August 2 - Madison, Wisconsin - Volksbike

Monika guided me as we drove over to the nearest point on the bicycle loop trail and found a parking spot on a residential street south of Lake Monona. I put on the bells we had purchased the day before and stuffed the inner tubes and inflation cartridge in my under seat storage that we had bought at Aldi and just brought back from Germany (see Wanderung 5). Although it was only a little after 8 a.m., it was so hot and humid that beads of sweat were just rolling off my brow, and I was really glad we were going to bicycle rather than walking in the heat. The bicycle at least gives you some air-cooling even if it's a dead calm, which it was that morning. I thought we might see some nice sights as we circled the lakes in Madison, so I also crammed the camera in my frame pack with the keys and cell phone, and we were ready to go. Although our instructions did not have a map, the nice people of Madison had maps every so often along the trail and we could orient ourselves, compare the map with our written instructions, and thus prepare for the next section.

From where we started, the first section of the trail had some small hills but we were fresh so we just geared down and plugged along. That part of the trail featured intermittent glimpses of Lake Monona on the right. We turned westward along Wingra creek, a slow flowing creek with lily pads on the surface and very pretty bridges spanning it. The bike path led, naturally enough, to Lake Wingra, a small but scenic lake that had parks along part of its shoreline. In the park on the north side of the lake I found our checkpoint key word on a big wooden sign ("Heiden") and watched a woman filming a man with some big inflatable rubber ducks on his car. There almost certainly was something going on there, but I wasn't sure exactly what it was and Monika was already way ahead so I kept on pedaling.

We turned back to the east and rode on some lightly traveled city streets to return to a kind of bay on the east side of Lake Monona. Across from us we saw the dome of the state capitol building in the distance, but we had already walked the state capital Volksmarch with my sister Lois last year, so I just waved at it and we pedaled on to join the main bike path around the lake. The center of Madison was on our left side as we circled the lake back to the Mechanic's Row Bicycle Store but we didn't stop as it was before 10 and they were not yet open for business. The bike path left the lakeside at that point and seemed to be following an old railroad or trolley right of way through the city to the east.

We continued to follow the path as it turned to the southeast and then zigzagged its way south. Most of the people I greeted said "Hi" back, which was nice, and the neighborhoods we rode through were quite pleasant, well kept middle class neighborhoods with older houses. At one point we passed through an area of small garden plots that reminded me of nothing so much as the "Schrebergartens" that we saw all over Hamburg (see Wanderungs 2 and 5), and would you believe I got homesick for Germany for a moment? Does that happen to other people who just live for a few months in a strange land? But I was jolted from my fit of nostalgia by seeing a huge, nasty looking line of dark black clouds looming up on the northern horizon and headed our way.

I recognized the line of clouds as a front if not a squall line, and the one thing we hadn't brought with us was any rain gear! So we pedaled like mad as the bike trail turned back to the west in the direction of our truck. Of course, what always happens when you're in a hurry? Right, we immediately had delays! First, I downshifted so hard to go up a hill that the chain popped completely off my front sprockets. Monika waited at the top of the hill as I grabbed the dirty, greasy chain and kind of shoved it back on the sprocket with one hand while spinning the pedals with my other hand. That was as awkward an operation as it sounds, but it worked and we continued on our way. Our next delay was a set of trucks for the county tree removal service completely blocking the street as they chopped up a tree that had apparently fallen into the street. We heard thunder in the distance and we were highly motivated to keep going, so we walked our bikes carefully around the blockage using the front yard to our right. Fortunately the folks around here were friendly folks who didn't fence in the yard or have attack Rottweilers prowling the premises.

A few blocks later Monika found the right path through the park on the south side of Lake Monona and we pedaled up to the truck just as the first raindrops were starting to fall. Fortunately this was a slow starting storm rather than one of those "wall of water" storms, so we could put the bikes back in the truck without getting too wet. The storm broke loose as we drove back to camp, however, and we retreated into the trailer, battened down the hatches, and waited for it to let up before hitching up the trailer for the drive to Burlington. We weren't in a big hurry and hitching up a trailer in the rain is not pleasant, although I can imagine much worse. This way we also had time to rest a bit as I worked on the journal and Monika crocheted a bit on her red, white, and blue doily, so that was good.

The rain took its sweet time about letting up, so we drove over to the nearest Culvers for lunch and by the time we returned the front had apparently passed. As it was clearing we decided to take US Route 12 from Madison down to Lake Geneva and then Route 50 over to Lois's place. There turned out to be road construction on Route 12, and by watching the GPS I found that the State of Wisconsin's Department of Transportation specified detours that were almost as ridiculous as the State of Michigan. Instead of taking the 3 sides of a rectangle, the State of Wisconsin wanted us to take 2 sides of a triangle, and not the shortest sides, to boot! Somewhat loathe to explore side streets with the trailer hanging on the back, I conformed to the specified detour but I am quite certain that other paved roads would have dramatically shorted the detour in two places, and I must admit I found that irritating. Still, we arrived at Lois's in reasonably good time, parking the trailer in the trailer space out front where she and Merlin had kept their trailer for many years. Thus, the trailer had come full circle back to its resting place at the beginning of Wanderung 6. We both felt tired and a little sad to have the trip behind us, but also happy to be visiting my sister for a few days before we had to scoot back to Virginia for the weekend.