Waupun, Wisconsin

The further I get out into the hinterlands, towns become more  individualistic, asserting an identity of their own. The town of Waunakee, north of Madison, announced itself as “The only Waunakee in the world.”  The repetitive nature of town names can become tiresome, all the Springfield’s and Jefferson’s and Rome’s and Paris’ scattered about the US, so cheers to Waunakee for recognizing this.

Lodi, up the road from Waunakee, advertised itself as “home of Susie the duck,” a mallard that took up residence in a park with a creek near the town center in 1948.  The mayor’s young daughter christened her Susie.  Susie is long gone, but mallards continue to inhabit the park and benefit from the goodwill of the locals who have feed stations for them.  As with many small towns, it’s initial library was established by a woman’s club. But Lodi is a rare town that retains the name—Lodi Woman’s Club Public Library. It’s not a Carnegie, but I still ducked in for some charging and WiFi and learn of the local lore.

The nearest Carnegie was nearly twenty miles away in Baraboo across the Wisconsin River, which required a ferry to cross, the only functioning ferry in the state other than those that cross Lake Michigan.  It’s a quick crossing, less than five minutes.  It can handle fifteen cars and runs non-stop back and forth much of the day and at no cost. 

I was a bit chagrined when I arrived just as the ferry was pulling out, not knowing how quickly and frequently it made the crossing.  I ducked into the nearby rest room to wash a few garments.  I was shocked when bright red, seemingly fresh blood, filled the basin as I rinsed my socks.  I thought I must have had a cut on a finger, but no, the blood was coming from one of the socks, which had absorbed some blood from a scrape on my shin pushing through the brush one evening.  I was shocked again when I left the rest room and saw the ferry back already and  departing once again, so quickly had it made the trip.

The Carnegie in Baraboo is the front-runner as the most notable of the trip with its noble, classic features unmarred by an addition to the rear.  “Carnegie Free Library” chiseled into its facade and entry made up eight steps and through a pair of columns added to its charm. That climb up, however brief, always heightens the glorious moment of entering a library.  The only disappointment was the absence of the traditional Carnegie portrait or any plaque acknowledging Carnegie, just a plaque stating the library had been designated a National Historic Place.  As in Lodi, it was inhabited by a handful of the elderly sitting and reading newspapers and magazines in the living room setting common to Carnegies with wooden floors and tall windows letting in beaucoup natural light and a fireplace.

The Carnegie in Reedsburg, fifteen miles to the west, had lost its identity having been joined to the modern city hall next door.  If there had been a library inscription on it, it was long gone.  The new library with a large parking lot frowned upon it from across the street.  

The road into Reedsburg was being resurfaced and was closed to traffic making it my own private road of smooth sailing for seven miles on a stretch that had been completed all but for a center line. I was halted six miles short of Reedsburg where construction crews were at work. I had to backtrack half a mile and then go over a mile to pick up a smaller parallel road.  The route took me past one of the early themes of these travels—skeletons on tractors.  This was by far the most creative.

Pumpkin stands pop up so frequently it’s a wonder Wisconsin isn’t known as the Pumpkin State.   They certainly predominate over cheese, at least this time of the year.

I camped a few miles out of the town of Wisconsin Dells where the next Carnegie awaited me.  The town was densely populated with motels and tourist attractions and souvenir shops, one unabashedly called Souvenir City.  An arena hosted Lumberjack shows.  Wikipedia listed the address for the Carnegie on Broadway the main thoroughfare through the town packed for several blocks  with one shop after another catering to tourists, everything from the House of Jerky to a paintball shooting gallery.  I could hardly imagine a stately Carnegie on this stretch and it wasn’t.  It was a block over at 631 Cedar in a large park known as Library Park.  The tiny Prairie Style Carnegie in one corner had been replaced by a much larger building.  It was presently vacant.  It would make a nice home, but it’s zoned commercial.

I spent much of the rest of the day biking over sixty miles east on small county roads designated by a single letter that intersected no towns and that I had all to myself. The route passed near where John Muir lived and roamed after he came to America from Scotland with his family when he was eleven. 

 Even along this quiet stretch there were pumpkins for sale, and as with many stands, on the honor system.  I didn’t see any pumpkins dotting the fields, as they were largely taken up with brown corn stalks.  

