Start: 8:10 AM

Finish: 6:26 PM  

Saddle Time: 6:57

Ascent: 864 feet

Descent:  794 feet

Miles: 85

Total Miles: 2,204

Highlight: Riding the Great River State Park Trail through the Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge

Lowlight: Most of the day riding 35 was not very scenic and traffic was heavy.

Cyclemeter:  Follow this link to see the data I’m collecting with the cyclemeter app. You can see gps information, speed, elevation, distance, cadence and heart rate. Better viewed on a computer where it’s easier to play around with the graphs.

I was really tired end of the day yesterday. It wasn’t a particularly long or difficult day but I think the days are catching up with me.  I haven’t had a rest day in three weeks.  I keep thinking I will wait until a bad weather day but they never come.  I’ve been riding now for 5 weeks and it hasn’t rained on me once, in fact it’s only rained once day or night. Clouds were getting dark today with some light sprinkles in the air and I did ride on wet roads where it had rained just before but still no rain on me.  I can’t complain, it makes for good riding but needless to say much of the west is in an extreme to severe drought.  Wisconsin is looking greener than where I came from so I’m guessing I should see rain soon.

I let myself sleep in until 6:00 since that’s when breakfast is served and I need the rest. I planned on about an 80 mile ride today. Camping is a strong option since there’s a decent state park just outside of Trempealeau and a couple options for motels to stay in town.  I almost made campground reservations but decided to wait until mid day since I’m so tired, maybe I don’t want to ride 80 miles or maybe I don’t want to camp.

On the way out of town I stopped at the supermarket to pick up my usual camp food since the campground is before town: rice, beans and sardines. Once I started riding I felt the humidity, much worse than what I’ve been riding out west.  The weather app shows highs only in the low 80’s today but only cooling down to the low 70’s tonight with a dew point of 70. I really don’t want to camp in this weather.

Todays ride turned out to be not all that interesting for most of the 80 miles.  I followed Highway 35 down the Mississippi River but the river was mostly out of sight and the highway had a lot of traffic, although the shoulder was good. I had long climb at the start, a 4% grade for about 2 miles, not tough but like yesterday it took me by surprise considering I’m following the river.

Some of the river towns were interesting especially those by the damns and locks. The main drag through the towns had building that clearly dated back a century or more. I stopped at the tiny town to Stockholm, population 79, at the Stockholm Pie and General Store. They make a wide selection of sweet and savory pies. I had an excellent pecan pie with homemade whipped cream.  I almost went back for a second slice of something else but figured I’d be stopping again for food at the halfway point in a couple hours.

I made it to Nelson at the 40 mile mark and stopped to look at the map trying to find ice cream when a woman and her husband called out to me from across the street.  Cyclists! I stopped and talked for a while.  They were in their 50’s or so and were also riding the northern tier east, although mixing it up with some of their own routing on rail trails. They are heading to Milwaukee to take the ferry over Lake Michigan, most of the ride can be done on rail trail.  I find this very compelling since todays ride wasn’t all that interesting and will likely be the same for the next few days but I want to ride my bike across country, not bike and ferry so I’ll stick to the northern tier route.

I found an ice cream place, the Nelson Creamery.  They seem to mostly make cheese but also have a restaurant.  Rather than ice cream I went for a pulled pork sandwich but it did have cheese on it. I think part of the reason I was so tired yesterday is that I didn’t eat a decent lunch. Today’s food kept me feeling fairly strong the rest of the day.

The last 8 miles was on rail trail and dirt road that went in to the Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge. At this point it’s getting late and I had already ridden close to 80 miles so part of me just wanted it to end but the scenery was very nice and secluded.  The area is mostly marsh land with a lot of small ponds. The route goes right by the campground I was planning on staying at, glad I’m not camping tonight since it’s hot and buggy.

Made it to the Little Bluff Inn in the town of Trempealeau, one of the lock towns. It’s a tiny town with only one or two restaurants and a few small motels. I decided to eat my camp food for dinner since I’d been carrying it and with this weather I likely won’t camp for a while. It’s super simple food and a whole lot cheaper than eating out but I do want to try some local fish at some point. I had fish a couple times riding through the midwest, bad mistake, seemed like frozen fish you would buy at the supermarket but I can’t expect much more from places without water. The should have some good freshwater fish around here.