SAGBRAW Day 3 Plymouth to Waupun.....

I have been going about the business of trying to make a new route to find the regular route all wrong. I've been getting on the computer, locating the route on a map, creating a new map to an intercepting point, then uploading the new map to my GPS.

All I have to do is turn on the GPS and tell it to navigate the REGULAR route, and it will tell me which way to go to find the "pink line." Duh. (Bicycle GPS units don't have spoken commands. At least mine doesn't.)

Now that we have THAT out of the way.

It was no problem to get to the route from our campground this morning. It was about a 3-mile ride on what could have been a busy highway, but it was early. Besides, most of the roads here have nice shoulders that are plenty wide for riding a bicycle.

The downside of this town is that the nearest campground (supposedly) was 11 miles BEYOND the school where the route ended. The next one was 18 miles. I wasn't looking forward to riding 64 miles and then tacking on an additional 11, but I was resigned to having to do it.

Then Hubby called me in the middle of my ride. He said the campground sucked, and even the proprietress suggested he might want to look somewhere else. (Her "campground" is mostly for "old folks" [her words] and fishermen.) Hubby showed her the map of where we were going to be and the list of suggested campgrounds provided by the ride organizers. He showed her the one that was 18 miles away, and she said, "Oh no, you don't want to stay THERE. It's worse than THIS one."

Then she looked at the map and said there was a campground just 2 miles from the school. I was a little dubious when Hubby told me, because SURELY the ride organizers would have included one that was a mere 2 miles from the school when they were creating a list of nearby campgrounds. Wouldn't they?

Ahem.

Hubby picked me up at the school (thank all that is holy for THAT), and we did indeed find the campground. It is indeed 2 miles from the school. And we were the only campers. (Some more have since moved in.) Better yet, there is a golf course right across the road. Hubby already has a tee time for 8:30 tomorrow morning with one of the club members. How cool is that? Because tomorrow is the loop ride, we will be camping here two nights. It is a very, very nice campground.

A rather silly shadow shot of me riding along. I wonder if people think I'm nuts when I take photos while I'm riding.

There was a photo op at the top of Parnell Tower, somewhere around 11 miles on today's route. A lot of us made the trek through the woods and then climbed the 96 steps (according to a girl who was already there) to the top. It was well worth the effort. I realize the sun is interfering, but that's Lake Michigan way off in the distance.

The views from the tower were breath-taking.

Or maybe THIS one is Lake Michigan. How soon we forget.

Breath-taking. Heart-stopping. Jaw-dropping.

When I left the tower, the route took us past this little farm. Sure enough, when I turned around to look, the tower was barely visible above the tops of the trees.

I know, I know, I've seen farms before. But I can't stop taking pictures of them.

I didn't really stop here. Just paused to take the picture.

I was almost past this one before I got the shot off. I was intrigued by the "Ice Age Visitor Center."

This one was worth getting off the bike for. It's hard to see clearly, but the walls of the church are covered in ivy. Just gorgeous.

We had a rest stop in a pavilion in the small town of Campbellsport. I love that name.

I wanted to see what the quarry looked like. Or maybe I just had to go up to the fence because there was a sign warning against trespassing.

I have discovered some things about myself regarding taking photographs on bike rides. I start off the week trying to document every pedal stroke, every scenic view, every cool thing I see. Then by the end of the week everything starts to look similar and the number of photos drops off considerably. I'm also more likely to take photos early in the day. (That's also the time when I'm more likely to pass another rider and say pleasantly, "Good morning!" Not so much later in the day when it's hot and I'm tired.)

Most of the pictures I take are snapped from my bicycle while I'm riding. It's always a crap shoot whether I will actually get what I meant to take a picture of. Some are worthy of stopping my bike to get a good shot. And some are worthy of turning around and going BACK to get the shot, like the ivy-covered church above.

I'm so glad I came on this ride. I may never get back to Wisconsin, and I'm enjoying every minute. Except for some of the steep uphills maybe.

Favorite Cycling Pictures...

After 17 years of cycling, I have tried to train myself to concentrate more on the journey and less on the destination. The rides I do are not races, but it's sometimes hard for me to quell my competitive nature and relax. Not that being competitive in this case would do me any good; I'm faster than some but slower than many.

Occasionally when I'm riding along I'll see a cool scene and think, "That would be a pretty good picture." It might be a guy riding along in a Popeye t-shirt (hubby and I have an inside joke about Popeye) or it might be the mist floating over a meadow in the cool of the early morning. Or a swamp. I have a thing for swamps.

But it's hard for me to make myself stop and actually take the picture. Especially now that I ride a tandem with my sister. First of all, starting and stopping that thing isn't the easiest thing in the world to do. Sort of like stopping off at a convenience store in an 18-wheeler. Secondly, I feel somewhat GUILTY. Because I'm the captain, therefore controlling the gears, the brakes, and the steering, and if I stop.........well, she has to stop too. And she may not want to stop. On some days if I stop I'm afraid she might not get back on. If SHE were the captain, I could sit in the back and just snap pictures to my heart's content. But so far I haven't been able to talk her into that.


Therefore I am proud of myself when I do take the time to stop my bicycle, take off my gloves, take off my sunglasses, dig around in my bag for my camera, and take a picture. I try to ignore the fact that while I am stopped, many people zoom past me, and they'll be the first ones to get to the shower, the food, and possibly the beer.

This picture begged to be taken, and I stopped although we had just left a rest stop not long before. It's a prison cemetery in South Georgia, and on the crosses are only numbers, not names. Prison officials were afraid that the families of victims might desecrate the graves of the prisoners interred there, so they designated them by number only. I found that very moving.


This is one of my favorite pictures, one that also begged to be taken, but for a completely different reason. I had no choice but to stop and snap a photo of this sign in a pasture we rode by on one weekend ride. Whoever put it up obviously put a great deal of time and money into it. I laugh every time I see it.