Milwaukee

I was delighted to spot a large sign in the window of a MacDonald’s on the other side of the road as I entered Columbus, seventy-five miles west of Milwaukee, announcing its dining room was open, the first I had come upon in three weeks. It couldn’t have come at a better time, as I’d been riding in a cold, misty rain for much of the day and needed to dry out and warm up.  I didn’t really need to fill my water bottle with ice, but I did out of habit.  No one else joined me at the many tables, despite a steady trickle of people coming in to order face-to-face rather than subject themselves to the impersonality of the drive-up window.

Even though the MacDonald’s was adequately staffed to have indoor service, it still had a “Hiring” sign out front, though not with a bonus as many businesses offer, as much as $1000.  All the ‘Hiring” signs dominated the landscape from the start to the finish of these travels.

I was hoping to tally at least eighty miles for the day to close within thirty-five miles of Milwaukee so I could be sure to catch the 1:05  train to Chicago and to have ample time to stuff all my gear into the duffle I’d brought along.  There were other departures at 3:00, 5:45 and 7:35, all taking one hour and twenty-nine minutes.  If I made the early train I could make it to Countryside, sixteen miles from Chicago’s Union Station, well before dark and before the rush hour traffic.

I was looking forward to the luxury of relaxing on the train, gazing out at the scenery,  spared of having to negotiate the miles and miles of urban sprawl traffic and regular red lights in the final fifty miles home.  I was already dreading the transition from simple, functional small town homes to the pretentious and ostentatious and all-too-big homes of suburbia.  There was little evidence of people in small towns trying to outdo or upstage their neighbors, except maybe with their Halloween decorations.  The homes all look lived-in and livable and could be maintained without a crew of Mexican gardeners and Polish maids.  The were homes, not statements.

My final campsite was just past Hartford on the fringe of Kettle Moraine a little over thirty miles from Milwaukee.  As is frequently the case when I have to clear a rough spot for my tent, memories of Craig and our several tours in France were triggered, as he was ultra-fastidious in smoothing out the spot he had chosen for his tent so he wouldn’t be surprised by any rocks or roots when he laid down.  I’d invariably have my tent half set up while he was still grooming his site. 

It’s always a pleasure to be reminded of Craig and his attention to detail and facility for figuring things out.   He’s come to my rescue many a time, including earlier in the day when he pointed out I’d referred to Carnegie as a “steel magnet” not “steel magnate” in my last post.

The Craig trigger of memories is just one of many that can get set off at any time.  At the end of the day Waydell and her comment after a three-day mini-tour over Thanksgiving, “I feel as if I’ve accomplished something,” often comes to mind, echoing my sentiment for the day. Bungee cords can launch Lyndon and his trick of knotting them to adjust their length.  Pop tarts resurrect a messenger friend who introduced them to me as a cheap energy bar, regular fuel for me when I’m touring in the US. Apple sauce, another regular source of calories, summons a German cyclist I met one year following The Tour who filled a water bottle with the potion and regularly squirted it down his throat.   

A dime on the road transports me to Israel and the many dime-sized shekels I found along the road, as the Israelis were trained not to pick up stray items as they could set off a bomb.  Mention of Muslims can transport me to Morocco and the Moroccan who told me, “You’ve got a white heart, you’d make a good Muslim.”   A youth on a bike in a small town brings up the lad who asked, “Are you running away from home?”  Or the kid who asked, “Are you a stranger?  I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.” 

A snake flashes up Vincent, the Aussie who at our first campsite together when following The Tour the year it started in Monaco asked if he needed to be wary of snakes, a legitimate concern in Australia.  When I plop down on the concrete outside a store for a snack and drink I’ll recall the woman who commented, “Rest is where you find it.”  My orange Tupperware bowl resurrects Andrew of Sydney, another Tour compatriot, who recognized it as one of my trademarks. When the going is tough, I might remember my mother’s comment before I set off on my coast-to-coast ride when I was twenty-six and had yet to submit to a conventional career path—“You never had to go to war like your father.  This could make you want to settle down.”  Any of those memories can send me off on a train of thought that can take me anywhere, as just happened.  I have to put in the earplugs and tune to a podcast to bring them to a halt. 