I made it to Waupun just before five in time to enter the Carnegie, now the Waupun Heritage Museum, except that it was only open on the second and fourth Sundays of the mouth.  It was another beauty, comparable to that in Baraboo, well worth whatever effort it might take to visit.  It was constructed of local stone and had Carnegie carved into its facade just above Waupun Public Library.  

It had been a pleasantly warm day in the 70s with thirst not much of an issue.  I was still hopeful of packing my bottles with ice at the nearby MacDonald’s, but as with the last few it was drive-through only with a sign on its door blaming it on a shortage of employees, a sign common to other MacDonald’s.  

But unlike a year ago, and earlier this year on my bike journeys, there have been no hiring signs on the MacDonald’s.  It does seem as if management is content to not having to clean bathrooms and stock toilet paper and empty indoor trash cans and wipe tables and all that.  The savings on staff must offset the loss in revenue from those such as me who want a place to sit.  It is a valuable place for me to charge my devices as well as fill my water bottles with ice.  Hopefully this isn’t another example of the Amazoning of America of people not wanting to leave their homes and now their cars to make purchases.  I regret to see it expanding into the dining experience.

Madison, Wisconsin

 

It’s hard to fully appreciate a campsite when one is setting up one’s tent in the dark, as has been my lot so far on the first four nights of this trip.  I’m appreciative of wherever I end up, but it is often not until morning that I can marvel at its charms.  My late campsites aren’t because I’ve been desperate to find a place to camp, just that I’ve been unwilling to stop when there’s still daylight in these increasingly short days, unrelentingly confident that I will find a last-minute spot for me and my tent. I pass up innumerable enticing places to camp in that last half hour of light not wishing to rein in my legs.

So far so good, even last night on the outskirts of Madison.  It took me a little longer than I expected to pass through this capital city and college town after dropping in on its Carnegie, a former branch library a couple miles north of where the main library, also funded by Carnegie, had stood.  It was in a bohemian neighborhood, sharing a parking lot with a food coop.  It now houses ZebraDog, a design firm.  A plaque on its side acknowledged Carnegie and it’s architects Claude and Strack, who designed the building in 1912 in the collegiate gothic style, emulating the academic buildings of Oxford and Cambridge, with red brick and limestone arches, niches and banding. It’s backside was as striking as the front.  

There had been wilderness to the south of Madison on my way into the city from Stoughton, twelve miles south, where I stopped for a more classic Carnegie, so I felt assured there’d be more of the same on the other side of the city.  Stoughton’s Carnegie was centrally located at a major interaction on the main thoroughfare bisecting the city.  It still functioned as a library, though its original entrance had been replaced by another in an addition along the Main Street. 

With just two hours of light remaining I was hoping to fill my water bottles with ice and water at a MacDonald’s a mile down the highway on the way to Madison, but like another MacDonald’s I had tried earlier in the day it’s lobby was closed, harkening back to earlier Covid times.  It’s not the case with all MacDonald’s now, but I fear the ease and popularity of the drive-throughs may have encouraged some managers to keep their lobbies closed as a cost-saving measure, just as businesses are happy to have their employees working at home.  I will be greatly saddened by the loss of access to the MacDonald’s self-service ice and beverage machines.  

I was in need of cold water for the first time in these travels, as the temperature had jumped back into the 80s, twenty degrees warmer than my first couple of days when I set out from Chicago.  It had been so cool, I wore long pants the first two days and sweated so little that I hadn’t had cramps, as I ordinarily do the first couple days of a tour as my legs grow accustomed to the effort and I sweat out essential electrolytes.  

Rather than being able to fill my insulated bottles with ice at MacDonald’s, I had to be satisfied with just one bottle’s worth from a 32-ounce cup at a service station.  I could really take advantage of MacDonald’s ice dispensers, as I had found another deluxe Camelback insulated water bottle along the road near a resort lake, easily the best find of the trip so far, bringing my total of such bottles to four, all found along the road, two at the Hilly Hundred.  If I just put ice in the bottles and bury them in my panniers, the ice will last for hours.  It is always a great luxury in my tent at night after a long dehydrating day in the heat.

My GPS showed some pockets of forest just north of Madison, so I pedaled in the increasing darkness with little worry.  I just hoped I didn’t come upon a cheap motel that might entice me to stop in for the Packer/Forty-niner Sunday night game and all the days’ highlights.  I was spared that temptation and soon had a forest to disappear into.  I didn’t mind at all needing my headlamp to clear a spot for my tent and then to find the notches to attach my rain fly.  

