July 22, 2009 Sun, warm, a little cool wind off the lake but a storm loomed.
Start: Port Wing, WI
ATW: Herbster, Cornucopia, Red Cliff
End: Bayfield, WI.
about 40 miles.
When updating the blog the stats never seem to be handy so we'll just have to keep dealing with approximations.
We spent the day riding around part of the Lake Superior Circle Tour on Route 13. More fun signs in Wisconsin: as we turned due north to continue on 13 the sign said "South 13." We hardly know what we're doing from day to day and then they throw something like that at you. Heather looked back to see we had come east forever on Rt 13 "North." Ah... Hm... how far is it to Michigan, maybe we'll have better luck with signs there. Still, it makes one laugh and then look over your shoulder when you roll into a town and a sign states: "Engine break prohibited except in emergency."
We stopped often to look at the lake which was much more calm than the first time that we saw it. In Cornucopia following a lunch stop we walked through the small marina and saw dozens of sail boats. Dave was very excited but we rode on instead of giving up the ride and buying the boat for sale that we got a tour of.
After we turned 3000 miles in Cornucopia we pedaled up the hill out of town and a few miles later we ducked into a National Lake Shore Park to see which way the building storm was going to go. From Port Wing we'd watched cumulonimbus clouds reaching skyward and we'd heard distant thunder for the last few minutes. The sky to the south was darkening and nothing will cause someone to move faster than a couple of people riding a mobile lightening rod. After 15 minutes of thunder we set back out because the storm was heading south and we still had a lot of eastward travel to do. We might drop back into the storm when we turned south later, but we'd just have to figure that out when we got there. We ended up not having any trouble.
Everyone told us that it was downhill from Red Cliff to Bayfield. Actually it's mostly downhill once you get over the long hill "after" Red Cliff. Nothing too steep, just long a long couple miles. Terrain reports are fun.
In Bayfield we'd shopped for dinner at an IGA and were looking around for a place to stay. Dave had been talking to someone: "I'd let you sleep in my yard but I live on a boat."
"Aren't there boat yards?" Dave quipped. But it got her thinking. She invited us down to see the Port Superior Marina. Once we were there everyone was very friendly and we were directed to sleep in a grassy area toward the end of the dock.
After hot showers and a long walk around the docks looking at even bigger sail boats we crawled into our dew laden tarp and slept, waking occasionally to the drops of water falling from the underside onto the drop cloth. After 100 days you might think we've figured out how to pitch the thing so that the water runs down and not pools on top.
