My wife Carole and I have ridden most of my bucket list rail trails that are within a long day drive of our home in Maryland: Great Allegheny Passage, C&O Canal Towpath, Pine Creek, Allegheny River, Delaware/Lehigh, Virginia Creeper, etc. Since I retired in November 2023, I started looking at rail trails worthy of 2-3 day drives now that more time was available, such as  Wisconsin and IA/NE/SD rail trails that had cool trestles, bridges, tunnels, etc. 

With two young grandkids providing a gravitational pull to  the home area, I shortened the idea to a 10-12 day long trip and focused on Wisconsin rail trails plus some time in Door County. A couple we often bike with were interested in a supported version of that and found Wilderness Voyageur's Wisconsin Wanderlust six day tour - we all signed up for that. All of the routes and lodging were the tour company's choices and they included most of the ones I'd been looking at. They also created a RideWithGPS "Experience" section that included map files for all routes and a photo share section where most of the photos in this journal came from.

I routinely get in a lot of outdoor and indoor (Zwift) miles, but Carole has been helping our daughter with the grandkids a lot and doing many other things, and her bike mileage was way down. In getting her mileage back up, she discovered a pinched nerve in her neck/shoulder that flared  up after just a few miles of biking. I tried adjusting her seat and changing bikes but it only got worse. We thought she might have to cancel but Wilderness Voyageurs was very accommodating and said she could skip segments by riding in the van and also said they would have an e-bike she could try out to see if it improved things.