My final campsite was the coldest of the trip, the first to encrust the tent with frost. It hadn’t gotten warmer than forty-five all day and was thirty-seven when I retreated into my tent and ten degrees colder when I woke up.  I burned a candle for the first time and with my body heat got the tent up to fifty degrees.  I also dug out my wool cap for the first time, but resisted stripping down to put on an extra layer of long underwear.  I tried to sleep with my down vest draped over my torso, but that wasn’t enough.  I had to put it on along with my sweater.  

I was able to supplement my final dinner of ramen with some turkey franks from an Aldi’s a couple miles from where I camped. The only other salvageable item of the meager dumpster offerings was some milk, which I could use for the last of my Cheerios.  I further jazzed up my ramen with some crushed tortilla chips from a previous Aldi’s and also a few ketchup packs from the MacDonald’s.  It made for a tasty stew, which tasted all the better eating it in my tent rather than in a motel.

I was hoping I hadn’t made a mistake passing up the Silver Bell Motel a few miles back in Hartford.  If I hadn’t pretty much dried out all my garb other than my heavy gloves it would have been a necessity.  WiFi, Thursday Night Football and a shower all beckoned, but I wanted one last night in the tent, and,  besides, the Aldi’s was a couple miles past the motel on the outskirts of town.  As always, I was happy I opted for the tent, even when I struggled to collapse my tent poles in the morning, as several joints had frozen as had the water bottles I left on my bike.  If I’d given into the temptation of the Silver Bell I wouldn’t have had the glorious sight of a near full moon over the tent as I took it down.

There was minimal rush hour traffic heading into Milwaukee, and minimal congestion in the city.  The last few miles were on Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Drive, which took me past the stadium where the NBA champs Bucks play, adorned with the faces of their starting five.

I felt as if I were completing a circuit of the state, as the second Carnegie on my itinerary, after Beloit on the Illinois border, was in West Allis, a southern suburb of Milwaukee.  I was able to join up one more time with Lake Michigan.  It gave me the usual uplift to look out upon a great expanse of water. We’d last met in Escanaba in the UP.  I’d connected with it several times in these travels, including a long stretch along its shores in Door County.  I’d had some equally exalting miles along Lake Superior and the Mississippi River, the three great bodies of water that define three of the meandering borders of Wisconsin.  The other is the straight slash of its southern border with Illinois.

Despite the wintry temperatures there were a few sailboats out in Lake Michigan within sight of the sailboat architecture of one of the city’s several art museums.  From the lake it was a mile to the Amtrak station past a couple more museums and large hotels. There were only a handful of people in the relatively new Amtrak/Greyhound station and no line for the three masked ticket-sellers behind glass.   

None of the eight slots for bikes on the one o’clock train had been reserved though the train was at near capacity.  I spread out my frost-flecked and thickened tent to dry so I could roll it tighter to make it fit into the duffle with all my gear.  The security guard came over to make sure I had a ticket and urge me to hurry with my packing.  It was my lone encounter the past month with someone wearing a badge.

It was a rare trip that someone more official hadn’t questioned me in some manner.  And rare too finding just one neckerchief in 2,181 miles.  The license plates more than made up for it though with a record eleven and from three states.  Get ready Dwight.  

One thing that remained consistent was the paucity of cyclists. Thanks to my forays through Amish communities I saw considerably more horse-drawn carriages than people transporting themselves by pedal-power.  It  will make The Tour de France start in Copenhagen next July all the more thrilling with the enlightened prominence of the bike there.

The thirty-eight Carnegies that I added to my life list on this trip, thirty-four in Wisconsin and four in Michigan, brings my total to 957.  Of that 915 have been in the US, with the other forty-two sprinkled around six other countries (France, Belgium, Great Britain, Ireland, Guiana and South Africa).  A good hunk of the remaining 500 Carnegies in the US that I have yet to visit are in the Northeast including seventy-five in New York (fifty-seven of which are in the boroughs), twenty in Philadelphia and thirteen in Baltimore.  I have completed nine states—Colorado, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Michigan and Wisconsin, and am close to finishing off a bunch of others.  I have gotten to Carnegies in thirty-five of the forty-eight states that have one.   The end isn’t quite in sight, but I am most certainly gaining on it, as I close  in on number one thousand.  With forty-three to that magic mark, I am beginning to wonder which Carnegie will have that honor.