Saturday, July 22, 2006
Day 34 - Fond Du Lac, WI (from The Dells) - July 22nd 2006
Weather: Light Clouds/Partly SunnyLocation: FonduLac, WI (from The Dells)
Miles per day: 82.7
Average miles per hour: 13.32
Elevation climb:
Blizzards/Ice Cream to date: 25 (count 1 Famous Wisconsin Frozen Custard)
Flat Tires to date: 1
Well there is a reason that Wisconsin is Bike Country, if I haven't mentioned it already, it's fantastic cycling! Today was flat to light rolling hills with excellent scenery. With just 82 miles, we wandered about quite a bit. Departing the Dells, known for the lakes, waterways and incredible number of Water Parks, we headed towards Montello for our first sag. We spent the remainder of the day stopping for far too many farm photos (including a visit with the pigs - see photo).
The town of Princeton had major construction and provided ample opportunity to get lost, which we did! We stopped into the Police Station for direction to find our way out. In addition to the construction, the 'Country Roads' (CR) are labeled by the alphabet but you can be going straight when it changes to a different letter. Adding to this, there are then double and triple letter Country Roads (e.g. AA, UU and VVV). I am not sure I understand this and would think they could up with some better names!
At the final sag, we were directed to a Dairy Queen which turned out to be closed due to a fire. We wandered off route into the town centre of Ripon for lunch and a history lesson.
Ripon is where the Republican Party was founded in 1852 fusing the Whig Party and Free Soil Party 'to unite together anti-slavery elements'. In relation to today's Immigrant discussions, it is perhaps most interesting that the drive for the creation of the Republican Party of 1850s was "the measure denying noncitizen immigrants the right to vote or hold office. Wisconsin was in the midst of rapid settlement by European immigrants". A hot topic both now and then! In 1856, the first convention was held with Abraham Lincoln attending. Only an observation, the building was in disrepair and closed. With a bikers' agreement not to discuss politics, we quickly moved on to the more important discussion of the day: 'how much weight have you lost?'. A few in the group are looking slim but a bit like politics , we still could not get the facts straight!
Following that we cranked out 20 miles to Fond Du Lac (French meaning: Bottom of the Lake (Winnebago)). We had a quick celebration for Ilkka who became a grandfather (again) today with a baby girl, Zara. I was long overdue for laundry and conveniently enough, there was a SHOOTERS which is a laundromat and Pub...
