There was a gap in my cyclemeter data which I tried to correct best I could in the summary stats.

Start: 7:52 AM

Finish: 6:48 PM  

Saddle Time: 7:15

Ascent: 1,311 feet

Descent:  1,328 feet

Miles: 85

Total Miles: 2,288

Highlight: Riding about 15 miles on the Great River Trail

Lowlight: Crossing over into Iowa and encountering steep hills and poor roads.

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.

The thing with bike touring is I never know when something of interest will come my way. I haven’t been too crazy about the past couple days riding down the Mississippi. Route 35 is considered a scenic road and it probably is from a car but it’s not all that enjoyable by bike.  The highway has a decent shoulder but is pretty heavily traveled.  It doesn’t feel dangerous but you can’t get away from the sound of traffic. I was wondering if this will be my ride for the next few days along until I start heading east in Muscatine, Iowa.  If so it won’t be a very interesting few days.

Then yesterday ended with an excellent ride on the Great River Trail through the Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge. I was pretty tired so not enjoying it as much as I should have but there was no traffic. I was happy to see today’s ride starts with 15 miles on this trail all the way to La Crosse.  I wasn’t sure if this is a rail trail or just a dirt road. It looked elevated in places but also seemed like a dirt road.  Today I crossed a number of old railroad bridges, clearly this was an old rail line, the Chicago-Northwestern Railroad. The surface is crushed stone and in decent shape.  Riding is a little slower than on the road but at tradeoff I will take to avoid traffic noise. The scenery was just as nice if not better than yesterday.

The trail dropped me off on the outskirts of La Crosse in the bordering town of Onalaska. The ride through La Crosse seemed to take long time.  I was mostly on quiet side roads but with all the stop and go it took a good amount of time.  I rode through more interesting old neighborhoods with big houses and mature tree lined roads. 

I haven’t mentioned it lately but I continue to have headwind most days, including today.  Since Minneapolis it hasn’t been as much of an issue as in the plains since trees, hills and buildings temper the wind so it’s not as relentless as in Montana or North Dakota. Todays ride was a bit different with some long stretches of road along the river really collecting the wind blowing from the south. I’ve had worse days but it definitely slowed me down. Next weeks forecast looks like favorable wind conditions. I’ve only been waiting five weeks.

I haven’t had good fish since I started this tour on the coast of Washington.  I tried a couple times in Montana and North Dakota but they don’t know fish, in fact they don’t know restaurants. Remember everything I encountered was simple steak, burgers and chicken. The fish was pretty bad, like elementary school cafeteria food. Now I’m back in fish country, not seafood but certainly freshwater fish.  I saw on the map a restaurant about 50 miles into my day that looked like a good place to eat, the Great River Road House. They do a fish fry every Friday but not until 4:00 so I will be too early. Hopefully they should have decent fish. I wanted something local but all they had for lunch was cod. The sandwich was exceptional, served on piece of garlic and butter toasted French bread. That will keep me going for the next 30 miles.  Fish related, I passed the Genoa National Fish Hatchery along the way where they raise freshwater fish and ship to states across the country.

A few miles down the road I crossed over the river into Lansing, Iowa passing through the Upper Mississippi National Wildlife Refuge, impressive just like Trempealeau. There were moments I wondered if there were alligators in those waters.  I know I’m far too north but the area has a bayou feel. The river in this are is spread out over a large flood plain with the main channel on one side of the other.  With all the shipping traffic they either have very high bridges or draw bridges over the channels.  The bridge I crossed was a narrow, steep, metal grate bridge. Not a fun ride with wind blowing and cars stacking up behind me.

The roads in Iowa were initially great, all concrete which is an excellent surface for riding. Unfortunately I was met with a few long climbs.  These were not just quick hops over hills but long climbs up 7% grade, reminded me of the final approaches to Rainy and Washington passes at the beginning of this trip. These were not 20 mile climbs but long enough to have me in full on climbing mode, seriously slowing me down.  The road conditions also deteriorated with no shoulder and too much traffic. I was completely hating on Adventure Cycling for sending me over the river so soon.  Highway 35 wasn’t great but I’ve been on it for 100 miles and  it’s better that this.  I had considered following Google’s directions and staying on the east side of the river but didn’t, and now regret that decision. I’m also wondering what the next few days will look like.  More like today or yesterday?

Effigy National Monument is just short of my final destination but I passed after they were closed.  Native Americans mounded up the earth to look like animal figures over 1,000 years ago, would have liked to visit. 

I crossed back over the river for a place to stay for the night. Being Friday everything was booked up so I’m in a Motel 6 somewhat out of the way. I’m pretty tired after today and seriously questioning if I want to continue the northern tier as mapped by Adventure Cycling. I don’t know why they didn’t take advantage of the good rail trails in Wisconsin instead of dropping down south into Iowa before heading east.  Of course it’s to get around Lake Michigan and Chicago but it seems like a diagonal would be possible.  I’m even considering riding straight through Chicago which would allow me to also ride through the excellent trail system around Madison.  If anything like Minneapolis Chicago wouldn’t be that bad. I’m justifying a rest day tomorrow to do some research and figure out how I will ride the rest of this trip. I need the rest, anyway.