It was a super gorgeous weekend with sun and temps in the high 70s, but I could not ride on Saturday due to volunteering for the Gratitude Club’s brat fry and other plans after that. So, I had tried to put together an all-girls ride, and started with my friend Kari. Who suggested the Merrimac Ferry and I said “YES!” I told her to invite one of her friends we rode with together last year, but she wanted to change it to a run up to Fremont. I thought I would be okay with that, but I sure had my heart set on the ferry and had some other friends who were interested in it too. With that said, I let Kari know and posted the ride to the FB group page. With such short notice and not being able to leave until 1 p.m., we didn’t get any takers except for Brian, Ali and Mark.
This group likes to ride a bit fast which was good for leaving so late and I just winged it as far as roads to get there. Although I knew I would want to take Cty U south just west of Portage into Merrimac. Which is a super fun road!
When we arrived in Merrimac it was probably around 3ish and we had to wait for three loads onto the ferry before our turn. It still didn’t seem like that long of a wait though, and we all agreed to stop for ice cream on the other side of Lake Wisconsin at The Merrimac Scoop. While we crossed over I noticed cranes along the south shore and one on a barge. And low and behold it was the Michels Foundations division doing the work. Not sure if they were moving the train trestle, but that is what it looked like based on some new concrete next to it on the north end of the lake.
From there I had some roads planned out for a ways, but missed one of them and ended up taking us south into Lodi. From there I took Hwy 60 east for a ways and then a bunch of other back roads into and through Cambria. Which is when a Columbia County Sheriff decided to follow us on Cty P. I swore I was only doing 60, but the guys were sure falling behind, so I kept slowing down for them to catch back up. Luckily the Sheriff turned off on Hwy 73 in Randolph, and we were able to pick back up the pace.
We didn’t get back until around 6:45 p.m. and I asked them to guess how many miles they thought we had done since I had my tracker going. Ali guessed 172 and she was almost spot on! We did 176 miles, and although I used my tracker, apparently that was way too long of a route for it to load the map in its entirety. So, I was only able to get the maps in pieces and then had to use Photoshop to group them together for the complete map.
It was such a perfect day for riding! I even opted for my air flow jacket for the first time this season. Mark, unfortunately got some pretty good sunburn on his head/face. We all had so much fun, and it felt like a little piece of heaven on earth for me!!!
