bikes shoorams

Which is all to say...DONE! Yep, I finished! Somewhere around 4300 miles, 12 states, and two Canadian Provinces.   I'm glad to be done. I think the weather has been telling me it's time. It was pretty cold again this morning. In fact, I rode in my long sleeve shirt the entire day (okay, I could have taken it off toward the end).   My concern about the Gandy Dancer Trail did not materialize. I did the trail, but did not see another soul. Gandy Dancer Trail It's funny--Wisconsin charges to ride their unpaved paths, and there is no one on them. Minnesota, on the other hand, paves their paths, and charges nothing to ride them. There are tons of people riding the Minnesota paths. Hmmm...of course, that's just my limited observations.   I had one final second breakfast in Osceola, Wisconsin, just before crossing the St. Croix River into Minnesota. The Belgian waffles were pretty good.    I was pretty lucky because the St. Croix Bridge is due to close on September 11....

Yes, I definitely think I have left the Northwoods of Wisconsin behind. It was back to farm land today, including the occasional dairy farm. At least the roads continued to be rolling, giving me one of my higher average speeds of the trip at 10.7 mph.   Fall really seems to be in the air. While it is sunny with no clouds, it's not terribly warm. In fact, it's downright cold in the morning. It was in the low 50s this morning--brrrr!   I finished riding along Chetac Lake. Chetac Lake It seems most of these lakes, even if they are pretty big, are mostly for fishing. I have not seen any waterskiing, nor jet skis either. Maybe they have a rule about speed and noise??? A guy yesterday told me this area is mostly about tourism. I could see that by the number of lodges and boat rental places I've ridden by.   The biggest town I went through today was Cumberland. I stopped at a cafe and had breakfast for lunch. Generally, I'm more a fan of link sausage than sausage patties, but ...