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Green Bay is a nightmare. The city is incredibly unfriendly to bikes, and a haven for yuppies. That said, I made the most of it. The ride in and out requires time on a busy 4 lane highway. I got into town and stopped in at a cafe recomended to me and a really nice barissta bought me an awesome sandwhich, and a phone number for a place to stay. I headed out and called the number and got a place to crash. When I started heading for it I ran into a guy with a backpack full of food, which he shared with me. We sat on a park bench trading food and stories. He mistankingly thought I was going to be in Green Bay for some time, and filled me in on he local shelter and how to get food stamps easy. It was an awkward comeradery that I came across alot on my trip. People generally like helping other people and get really excited when someone asks them about things that they can answer. I know thats a bold statement, but it's the same rush you get from giving people directions, or pick up a turtle and move it across the street. You are putting things in there place, and it feels good. If it didn't I never would have been able to do this trip the way I did it. I got to the place I was staying, which was a 30 something year old, raw foodists house. We sat and talked for a while and I headed out to go see Green Bay. Downtown Green Bay was a bore, not a whole lot, I layed down in a park and fell asleep untill a bunch of kids showed up and woke me up. I rode to Lambeau Field and walked around it aimlessly and unimpressed. Heading back downtown the first signs of trouble emerged. My right pedal began to unthread, I wasn't paying attention and ovaled out the crank arm a bit. I found an auto parts store, bought some thread locker, and fixed everything the best I could. I parked my bike and walked around downtown again. By then a very dissapointing farmers market had started so I wandered around looking at the boothes, and talking to people. GB's farmers market has nothing on ECs. I saw this really awesome bike that had originally been a girls frame, but was cut apart and re-welded with angle iron to make it standard. The seat tube and angle were subsequently raised a ton. It was probobly the best bike I saw in Green Bay. I headed back to the house and there was raw-food spaghetti there waiting for me. It was good, but I could only think about how much better it would taste heated, or even with bread. But food is food, and I'm not above eating it cold. We stayed up talking about travel, and food, and spirituality. I couldn't help but feel accused by her. Not by her words, but the life she lived. When someone choses to make their own life seem like something that is grandeous down to the food that they eat, it alienates those around them. The moment you judge someone solely because of what they do or do not put into their body I lose alot of respect for you.

I went to sleep and woke up to rain. The plan was to put on a ton of miles and make it to Wausau on this bike trail I was told was really nice. I rode out on a freeway, got lost in some small town, and eventually found the trail. It was nice hard packed gravel for a long time. The fog all around me made me feel like I wasnt acctually going anywhere, and if it wern't for mile markes, and the ocasional street crossing I probobly would have gone nuts. About 20 miles out trouble started again. The pedal began to unthread again and again. I was pulling over eevry few miles to tighten it up, and make sure it wasn't cross threading.

Then the trail turned into shit. It was no longer a bike and hiking trail, but it was also open to ATVs and horses. The gravel was soft from the rain, and there were puddles, and long stretches of road that had turned to mud. The fog and humidity got worse. The threadlocker failed. My pedal fell off. Despite my best efforts to keep it together for the rest of the ride home the crank had cross threaded and I was fucked. I tried to fiogure things out for about 45 minutes while misquitoes bit at me and it began to drizzle. I gave in and called my dad to meet me outside of Wausau and pick me up.
Thus the end. A couple hours in a car and Im done. I went to my dads house and the next day I rode into EC along the trail. It's funny how quickly and easily a car can do what takes so much effort on a bike or foot. I guess it's good and bad. Good for the obvious reasons, but on my bike I would have met people in all those town that you don't even see from the freeway. The freeway detatches you from everythign around you. All that is important is the road in front of you, not all of the towns your blowing through and all the people you will never meet. You can see the tree line, and the sky, but you can't smell the air or feel the breeze. You are a chunk of steel, nothing more. So then that leaves the big question. What am I doing back already, and why did I turn around? 60 miles from Michigan, and I would at least be able to say I did that and I turn around? I guess the answer is simple, I was done. The appeal of Canada and Michigan was that I would have alot more time to get away from the things going around me and have a chance to do some "soul searching". When I was in Kewaunee at the hotel I pulled out my atlas to look over all the possible roads I could take to all of the places I could go. I realized that I had calmed down so much and grown alot in just a week. It's empowering to do a big ride by yourself. To realize that sometimes you can survive with just whats on your bike, and you don't need any of the crap that they try to sell you on tv. You don't even need an expensive bike and equipment. It's awesome to see what you can do on something you made yourself from junk, and hand me down equipment. I realized that the miles weren't really that relevent and the destinations were equally irrelevant at that point. Riding to Michigan would not have been for me, it would have been done simply to say I did it. All of the things I would see along the way would have been so much better with company that wasn't there. I missed home, and thought about all of the things I had seen people doing on the road that I wanted to happen in Eau Claire now. Green Bay was kind of the straw that broke the camels back. Green Bay is a city bigger than Eau Claire, with much more tourism, and money in it. Yet it didn't have so many of the things that I see in EC or even some of the small towns I passed through. Sooner or later we all leave places we love. It might be temproary or permanent, but it happens. The important thing is that where ever we are we try to make it somewhere worth being. Riding into Eau Claire never felt so good. Knowing that that was my home, and how many new ideas and things I wanted to try made me realized that I had gone just far enough to do what I needed.

Anyway, in the next few days I'll be writing up a bunch of tips I learned for touring on the cheap. I'm proud that I made it on such a low budget and I want to share the things I learned.

Last night was a really long really good ride. Hit Eau Claire at like 1 in the morning and headed to the joynt for a night cap. Tomorrow is the outdoor festivle of the arts at pheonix park. It should be really fun. Dan and I are going to be down there all day with a bunch of bikes so come check it out.