July 1, 2024
Trempealeau to La Crosse via the Great River State Trail
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Day 2 started with a 3.5 hour van ride (what the Tour de France would call a "transfer," albeit with not quite as luxe transportation) from Cedarburg west to Trempealeau, a small town on the shore of the Mississippi River. At a bio-break at a KwikStop along the way, one of our riders became fascinated with a woman inside who was giving out samples of shredded baked chicken, along with recipes. Since he was taking the Kwik out of KwikStop, we had to send his wife back in to pry him away.
The night before Scott and Terri (the guides) had gotten our lunch orders, so we had a quick lunch at a great sandwich shop in town and walked down to the river to get on our bikes. The plan was to first ride upstream a bit to do a loop on a woodlands trail along the river. However, heavy rains the week before had the Mississippi overflowing its banks - that trail had been flooded the previous week. But ever optimistic, we set out to see.
We turned back, retracing our steps and shortly encountered our next obstacle: clouds of small black flying bugs that we called "midges" (or maybe Midge's in honor of Barbie's first friend?) that stuck to our sweaty faces, entered all of the openings in our heads, pinged against our helmets and polka-dotted our drip dry apparel. The trail is in Wisconsin’s Coulee Region, part of the Driftless Area that Wisconsin is quite proud to point out was untouched by glaciers during the last Ice Age. Maybe the lack of glacial drift is what initially caused the development of cheese curds, which were everywhere.
Once we got away from the wetlands along the Mississippi, the Midges seemed to lessen. We met the van again at a small rest stop in Onalaska with about 7 miles of urban street/trail riding left until we reached La Crosse. I played lacrosse from 7th grade through my 1st year of college and was excited to reach the promised land- but I never saw a single lacrosse stick or net.
Parry and I did this last section together and about 2 miles from the hotel we saw the path ahead was flooded and there appeared to be a cabin cruiser motoring across the path! Turned out the boat was in the La Crosse River which had overflowed its banks and we were able to just pedal through about a foot of water. I called back to Terri to let the others know it was passable, and we soon reached that night's lodging, the Charmant Hotel which occupies a renovated candy factory built in 1898.
The group had dinner at the Crow, a nearby so-so burger and beer place. Our waitress recommended Pearl's Ice Cream Parlor around the corner for both the ice cream and the eclectic shop and crowd. We were not disappointed!
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We took a sunset stroll along the Mississippi River promenade that was slightly flooded and enjoyed the fine Pearl's ice cream on the way back to the hotel.
Today's ride: 32 miles (51 km)
Total: 71 miles (114 km)
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