Bingo, hold all your cards

9/19 I’ve been riding for a month now. Pulaski WI to Manitowoc WI 54 miles.

We made it with 2 hours to spare to the Coal fired Badger ferry in Manitowoc WI. I can’t see Wisconsin anymore so I must be close to Michigan.

Many think that things aren’t what they used to be. This trip has proven that concept completely false. Most of the hotels I’ve stayed in were built in the 40s – 60s. The Badger ferry started working in 1952.  Built by the railroad to ferry rail cars and automobiles.  The Badger hasn’t changed for 65 years.

They play Bingo in the game room, lead by a cheesy announcer with Catskills jokes.
“Did you here about the guy who fell into the reupholstery machine? He’s fully recovered now.”

Many of the causal encounters I’ve had are centered on talking about the past. Logging, railroads, closed resorts, closed restaurants, and towns that lost their purpose. John Farrell said it’s good I’m doing this trip now because in 10 years the limited services we have now will be gone.

In the meantime I’ve really enjoyed living in the past. Some of the hotel owners of the old hotels are very chill. Victoria who is an 80+ year old Czechoslovakian said she needed to keep busy. Her husband retired 18 years ago and wanted to move to Crandon WI to retire. He promptly died and she has been running the hotel ever since. 50$ a night for the room. She let us use her commercial laundry to do our clothes. She didn’t have to check with anyone and just did the right thing. She also said she didn’t need anymore birthdays.

Like many have said before me, get off the main roads and you will see that things are what they used to be.

Living in “Kevin’s Adventure Map” vs. the Adventure Cycling Association map paid big dividends today.  We rode about half the ride on great bike trails and slickly negotiated our way through Green Bay. It almost made up for the last miserable detour ride with John.

For the LOL crowd the bike trail took us by the shuttered Denmark plant and some Purina feed dealer that hasn’t changed signs for 50 years.  See the past is still here.

We only had one incident on the east side of Green Bay.  We needed to look at a map, take a pee break and take some cold weather clothes off. I told Mike to pull over near what looked like abandoned trucks which were across from a junk yard.  We walked behind the trucks to pee and were taking some clothes off when a 6 ft 3 40 year old guy with a nice mullet came over and started screaming at us. Mike was about 2 feet from him while he ranted at us for various things.  I can’t believe with both Mike and I there we didn’t say about 20 smart ass things we were thinking while he was screaming at us. DOTD (dick of the day) award goes to the owner of Smitty’s shitty junk yard in Green Bay. Nice Mullet, dude.