One of the nice things about the room we stayed in here is that we can let ourselves out and leave whenever we want. As planned,we got an early start this morning and we're out the door by 6:30, on our way to The French Press for breakfast. It is overcast, but comfortable and dry; about sixty degrees. Nice biking conditions, actually. We plan to make a fast meal out of it and then hustle north.
Over breakfast, I look out the window and see that it's raining already, and getting stronger. Disappointing, but an excuse to slow down, linger over another cup of coffee, and catch up on the journal a bit. Hopefully the rain will stop soon - we can bike in the rain if pressed to it, but we don't really like starting the day that way.
We got out the door early today, and were at the French Press ordering breakfast not long after it opened at 6:30. We're trying to get a jump on the foul weather in the forecast for the day.
By eight the rains more or less stopped so we packed up and set out for Rice Lake, about sixty miles to the north. We enjoyed a very nice two mile ride out of town before the rains returned, so we pulled off at the first shelter we came to - a social welfare organization with the appropriate message of HOPE in its window. Sitting indoors in their entryway, with a room full of folks staring into their computer screens behind us, we resigned ourselves to a wet ride, put on our rain boots, and started off again.
After two dry miles, it's raining hard enough to gear up. Rachael is excited to try out her new, flashy footwear. Two miles later, and it's dry again. Just enough of a test to earn Rachael's five star rating.
There are no photos as evidence because the camera was dry-bagged, but the next ten miles to Chippewa Falls were actually a pleasant ride. We weren't cold, the rain was continuous but reasonably light, and we were biking on the traffic-free, now paved Chippewa River Trail again. At about the time we came to the end of the bikepath the rains ceased again and we entered the most pleasant part of the day's ride. For the next twenty miles we enjoyed dry riding conditions, quiet country roads, and a lovely ride through attractive farmland.
This break in the rains carried us nearly all the way to Bloomer, our planned lunch stop for the day (and, by the way, the self-declared jump rope Capitol of the world). Nearly all the way, but not quite. About two miles shy of town it began raining in earnest - too hard for us to just race through it to town - so we broke for the only shelter we could find, a ridiculously narrow eave along the side of a barn. Plastered against the wall, we watched the downpour for about ten minutes, gauging whether it was abating or worsening and watching the ground around our feet puddle up.
Finally it abated a bit, and we put back on our rainboots (not that easy to do in the narrow haven we were occupying) and started off again, arrived in Bloomer about ten minutes later, and looked around for a promising place to sit inside and wait for improvements. We found just the place - the Main Street Cafe, a nice diner open for lunch. They graciously allowed us to wheel our bikes into their entryway while we ate, and were fine with letting us nurse our lunch and coffee for over two hours, during which it continued to rain, hard and incessantly.
We're riding the Yellowstone Trail! I'd never heard of this, but it was the first northern cross country road designed for automobiles. It was initiated in 1912 by a pair of entrepreneurs in South Dakota, with the vision of encouraging tourism in the west. There are only a few stretches of the original route that are still marked, including this one.
Inside the Main Street Cafe, Bloomer. We holed up here for about two hours, nursing our sandwiches and a slice of delicious strawberry-rhubarb pie until the worst of the storm passed over.
At two o'clock, with still thirty miles to go, we left the cafe. The rain had died down considerably and looked like it could continue improving - thin, light blue patches broke through the clouds here and there - so we were cautiously optimistic. This carried us through another fifteen miles, to the village of Chetek, when the sky fell in again. Again we waited out the worst of it, this time under the overhang of a bar/bowling alley.
The rains stopped again, hopefully for good. A few miles to the north the sky was clear, so we were hopeful that conditions would keep improving as we continued that way, and that we would reach our motel in about an hour. Unfortunately, almost as soon as we started up I realized that my rear brake was out of commission with a broken cable. To make a long story short, we eventually removed the brake completely (since otherwise its opened arms blocked the pedal rotation), and I biked the last fifteen miles, mostly in the rain, with one poorly adjusted brake. Amazingly, the first thirteen miles were flattish but slightly uphill, and the final ridge before town was modest enough that I hardly needed to brake at all.
Four miles from town, the rains stopped. A half mile from the motel, the skies began to open up above us; and by the time we walked out to dinner they were completely clear. Hard to imagine it was still the same day.
I'm not sure why I took this photo exactly, other than that it was dry for a few minutes, I liked the looks of it, and I was curious what the Blue Diamond is (it's a resort area north of Chippewa falls that encompasses a number of glacial lakes).
Wow, an Amish caravan, near the outskirts of New Auburn. Look at the feet - two of the horses are practically airborne. They were really flying down the road. I was especially pleased that the riders in the lead wagon smiled and waved at us. I've been a bit uncertain about the ethics of photographing the Amish and their wagons, but it's pretty hard to resist.
One last buggy shot. The horse is really leaning into it, after coming to a full stop at the intersection. I was really impressed that he looked both ways at the stop before proceeding.
So here we are again, sitting out another downpour - this time on a bench outside the bowling alley in Chetek. Pretty futile - fifteen minutes later it was still raining with no sign of letting up, so we gave up and resigned ourselves to a wet ride most of the way to Rice Lake.
