Coast to Coast for a Cause 2022

Hey it’s Julia! So today we discovered why my boyfriend, Jon,  on multiple occasions described this state as “crap” and as his dad put it “we’ve lived in a lot of states, but Michigan was definitely not on our list to come back to.” My apologies to anyone who really likes Michigan, but we now hold favoritism for Wisconsin.  Our morning started off great with a nice breakfast  with Jon’s family and then his dad was gracious enough to drive us back up to the route….or what we thought was the route. Dustin tasked me with the gps, but only said a town and then eventually gave me the trail name. Well somehow Google Maps decided to actually bring us two towns over on the trail but too far north. As you can imagine mine and Dustin’s friendship was really tested in this moment.  We eventually got to where we needed to be and it actually didn’t change our mileage all that much, so all was forgiven. This trail that we ended up spending the vast majority of our day on….. Awful ...

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 ...

Hey y’all it’s Dustin! Since we only bikes 12 miles today we had a lot of time for shenanigans, especially considering we are in Milwaukee! This morning we slept in a bit and Liz had bought us some pastries to try and suggested a bakery a short walk away for breakfast. The pastries were amazing - and so was the bakery - We all got sandwiches on fresh baked bread, and I tried a London fog for the first time (earl grey tea latte with foam) and it was pretty good! Julia thinks it tasted like dirty water though so who know. I also grabbed an order of monkey bread because I had it all the time in college and it was one of my favorites! I’d tell you how it stacked up but as I sit here at 11:11pm I still haven’t eaten it - I guess there is always tomorrow morning.  As we were eating Leo and Pat were already on their way to the place we are staying tonight, we got started shortly after in an attempt to meet them there about the same time, but two miles in we got a text saying they got ther...

It’s always great being able to wake up to some fresh coffee to really put some life back into my body before a 94mile day. Coffee - truly miracle juice.  This morning we were lucky enough to add on two more cyclists on the first part of our journey - Carol and Kirt (our warmshowers hosts)! We were telling them how we never really truly know where we are going until we kinda figure it out with Google Maps. They quickly told us that there are far shorter and better routes to take than anything Google was gonna tell us, so they were generous enough to hop on their bikes and guide us through Madison! It was just a lovely ride, where they were able to show us different key landmarks throughout the city. We got to see the capital building that is actually a nearly exact replica of the Washington DC one, but a little shorter.  We only had a couple mishaps…like me falling off my bike. This was my first like true fall, where I was actually moving (unlike the other one where I was goin...

Sleeping in a bed has got to be one of the best feelings. About one week into the trip I abandoned my ground pad because it wouldn’t stay inflated through the night and while this did save a lot of space in my packs, I’ve had some uncomfortable days on the ground. We all woke up today at Julia’s boyfriend’s grandparent’s house and had a wonderful breakfast of cereal and coffee cake before getting started with our day around 8:45. Today was another day of blessed tailwinds (the last we will be getting for a while unfortunately) and our luck with winds held true because while we did have the winds blowing East, we were going mostly south to Madison. Wisconsin continued to be beautiful throughout our ride today and we had a great time enjoying the scenery as we tried to figure out our route. Since we are taking the ferry in a few days we are off of the northern tier trail that most bikers take so google maps has been our guide for the most part. Google maps kind of sucks and keeps trying ...

Soon after Julia posted the blog yesterday and just before we were both going to fall asleep we suddenly heard a rustling… Julia, in what might have been the most aggressive whisper I’ve ever heard called over to me, “Dustin, what is that? Go look!”  The rustling was coming from the direction of our campsite picnic table, exactly where Julia and I decided to leave our food for the night (in bags of course, we aren’t heathens). So I grabbed my glasses so I could see the animal that was about to maul me and set out with my portable sun in one hand and my bear spray in the other. Just as a walked out of my tent I saw what appeared to be a raccoon running off into the bushes - and I thought - ha, I got him, little guy knows who’s boss in this campsite - and then I saw a flash of yellow sliding along with him into the bushes… Julia’s food bag… I tried to catch up but he was too quick - and so I just kind of stood there - peering into the shrubbery - trying to see if I could find where ...

This morning started out like any other: Leo refusing to wake up, Dustin upset that he didn’t sleep through the night, and Pat lying straight to my face. This morning Pat decided to tell me that Winona (where we originally thought we were going today) was famous for being the origin spot of Utz potato chips. This is completely false, but let me tell you Pat has a special talent for making anyone believe anything - he’s gonna be a great lawyer.  After we got our bellies full of pancakes and bacon, Brian’s uncle loaded us up and brought us back to where we finished yesterday. During this trip we have been seeing so  many dead birds on the side of the road, which we found  odd. The reasonable explanation for this is that there aren’t as many power lines out here, so the birds can’t recharge because, as we all know, birds aren’t real. However, we discovered another explanation during this car ride. The birds out here are just poorly programmed and just instead dive bomb strai...