Once I’m in the tent every campsite is the same and I can begin my nightly ritual of getting food into me and removing my constricting accouterments (gloves and socks and watch) and begin charging my iPad and Garmin and jotting down my stats for the day—miles and average speed and feet climbed and items scavenged along the road (coins, neckerchiefs, bungee cords, license plates, etc) and what food a dumpster may have added to my larder. The latest of note were two Panino trays of hard salami, prosciutto and pepperoni wrapped around mozzarella cheese.  

The night before I had the added chore of repairing a flat.  I had discovered a slow leak late in the day.  Rather than repairing it on the spot and losing some riding time, I was able to nurse it along, adding air three times half an hour apart, enabling me to get a few miles further down the road.  It was such a tiny hole I had to wait until the next day to immerse it in water to find it.  I can go a long tour without a flat, so this early flat is no reason for alarm. I traditionally find many more neckerchiefs along the road than suffer flats.  They are tied right now.  The lone neckerchief was a white one, my least favorite, but a color that is turning up with increasing frequency.  Janina promises to make a quilt of them one of these days.  

The Madison Carnegie was my fourth of the day.  The first had been in Watertown.  It mirrored that of Stoughton, likewise located at a prime intersection and also with an addition to its side extending it along the main thoroughfare it was on and usurping its original entrance.  It was adorned with picnic tables out front and wooden chairs, including a quite over-sized one.

The Carnegie in Jefferson, fourteen miles south, had been replaced by a new library a block away. It now was occupied by a land title company.  The small building had been attached to an old small Episcopal church, making for a most odd pairing.  Despite the striking alteration, the Carnegie had been given National Historic Place Status.

The day before I had stopped at the Carnegie in Waukesha, west of Milwaukee.  It being a Saturday I could gain entrance.  A massive construction project, the latest of many over the years, had the tiny Carnegie portion of the vastly expanded library off-limits.  It was  now referred to as merely the “Carnegie Room,” though what remained of its exterior gave evidence that it had been something of magnificence.  The many additions had so swallowed it up the librarian couldn’t even tell me where the orignal entrance to the library had been.

Two young librarians at the new West Allis library, a suburb of Milwaukee, twelve miles from Waukesha, were so little versed in their Carnegie, replaced in 1989, they didn’t even realize it was two blocks away and was now an assisted living center called Carnegie Place.  It’s original entrance up a set of stairs had been blocked off, greatly undermining the beauty of the building.

As I head north into the woodlands the camping will be even easier and with the towns smaller, the Carnegies ought to be more true to their origins.  I have yet to have a good sit-down in a Carnegie this year and have yet to come upon a portrait that so many have mounted in a position of prominence.  I’m always happy to give him a nod of appreciation.  With luck I’ll have that pleasure at the next Carnegie in Baraboo.

Beloit, Wisconsin

 



I am commencing this fall’s Biketober a little early, heading off to Wisconsin a week before it’s official start since I know the temperatures could become frigid all too soon in the northern reaches of the state where a handful of Carnegie libraries await me up along Lake Superior.   My itinerary includes the thirty-four of the state’s still standing fifty Carnegies that have yet to intersect any of my forays into the state.  

The ride will take me from the bottom of the state in Beloit on the Illinois border to its far north on Lake Superior where four Carnegies dot it’s coastline.  I also plan to cross into the U.P. for four Carnegies not far from Wisconsin, which will allow me to complete Michigan’s slate of fifty-one, many of which I rounded up last October.  If I finish off Michigan and Wisconsin, that will bring my total of completed states to nine. The others are Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Colorado, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. 

If I’m really ambitious I could make it an even ten with a dash over to the northwest corner of Iowa for the seventeen of its remaining ninety-eight Carnegies that I failed to get to two falls ago when I cut short my circuit of the state to return in time for the Milos Stehlick memorial.  Slowly but surely I’m putting my imprint on each of the 1,470 that still stand  of the nearly 1,800 built in the US.  I’m well over half way there.

I felt more in need of a deep bike immersion than usual after the least amount of biking I’ve ever done during my month in Telluride tending to the film festival’s shipping department.  We were located for the first time in the satellite community of Mountain Village separated from Telluride by a twelve-minute gondola ride or close to half hour drive, which made the job much more demanding and time-consuming than usual, limiting time to bike. 

