The Great North

Carrie Perdue
We did it! Well, at least I did it…. After cranking out 2000 miles in just 27 days of riding we’ve made it to Minneapolis, my last stop on this wild and crazy journey. My bike box and camping gear has been all packed up and shipped home, and tomorrow morning I fly out. For the curious, my bike and the gear I shipped home weighed in at 65 pounds, and I’m probably still carrying another 5-10 pounds of stuff onto the plane with me… that’s a whole lot of weight to pedal up countless hills.

Fit the maximum size restrictions!

It’s been an amazing trip and I’ve had a total blast spending time with the Smetana brothers, Brandon, and the cast of absolute characters we’ve met along the way. Travelling by bicycle is an incredibly intimate way to experience a place, and I can’t imagine a better way to see my country, meet my fellow Americans, and get a feel for the interesting diversity of the USA’s people, landscapes, cuisines, accents, and everything else she has to offer.

Characters like Jim, who has everyone that passes through sign his guestbook

Since we left St. Ignace we have been burning up the road. The first day out we put in just under 90 miles to Manistique, a decent sized city in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. We indulged in the all you can eat spaghetti and meatballs at the local Big Boy restaurant, which inspired one of the quotes of the trip (see below). We woke up to a bad rain storm, but it quickly passed and we were on the road again. We passed through Escanaba late that afternoon, and I was introduced to a little slice of Michigan culinary heaven, the pasty. Not pastry.  Not paste-y. Pasty…. Like pass-tee. It’s basically a beef pot pie calzone if you can picture that… All in all not too shabby.

Getting ready to ride in the rain

The delightful pasty

From Escanaba we pressed on another 15 or so miles to Perronville where we happened upon the only game in town, the Perronville Pub aka. Grand Ole’ P.P.’s! This was a pretty small pub with a very “ornery” owner, Kathy. We heard about Kathy’s inhospitable nature from some locals, but since it was our only option we stopped in. She did live up to her ornery reputation at first, but as the night wore on we won her over and before we left the bar we had secured a camping spot in the barn behind the bar.

Grand "Ole" P.P.s

We slept in the back

The next few days were spent riding through small towns in the Upper Peninsula and enjoying this little-travelled area. We endured some climbing, unfavorable winds, and rough roads, but in general it was a lovely ride filled with small towns and a lot of beautiful scenery. As we passed into northern Wisconsin, things got even more beautiful and the roads and the grades of the hills improved significantly. The woods became thicker, and there were hundreds of lakes on every side of us.

Land-O-Lakes

The riding was really incredible… unless you stopped to rest. The second that we stopped our bikes (or unfortunately in my case, also when I was going super slowly up a steep hill), we were immediately swarmed with hundreds of mosquitos! It was awful!! We also were travelling through a fairly unpopulated area, so places to stop and stay were few and far between. The first night in Wisconsin, we stopped at a bar and hotel in the middle of nowhere. We were excited about the hotel, but little did we know that the mosquitos were so bad we would end up killing over 25 in our room! We also had easily the worst meal of the trip if not our lives…. I ordered a chef salad that had about 12 ingredients listed in it on the menu. When it came out it was just lettuce and a really weird ham. I told the waiter it was missing ingredients and he went back to get them and came back out a few minutes later and said, “We’re out of all of that stuff.” Hmmm…. The boys ordered “whisky flavored” pork chops. Cory immediately spit out the first bite after trying them. We later learned that the meat had been soaked for like 3 days in a gallon of whisky. It was literally like taking a pork shot, but apparently hunger and a gallon of A-1 sauce can cover up a multitude of cooking sins.

After that rough night, our expectations were low, but as we continued on we found a great spot to eat and camp the next night at Louie’s Landing by Moose Lake. The view was incredible, the food was delicious, and the owners, Jack and his wife, were incredibly accommodating and nice. We finally reached civilization again by our final day in WI, and stayed in Cumberland, a really cute town set by another beautiful lake. It was July 3rd, and there were tons of vacationers there for the holiday, but we were still able to secure a spot at the local campground and partake in some of the festivities… Namely we could overhear a raging concert with by 90’s cover band that every single person in like a 250 mile radius appeared to be attending.

Louie's Landing, our host for the evening

We set out on July 4th and Minneapolis was somewhat in our sights. It was a pretty rough riding day with bad headwinds and we were fairly surprised by how little celebration we saw. Spirits were somewhat raised when we reached a Dairy Queen and were definitely lifted when we hit the Minnesota state line. After the obligatory photo shoot, we headed on down to Scandia a two-stoplight town that looked completely abandoned… until Cory found a fairly lively bar and restaurant, literally the only thing in town that was open. We enjoyed a good meal and were invited to camp behind the restaurant. There was even one lonely pyromaniac who was sitting on the patio and shooting bottle rockets out of his hand. Nonstop. For like four hours. At one point his beard caught on fire, but he didn’t seem to notice. We also learned that all of the drunk guys in the bar also sleep out back sometimes so that they don’t get DUIs. We met one of them when he said it was about time for him to head home as stumbled out of an old maintenance truck that was parked about 15 feet from where we were camping as we were packing up to leave at 7:45am. God Bless America.

Minnesota! Land of great state signs

Getting patriotic on Independence Day

As we headed out on July 5th we were a mere 45 miles from our friend Bixby’s apartment in Minneapolis and it ended up being a nice ride. The Twin Cities are surprisingly bike friendly and we spend a good part of our ride in on great bike trails or riding in the ample bike lanes. Once we arrived we spent the past few days exploring town, eating great food, catching up on errands, and we even had time to take in a Minnesota Twins game vs. the Yankees.

Bixby!

Great American pastime

All in all it’s been an incredible trip, and I’ll sign off with some of the most memorable quotes from the trip so far:

“I think I’m going to throw up. Do you think Big Boy’s will take that as a compliment?” – Cory, after eating 4 plates of all you can eat spaghetti and meatballs

Random Guy on Motorcycle (RGoM): You guys went to Harvard?!? Do they still have that Mexican place right there by Harvard?
Me: Uh… I guess… Border Café maybe?
RGoM: Yeah, yeah… That’s the place with the sizzling fajitas right?!?! Man I loved that place!! Everybody was always in there having a good time… The waitresses were always running around serving up sizzling fajitas…. Man that place was great!

“You know, I almost played football for Northeastern. The weightlifting coach really wanted me to play, but I decided not to.” – The SAME Random Guy on Motorcycle who loved sizzling fajitas. I literally answered this man’s questions about the bike trip for 3 minutes and then he told me his life story.

“Oooo…. I’m going to have to go dab some water on that…” – Kellen, every time he spills something on himself. So like 3-5 times per day.

“You guys biked here from Boston?!?!? Did you ever think of doing the Tour de France?” – Random Guy at Panera

“Did you guys realize that Arsenio Hall has a new show?!?” – Everyone, at least once. Somehow every place we’ve stayed, even if we only have 2 channels, even if we’re in Canada, one is playing Arsenio Hall’s new TV show. And it’s terrible. Then, when we rode into Minneapolis we passed the CW studios and they had an entire wall of their building dedicated to advertising Arsenio’s new show. He’s haunting this trip.

“Sky’s Out. Thighs Out.” – Group motto. You gotta tan up those thighs when you have the chance

Last pic with the boys pulling into Minneapolis (notice the "thighs out")

Signing off - it's been a fun ride!