.

Other riders call “clear” to tell you no one is coming, so you can run stop signs. Don’t look to me to do that. Calling “clear” is taking responsibility for another’s life. It is giving your assurance that a situation is safe. I am not willing to make that decision for another, nor do I expect them to make that decision for me. I do not want to encourage others to abdicate responsibility for their own safety. The same reasoning is why you won’t find me bungee-jumping.

¡Guacamole!

Picnic today featured guacamole and chips along with quesadillas. That, of course, brought to mind the Texas Tornados.

the Texas Tornados included Augie Meyer, Doug Sahm, Flaco Jimenez, and Freddy Fender

I tried to sleep in, since I had no tent to pack up. Didn’t work – I was still up at 5:15, but I read the paper before getting out of bed. We’re now in the glaciated eastern side of Wisconsin, with more flat land, fewer and gentler hills. We headed northeast and through the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge (in which the sky becomes invisible with migrating geese in spring and fall), then turned more easterly. The “flat” ride included Breakneck Road with a short but steep climb – one switchback, so I didn’t know how long it would be until it was nearly over. I almost wanted to go back and do it again. Later was a series of four straight climbs – no surprises, but they always look more daunting on the approach.

I do not recommend riding like the person on the left. If a car comes over that summit, he and the next two riders will look like bowling pins. He was doing what folks call “paper boying”, meaning weaving back and forth to make the hill less steep (like a paper boy going back and forth across the street making deliveries).

We rode the Kettle Moraine Scenic Drive. “Kettles” are created when a melting or retreating glacier leaves behind a block of ice which becomes covered by debris. When it melts, a depression is left behind. “Moraines” are created when the glacier pushes rock and debris ahead of it, then retreats, leaving a ridge of rock behind.

Being a short day, we were in Plymouth before noon. Some headed to a bar. Those of us whose drinking before noon involves coffee headed to a coffee shop converted from a bank. The vault is a little private room. This is the same shop where I met my friend J for a cortado four years ago after a failed attempt to ride the Kettle Moraine Scenic Drive together – he couldn’t get out of work early enough. After a couple of cortados, a bagel and cream cheese, and a coconut gelato with chocolate shavings, I headed to the nearest credit union for some cash before arriving at the school. We are camped on a wooded knoll.

Plymouth claims to be the Cheese Capital of the World. There may be other towns that would dispute that.

Tomorrow is a 40 mile ride to Manitowoc, the home port of the SS Badger, a coal-fired steamship that will take us across Lake Michigan. The boat is chartered on Saturday. As a result, we will have a long afternoon and evening in Manitowoc as well as a long morning Sunday before boarding the ferry. A laundromat will be in the plan somewhere in there. We’ll arrive in Ludington, MI at 7 PM with barely time to eat dinner and set up camp before it gets dark. It will be a short night before we start across Michigan Monday morning. We will cross Michigan and Ontario next week.

As usual, I have invited Jef Mallet and Frazz to join us in Michigan. Since Frazz is two-dimensional, he may have joined us last time and I just missed him because he was turned the wrong way.

Frazz

We haven’t figured out how to reach Frazz or his alter ego Jef Mallett, so we’ll try here. A short ride to Manitowoc, a long ferry ride ride to Ludington, and we’re in Michigan; Frazz country. Frazz, or Jef, if you’re reading this, please join us when we pass through your neck of the woods in a few days.

Frazz is one of my heroes, for a number of reasons. He’s the school janitor at Bryson Elementary with intelligence way beyond his education or what folks expect from someone in his position. I used to be the maintenance guy at a housing project. We have both cleared our share of clogged toilets. Going to college at the age of 40 didn’t make me suddenly smarter.

Frazz is a triathlete. I’m a half-fast bicyclist and was, in my youth, a competitive swimmer and diver. On the other hand, I only ran to catch buses or soccer balls, not just for the fun of it.

Frazz is a successful songwriter (OK, end of parallels) who works as a school janitor because he wants to. I continue to work in a hospital at age 65 because I love the work. (Unlike Frazz, I also need the money.)

One of the main characters in the strip is Caulfield, a brilliant and underachieving child. One of my other roles in life has been as an advocate for advanced learners. Research has identified common traits of gifted students (current nomenclature is “advanced learners”, not “talented and gifted” [TAG] students). Further research has found that the terms used to describe those traits in white students and the same traits in students of color (particularly African American) are different. Donna Y. Ford is a prominent researcher in this field.

A white student may be identified as “inquisitive”, and a black student as “defiant”, for asking tough questions in class. A common trait of gifted learners has been identified as a “keen sense of social justice”. A white student may be identified as “sensitive”, a black student as a “troublemaker” for possessing and acting on that sense. Learning and teaching are culturally-based and black students frequently do not meet white norms.  African American students are 54% less likely to be identified for advanced services than their white counterparts, after adjusting for other differences.

Caulfield is frequently disruptive in class and spends a lot of time in detention with Frazz. Caulfield is African American. His teacher is European American.

Frazz is one of the few comic strips which has made me look things up. Caulfield introduced me to the term “benighted” (antonym of “enlightened”).

Another comic strip (Pearls Before Swine) contains a recurring character who embodies all of the stereotypically worst traits of stereotypically arrogant bicyclists. He is identified as “Jef the Cyclist”. Due to the spelling of Jef, I suspect the character is a dig at Jef Mallett. So Jef, come and join us so I can ask you about that in person. (OK, I looked it up and my suspicion was confirmed. That doesn’t mean we wouldn’t still like you to join us on the way across Michigan.)

Frazz can’t set his own hours, but maybe you can. Ride with us for a day. Here’s our Michigan itinerary:

We have arrived in Ludington after a short bike and long ferry ride. Pizza and Sangiovese for dinner. Thank god for Google Maps, as the written directions and street markings did not agree. I found our destination with darkness falling.

Tent fly is soaked inside and out. Everything else is still damp.

We had a phenomenal lunch spread in Manitowoc at the home of a former Cycle America staffer. The ride was short and sweet, up the Lake Michigan shoreline. 

We all got antsy on the ferry, wanting to ride more. We are within spitting distance of 3000 miles.

Boarding the ferry, our escort into Ludington, Michigan shoreline:

Sheboygan County takes their corn security seriously:More to come tomorrow on our day off. It’s past my bedtime. Another state and another time zone behind us.