The workload was compounded by the absence of two long-time staffers and bosom-buddies who had over twenty-five years of experience between them.  It also didn’t help that the festival was extended by a day to five days, meaning there was one less crucial day of preparation in the week before the festival started.  The extra day of cinema was nice, but my Strava totals suffered greatly, with not even fifty miles for the five weeks Janina and I were away, which included a week’s driving time there and back.  By the time we got back to Chicago I could feel a distinct brain fog from the lack of the customary injection of endorphins that my body generally has coursing through it. I needed a long, long bike ride to flush out the toxins from being so sedentary.

It was a week after our return before I was able to make my immersion back into the life I know so well and regain my bearings.  It was time well spent though helping Janina put the finishing touches on her Telluride Journal to be published for the first time by the Canadian cinema website Offscreen.  It’s ready to go in it’s next edition.  Hooray, hooray.  She sure had plenty to write about with the extra day of cinema and the usual wide array of films, from the first of the Oscar contenders to lost or overlooked films, including silent films from Russia and Greece and an Ingmar Bergman film from 1971 starring Eliot Gould and an explosive French musical from 1979 set on a slave ship.  As always, it was an array of cinema second to none accentuated by many luminaries including Kenneth Branaugh, Jane Campion, Paolo Sorrentino, Asghar Farhardi, Alexander Payne, Peter Sellars, Laurie Anderson, Alice Waters, Pico Iyer, Conrad Ankar, Barry Jenkins, Maggie Gyllenhaal.

It took several hours and nearly fifty miles before I escaped Chicago’s noxious sprawl and maelstrom of traffic and slipped into the cornfields and wide open spaces of rural/pastoral America.  And a while longer before I fully escaped the blight of cookie-cutter developments with mindlessly monotonous “homes” hovering in the background like a scourge upon the land.   But that joyous perpetual treadmill my legs were on gradually purged me of my malaise and rejuvenated my spirit.  I was a distinct anomaly, the lone cyclist among thousands and thousands of motorists, a wane cry of sanity in the wilderness of internal combustion machines bringing about the ruination of the planet.

Outcast or outsider, I cared not.  I only felt a sense of release and freedom and complete independence that being off on the bike provides.  And my independence was further affirmed knowing I’d find a quiet nook to curl up in night after night without having to register with anyone or hand over a credit card.  My first was as fine as any in a cluster of trees alongside a cornfield. I couldn’t have been happier as I dined on a feast of avocados mixed with slices of roasted turkey breast and crumpled feta cheese, with a side of hummus,  and dessert of dried mango slices and pound cake compliments of a nearby Aldi’s dumpster.   I was in no need of food as Janina had sent me off with meat loaf and mashed potatoes and corn on the cob, and I had packs of ramen and other rations, but an Aldi’s dumpster right along the road late in the day was too inviting to resist.  I am always curious to see what might be on offer and rarely am I disappointed. 

The next morning I checked on another dumpster, not wanting it to go to waste,  and was rewarded with a platter of cheese cake slices and pumpkin pie. I could have rescued a dozen pies and shared them with the fools in their cars streaming in and out of the Aldi’s oblivious to the banquet in back and the ease of plucking their provisions from a single container rather than trudging up and down it’s aisles pushing a cart having to make multiple choices.  America, the land of opportunity and the land of plenty, a touring cyclist’s paradise, free food and free lodging whenever needed and miles and miles of carefree, uplifting riding.  What more could one ask for?

I crossed into Wisconsin well-fed and fully energized.  Just across the border into Wisconsin on the outskirts of Beloit was a store selling fireworks. I didn’t bother to check its dumpster but headed straight to Beloit College for it’s Carnegie, one of two in Wisconsin on college campuses.  The other had been in Appleton at Lawrence College, but it had been torn down.  Of the fifteen that had been razed in Wisconsin, another had been Beloit’s public library, replaced by a sprawling, characterless edifice on the outskirts of town that had formerly been a shopping center.  A sign on its door advised the use of masks but didn’t mandate them as in Illinois.  Most inside were masked.

I didn’t have to stop and ask where the Carnegie was on the campus as I immediately recognized its features, though it was no longer the library, nor had any plaque or markings identifying it as the former library, just the classic columns and light fixtures typical of a Carnegie and 1904 chiseled into a corner of its base.  A professor in his office confirmed it had been the library.  It was a fine start of the many to come, each which would be highlight of the day if it were not for the glorious campsite that will end each day and the many fine sites along the way.