America's Dairy Land

From Claire, Tamara, and Lucia

After two wonderful days in the twin cities where we saw A Streetcar Named Desire at the Guthrie theater, ate delicious food and ice cream ranked among the top in the country, and shopped in thrift stores, we went on a short ride up the Lucia's cabin accompanied by her dad, Jay. Lucia's cabin was fantastic, we were all treated to hour long massages and got to experience true Wisconsin cheese curds along with homemade root beer.

Day 45, 64 miles to Spooner Wisconsin

From Lucia's cabin we dropped in to visit her aunt and uncle, who live just down the road. We had heard a lot about their house, and it was a sight to see! It was wonderfully put together, full of beautiful and interesting pieces of art and wonderful open living spaces. After espresso we headed down the road with Lucia's mom, crossing the boarder into Wisconsin. Biking on the road we planned (highway 8) was a disaster (lots of tractor trailers going 60 miles an hour and barely any shoulder), so we got off as soon as we could and decided on a more scenic and a bit longer way across Wisconsin. At lunch we said our goodbyes to Lucia's mom and Shana, who flew up for a visit, and then biked around 30 miles until we ran into Tamara's parent's at a scenic view point. Later we had a great Mexican meal together and a restful night in a hotel :)

Day 46, 90.4 miles from Spooner to Fifield Wi

Before heading out of Spooner we tried a local bakery favorite "cows" which were cinnamon rolls with icing and chocolate syrup, they were delicious. We headed to Ojibwa for lunch, seeing mostly trees on the way, and met Tamara's parents there. We biked a solid 40 miles after some delicious food and met Tamara's parents for dinner in Filield. After some group photos and goodbyes we headed down the road planning to go 10 more miles. It started getting dark though (it was around 8:30pm) so we pulled off at a day use cross country ski area and found everything we needed, even a little warming hut to store our bikes in. Free camping is the best.

Day 47, 99.3 miles Fifield to near Tipler (the town that doesn't really exist) Wi

We got up and headed to Minoqua, a nice touristy town. After lots of grocery shopping we headed to Eagle River where we had lunch and walked around drooling in fudge shops. We got out a little later then planned and headed to what we thought would be Tipler Wisconsin. After getting there we realized there wasn't really a town, so we headed down a gravel national forest road to a lakeside campground. It turned out to be over 5 miles of gravel, and after already biking over 90 miles, it was a tiering end to the day! However, our campsite was right on the lake. We all got to swim, and we went on a mission to make friends with someone with a truck to take us out in the morning.