Day 42: Goodbye Wisconsin, truly the best state of them all

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Today was our last day in Wisconsin, easily the best state that we have stayed in so far on the trip. We are all very heartbroken about it and as a proper sendoff, even the sky decided to cry because it rained pretty much all day. 

We left Pat’s cousin’s husband’s parent’s (wow that’s hard to keep track of) house after sleeping in and having a great breakfast around 11:30. Luckily for us, even with a rest day yesterday, we got to take it easy today as we were spent most of it on the ferry crossing Lake Michigan. By taking the ferry we are shaving about a week off of the traditional Northern Tier route, making it so that we don’t have to bike through Chicago (biking through cities is the worst, other than Madison, because Wisconsin was the best), and saving us some money with travel and lodging. That being said, it was $130 each for the ferry which is absolutely absurd. We were talking with some other people and found out that it’s even worse for cars and can get up to $200 for one crossing. I’m highly considering selling an organ or two to pay off this trip if stuff like this keeps happening. You only really need one kidney right?
While on the ferry we did the only reasonable thing to do while on a long trip and slept. It was about 2.5 hours and halfway through we finally got our last time change (so was it really 3.5 hours…?) and are back on East Coast Time! We also tried to make a plan for how far we wanted to bike after we got off the ferry. Dustin wanted to go 40 miles to Grand Rapids while Julia and I did not want to do that at all, especially if the rain kicked up. We compromised on an easy 20 miles and started biking around 4:40 PM. The first two big impressions of Michigan are that it’s a bit smelly and that the bike trails are really well over! Hopefully the former stops being true and the latter stays true as we are starting biking again in earnest tomorrow. After about 20 miles, Julia’s boyfriend Jon’s brother picked us up and drove to their hometown to visit some more family! 
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1sMn0BOoui9iaaMmEQiPSL9Yoh_nw_kfW

It was so nice meeting Jon’s family. We cracked some beers, played with some dogs, and had a great chicken and salad dinner while telling stories about our trip such as the Great Raccoon Heist and how people in Northern Idaho make their own laws as well as the best pizza. 

This is a bit of a shorter post because not a terrible amount happened today but we are gonna be doing 100 miles or so tomorrow and ending in Flint, Michigan so a bright and early start for us! 

Photo Dump:
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=15vjcekDbs_q-JSBlQGe_J0qf684oLLx6https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1tRYNiAAm7hkAUJqyqlWq51_H5j0qyKjn
https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1-wJsM-QFI4ETS-gbmVwnHJ1VrymO1wm1

“I sleep like I’m practicing for my wake” - Dustin when questioned why he sleeps the way he does 

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