#acaNoTier Boulder Junction to Crandon, 74 Miles | Summer Nights in Small Town ‘Merica

Riding Stats

Accommodations

Route Tracker

From Tom:

Up early at the lodge, I headed out to the garage where our bikes were stored overnight since they don’t allow bikes in the lodge. For those who don’t know, we always take our bikes into our room with us. Tonight as we were storing the bikes in the garage next to the lodge, I asked if I could get access to the bikes early. They said no problem as they don’t close the garage door and actually don’t ever lock any doors during the day or at night. We aren’t in Indianapolis are we???? 😁

I got bikes cleaned and the chains lubed up and we were ready for a few more days of riding. After a nice breakfast, we got the bags on, did our pushups/planks, had our morning prayer and were standing in the lodge parking lot when we saw a couple fully loaded bikes riding down the street and pull into the grocery store across the street.

You always have to say “hi” to fellow cyclists. We rode across the street and introduced ourselves to Roger and Laura from New Zealand. They are riding from East to West and spent a few weeks riding around Michigan to see family and friends since Laura grew up in Michigan. They are now continuing on to ride the Northern Tier route west.

We also met Marty, a local who came up to say “hi” and has a great talent of whistling. After a 45 minute chat we were on our way.

It was another beautiful day riding through the National Forest of Wisconsin. So far I have to admit Wisconsin has been my favorite state of “pure” bicycle riding of our trip.

We stopped for a coffee and took care of some needed phone calls. We planned on taking the SS Badger Ferry from Manitowoc to Ludington on Saturday. So Deb called the Ferry to get all the details. We wanted to take Sunday off and take the bikes to a bike shop to get our overdue tuneups. They don’t have mechanics in on Sunday, so we scheduled for Monday. So that gives us an extra day to get to the Ferry or an extra day off in Ludington. We will see how the next few days unfold with a forecast of rain.

On the bikes for another 20 miles or so before stopping for a great picnic lunch at a roadside picnic table in Conover. We continued our ride after lunch for few more miles before rolling into a gas station at our next turn. Up walk Dan and Tom who were very curious about what we were doing since they are both cyclists. They were heading home after a successful fishing trip. After a great conversation about cycling and fishing we were on our way for the last 30 miles of our ride.

We rolled into Crandon at about 6pm and decided to grab a motel since no camping was available and forecast of rain early in the morning. We called the Mainstreet Inn and I spoke with the owner. She mentioned she has availability of two queen beds for $52 a night. She mentioned she is out of town, but just grab room #13 key that is in an envelope in the black mailbox.

We weren’t quite sure what kind of place we were getting, but this is my favorite motel so far of the trip. We walked across the street to the drive-in and ordered a double cheeseburger with onion rings and strawberry shake 😁.

I have to say stepping back in time of motels, drive-ins, trusting people and not locking doors is pretty, pretty cool!!!