Wisconsin Hills

At this point in the trip, it's starting to get harder to finish this tale off. In the beginning the excitement and anticipation of reaching the western skies and its tall-tale landscape keeps stoking the fire of anticipation. Then once you're there, you can't help but be awestruck by its massive and self-imposing presence. Creativity takes a back seat and it's a just a matter of letting your thoughts drop out onto the keyboard and hope the fingers can keep up with the mind. Now with the scenery not slapping me in the face and home only a few miles away, it becomes a lot harder to try and document the final days of the journey. So if the potency of the photos or prose is lacking, now you know why. Caveat emptor.

So this day was to be pretty short. My dad and I were only looking at a 220 some mile trip up to Manitowoc today and we'd be taking one route the whole way up there. Sounded pretty easy and would be a super short day of travel.

Started off the morning crossing the ol' Mississippi again. Last time I crossed it was back in May. The fourth day of the trip. I have to laugh when I think back about that because it seems like it was forever ago.


After a few short miles on route 151 (another divided highway) I just couldn't take it any more. I had had enough four lane highway the day before and I felt like I wasn't being fair to Wisconsin. Not to mention it was pretty brisk out this morning...time to break out the heated jacket again.

A quick look of the map and a new alternate route was planned out. It was time to see the REAL Wisconsin. It was a lot nicer looking than 151.


The whole area reminded a lot of the same terrain back home. It's a lot like Central PA around here. Some flat parts with farms and then hilly terrain surrounding it.




Lots of flooding in the fields and some of the towns. There was evidence in a lot of places around the area of existing flooding or recently receded flooding. In the small town of Spring Green their town cemetery was flooded.

After scoring lunch in Columbia, we headed north out of there onto route 73. We were quickly greeted with a "Detour". We wandered around the back roads and saw some of the outskirts of some of the flooded areas. There were places where both sides of the road were being kissed by flooded fields. It was amazing where the flooding occurred. Seemingly miles away from any water source, but since there was a bowled area of land, it just sat there and rose up.

We wound our way back to 151 (the fastest approach to Manitowoc) and ripped out the last few miles there. At this point though, 151 was down to two lanes only. Sweet! All in all, what was supposed to be a 220 mile day turned into a nice 250 mile day instead. It was a good time indeed!

Tomorrow will be a short day. Our ship leaves the dock at 1:15 PM Central Time and arrives in Michigan at 6:15 PM Eastern time. Tomorrow, I'll be back in my own time zone for the first time in several weeks. Wild.

Shiver me timbers...