Thursday, July 2 thru Sunday, July 5
With our paid holiday for Independence Day being on a Friday, I took Thursday and the following Monday off to make it a five day weekend to visit my Dad & Candy and to get some extra seat time on the bike. The plan was to take Hwy 33 most of the way there Thursday morning. Spend two nights in Winona and then head up into northwestern Wisconsin. Which is pretty much what we did.
Dad was lethargic and sleepy the first day we arrived. After we visited with him and had dinner with Candy we took a ride that evening up past Garvin Heights and then back down to Hwy 43 into town but Kevin did not have the GPS so no map to share for that little adventure.
The next morning Dad was in a deep sleep but we sat with him until the aides wanted to get him up because it was almost lunch time and he needed to eat something since he did not have any breakfast. They were able to wake him up enough so we we took him outside on the patio for a while before taking him to the cafeteria for lunch. Since we had some time to kill I told Kevin we should take a trip up to Wabasha and over the bridge to Nelson on the Wisconsin side. And that is what we did. Even though it was a Friday, most people probably had off for the holiday so it was pretty busy at the Nelson Creamery where we stopped for lunch. No room or time for ice-cream. Whah! When we arrived back at the nursing home Candy was still there and Dad was in a deep sleep again. We sat with them for a while and then we took Dad to the lounge before leaving because we did not want to wake him by rousting him into bed and we hoped they would try to wake him up again for dinner. We met up with Candy at the house later that evening for a super fantastic dinner.
The next morning (Saturday - 4th of July) is when we planned to leave Winona to head into northwestern Wisconsin. I planned out a route the night before to take us up through Arcadia and then randomly north and east of Eau Claire. We drove through part of Flambeau State Forest where we saw several warning signs for elk crossings… yikes! We didn’t see any though. We ended up in Phillips that day right before their holiday parade and stopped at the Super 8, no vacancies there or anywhere we tried in town, but we were able to get a room at the Countryside Motel in Prentice nine miles south of there. It was actually a very nice place, except the ho-ho continental breakfast. There as a family style restaurant attached to the gas station across the road from it where we ate for dinner that night and breakfast the following day. We did not feel like gearing back up for the fireworks and then travel after sunset and there was a supposed small fire show in Prentice but we didn’t feel like participating in that either. Instead we went for a walk. There were probably just as many bikes staying at the hotel as cars. There was one couple on a trike pulling in when we were leaving for our walk and when we returned they were sitting next to their bike watching the red sunset caused from the smoke from the Canada wildfires so we stopped to talk to them (Mike & Deb). Come to find out they were from Pepin WI not too far up the river from my Dad. Had some great conversations with them and enjoyed their company probably way more than any fireworks.
On Sunday I had planned a route to take us north/northeast and east before heading south on Hwy 55 through the Menominee Reservation. We had to pull over in a pull out to let all of the slower traffic ahead of us get way ahead of us so we could go a faster more enjoyable pace through it’s winding roads with elevation changes through the forest. The pullouts are for the slower traffic but of course none of them would give up their spot. We stopped to stretch and take pictures at the Keshena Falls. Then it was back out to Hwy 55 and other county roads and highways home. We did however stop in Schiocton for some lunch at the River Rail. Oh and we also stopped for some ice-cream at Shepard’s Drive-In in Berlin where we me two guys on bikes from Minnesota.
We opted to head home on Sunday vs. Monday because they were calling for bad storms on Monday, and good thing we did because Monday morning they were already getting some bad ones in the area we would have been. We think only just over 800 miles total this whole trip, and that is with guessing 20-30 miles on the ride the evening we did not have the GPS. Maps and pictures below.
