Days 36 and 37

JULY 14 Neillsville to Steven's Point WI

The ride to Stevens Point was rather ordinary... we woke p early and paid our dues, putting in the majority of our miles before lunch. Mid morning, we spotted an odd yellow sign, with a silhouette of a horse and buggy on it. Not a mile down the road, we saw the real deal: a single horse pulling a low, wooden cart; in back sat a boy wearing a straw hat and a button up shirt. We stared at him as we rode by, and he stared at us, his face mirroring the wonder on ours. A little further down the road, we spotted another boy, dressed as the first, walking down the side of the road. "I think they might be Amish!" Dad said after we passed the second boy; I nodded excitedly.

We stopped for lunch at a cheese factory in the town of Rudolph, then rode the rest of the way into Steven's Point, the town Pat, Bill, and Dave are from. We spent the night at Bill's house, with his wife, Teri, and his two kids, Billy and Jillian; clearly, being married to a bike tourer, Teri knew what was important to us when we got there: just inside the door, she had a table laden with cherries, grapes, pretzels, and other snack food. She showed us to our rooms for the night, then next stop was the shower, where she had fresh towel already laid out for us. We had a pasta dinner with Bill's mom, Betty (although I think I used the wrong fork... I'm not used to formal dining, especially after weeks on the road.) and then returned to Bill's house to go to bed.

JULY 15 Steven's Point to Wrightstown WI

We were the first ones awake in Bill's house the next morning, and went about getting our breakfast, making ourselves at home. Partway through our meal, Betty drove up, wearing a pink sweater over a black dress, " I brought you some muffins!" she said, handing us a bag of blueberry muffins, "I made the first batch last night, but I fell asleep while reading the newspaper and I burnt them! I'm sorry.
"Oh, don't worry about it." dad reassured her, "These look great!" Teri woke up to see us off, but she said not even the tornado sirens would get Billy an Jillian out of bed. We thanked her for all the wonderful hospitality, and then hit the road.

Riding that day was long, hot, humid, into a slight headwind... and over all, very pleasant. The scenery looked like what we imagined entire Midwest would be: rolling cornfields, scattered trees, and occasional barns. Our pace was rather slow, but we plugged along all day, taking breaks for snacks, lunch, Dairy Queen, and more snacks. After our DQ break, we stopped into a Burger King to ask directions to Freedom, the next town along our route. "Do you know how to get to Freedom?" I asked the girl behind the counter.
"Well, you take this road... I'm not very good with directions. Let me go get someone-"
"Oh, it's okay." I said, "We just needed to know what road to take out of town. Thank You."
As I turned to leave, she asked, "Your riding bike all the way to Freedom?" Freedom was only 10 miles away, but she sounded shocked.
"Well, we need to be in Manitowoc by tomorrow." Her eyes widened even more (Manitowoc is 60 miles past Freedom.) I didn't tell her that we were headed to Maine, or that we had come from Washington; I can only imagine what she would have said about that!

In Freedom (after making the necessary cheesy puns about the town's name) we stopped at the grocery store for a pair of Gatorades. As we checked out, a woman behind us leaned forward, "It's too hot out there to be riding!" she warned us, smiling.
"Yeah, it sure is!" dad agreed, "That's why we're in here. But we only have a couple more miles to go today."
"Where're you ridin' to?" the woman asked.
"Well, tonight we're going to... Seth?"
"Apple Creek campground. But we're eventually heading to Maine..." As we told her about our trip, a small audience of shoppers and checkers gathered around, listening to our story. Just like in Carleton, we were celebrities for the next 10 minutes as we told them about the mountains, the winds, the mosquitoes, camping, and all the other little parts of the trip that have now just become a part of everyday life for us.

As we prepared dinner that evening, a man from an adjoining campsite walked over to talk with us, "Hi, I'm Michael. I saw the bikes and just had to come over and ask: where are you riding from?" We told him our story, and then he began to tell us his, "Right now I'm on a motorcycle trip with my best friend, and then I'm going to drive out to Oregon, pick up my kids, and we're going to spend a few weeks riding Candisk, a bicycle trip across North Dakota. This is my 6 week vacation in the United States."
"Oh?" I asked, "Where do you work?"
He grinned, apparently glad that I had asked, "Well, I work for an oil security company in Qatar... it's a small country in the Middle East..."
"On the north side of the Arabian peninsula, right?" I asked.
"Very good!" He said, "I'm impressed you knew that."
"So how is it living in the Middle East?" I asked.
"Hot...a lot of the year it's a dry hot, but some times we get a wind in off of the Indian Ocean, and then we get 120 degrees and 98% humidity. I have 11 air conditioners in my house! That's how people at home know how hot it is for me: I tell them how many air conditioners I have on. When I left in the beginning of July, I had... le'see... 1... 2, 3, 4..." He ticked them off on his fingers, "5 and 6...7, 8, and 9; I had 9 air conditioners running to stay cool! The heat's the hardest part for me. Otherwise it's great!"
"And how is it safety-wise over there?" Dad asked.
"Driving's the most dangerous thing I do. The people there are maniacs on the road. But all the stuff you hear on the news... well, it's at least as safe as it is in America, maybe safer! I mean, as long as you're smart, and don't go to like Iraq, or Afghanistan, you'll be fine. I've been to Jerusalem, and throughout the Arabian peninsula...no problems." Michael wandered away as we finished eating, calling over his shoulder, "I'm in that trailer over there. If you need anything, be sure to come on over and ask."

After cleaning the dishes, I went off to meet another bike tourer dad had talked to earlier in the evening (while I was showering). He was sitting in the lodge-restaurant building, half watching a baseball game on TV, and eating a microwave pizza. "Hello!" I said, walking over, "I heard there was another biker around and I came by to say hi. I'm Seth."
"Oh, hello. I'm Steve. Have a seat." He said, turning his attention away from the ball game, "So I was talking to your dad. All the way across the country?"
I nodded, "And you're going round Lake Michigan, right?"
"Yeah. I started in St. Paul, and I'm taking the ferry over the lake tomorrow, then I'll loop back over the Upper Peninsula and back down to St. Paul. Then I'm flying home."
"I hear that home is a ways away..." I said
"Your dad must have told you! I teach AP calculus to diplomat's kids in Libya."
"That would be really fun!" I could feel myself getting excited just talking about it, "Why Libya?"
"My wife and I have also taught in Egypt and Thailand. When I was younger I wanted to go into the Peace Corp, but then this opportunity came up, and, well, I got a bit distracted. I still haven't joined the Peace Corp."
"And what's it like in Libya?"
"Oh, it's great. The people are nice and friendly. I mean, they think George Bush is an idiot, and I think Kadaffi should be shot, but we all realize that those are just the governments. Beneath that, people are just people. That's what you really have to remember. We're all really the same." Steve showed me some of his pictures from Libya, and then we said goodnight, and he went back to his baseball game and I went off to my tent to write.