Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
It's true that there are a lot more people around me now, and I've asked many for dir-
ections, but eager and friendly as most of them are, their advice turns out to be accurate
only about half the time.
“Sheesh,” I want to go back and say to them sometimes, “how long did you say you've
lived in this town?”
Besides, as any cyclist can tell you, people who walk and drive don't have a clue
what's important to someone on a bike.
“You're about ten minutes away,” the deli clerk said to me this afternoon about the
road I was interested in; she meant a ten-minute drive.
It also amuses (and amazes) me how often the person behind the counter at the gas
station convenience store will ring up my Gatorade and Lorna Doones, look at me in my
full bike regalia, including helmet, and ask if I filled my tank outside. It's happened a
half dozen times at least.
Still, there's a lot to be said for civilization, and in the last couple of days, as I pedaled
east from Madison and turned south in Waukesha, nearly to Milwaukee, and headed
down the west side of Lake Michigan, the town centers have been backing up on one
another. After weeks of fifty miles between stop signs, traffic lights are annoying, sure,
but there's something consoling about being in a region again where you can count on
three or four McDonald's a day and a choice of reliable motel chains, each with a guest
laundromat.
The best thing about being here in the eastern Midwest, where I went to college and
where I was a
Times
correspondent once upon a time, is that I know some of the people
here. Visiting with friends over the last couple of weeks has changed the nature of my
travels. Until recently, my journey has been a largely solo venture, with little in the way
of flesh-and-blood company to look forward to for days or even weeks at a time. I be-
came used to that, even got to enjoy the spine-stiffening self-reliance of it.
Now I may be getting used to the comfort of company again. As I approached Madis-
on the other day, my friends Chuck and Elizabeth Barnhill drove twenty-five miles north
out of the city to intercept me. They treated me to my first ButterBurger (unappetizing
name, but pretty tasty) at Culver's, a fast-food chain I was unfamiliar with; then Chuck
unloaded his bicycle from the car and we rode back together to their home. Elizabeth
ferried my saddlebags in the car (a fabulous luxury for me), Chuck supplied the route (an
even more fabulous luxury), and we had a terrific, swift ride through Wisconsin corn-
fields on a bright and beautiful day, witnessing, among other things, a mini-tornado, a
vortex of wind about thirty feet high that swirled leaves and corn husks in a mesmeriz-
ing spiral for two or three minutes as we watched, before it crossed the road toward us
and died.
