Team 2 Winona to Wonewoc WI

We woke up for an early morning in Winona MI, today was the day we officially crossed into Wisconsin, and left Minnesota for good! We crossed the Mississippi for the 5th (and last) time this trip, and followed the gps eastbound. Not 10 miles in the GPS instructed us to follow a dirt road... A pattern we had become quite weary of throughout this trip. Nonetheless, because it was marked as a state trail, we gave it a go (not that we had any other options. Before long, we were on beautiful packed dirt riding through what looked like the countryside from pride and prejudice. This path we were on ended up lasting ALL DAY. We were going to land in Mauston, WI, but decided to continue following the trail as far as we could go, which ended up being a town called Wonewoc and a campground called calapral campground - not without it's complications though. Around 11:30 am, we stopped in the cute little town of Onalaska and Audrey picked up some new tubes after a flat leaving Minneapolis (some foreshadowing for ya). We then grabbed some lunch at dairy queen while we called what felt like millions of campgrounds. Continuing on towards our original destination, we kept on the bike path. After deciding to stay on the bike path for as much of the day as we could, we came across something rather remarkable. A tunnel surrounded by geometric, layered looking rock, with the most magnificent and mystical looking MASSIVE wooden doors. Seemed straight out of a fairy tale. The first one ended up being almost a mile long, and quite ironically, it was dripping wet in the tunnel (in the place that were supposed to be sheltered). We came across two more of those mystical looking tunnels throughout the day, and thoroughly enjoyed the before and after, but not so much the in between getting drenched in total darkness. What happened next was truly unexpected. I was on the phone with my sister when I saw what looked like a cow on the bike path ahead of me. Sure enough, there was a baby cow on the path in front of me. It started bolting almost immediately as it caught my line of vision, and I raced after it as I exclaimed to my sister "THERES A BABY CALF ON THE PATH AND I THINK ITS LOST OH MY GOD JULIA I HAVE TO CHASE IT BACK HOME." Obviously, I had to hang up the phone to tend to this matter. Before I knew it the calf darted into the side brush and then the cornfield. Feeling uncomfortable with the end of that encounter, I was relieved to come across a golf cart a few minutes later who was looking for the baby. I know that was a lot of detail but I needed everyone to know that that happened. When we were about 15 miles out from camp, I noticed a storm rolling in. By 13 miles out, it was fully downpouring on us. I decided to wait up under some trees that provided minimal shelter and was met by Maura before not too long. We waited 5, 10 minutes.. where was Audrey? We tried to unlock our wet phone to call her. We get a hold of each other and hear the words you never want to hear on a bike, especially in a thunderstorm, "I got a flat." After some back and forth trying to figure out exactly where she was, I rode back to help her change it. Luckily, it stopped raining just as we pulled out the tire levers. Before long we were back on the road and sheltered in a nearby gas station in Elroy to warm up. Much to our surprise, they had lots of food including groceries! We grabbed some veggies and I had a sandwich as an appetizer. We were back on the road by 7:30 pm and had just under an hour to get to camp before sunset. We make it to the town, the sunset is beautiful and the camp store is still open. Outstanding. The camp hosts were so nice and gave us a free Reese's for dessert. Unfortunately our spot was up one last giant hill, but everything else was near perfect. I think I fell asleep within seconds of hitting my pillow. A challenging but pretty outstanding day biking in Wisconsin. Next day, onto Madison!

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