Author: Maja Wessels

Photo addendum

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31:15 Hint: While people are encouraged to enter, pets are generally not welcome.

We will be sorry to leave Lake Michigan tomorrow–it’s cool breezes, beautiful vistas, flat roads, and yummy ice creams, malts and fudge! All of these attributes have made the riding easier, both physically and mentally. Days of 70-90 miles in the saddle seem remarkably doable and we almost always finish by 2 pm and then have the afternoon free to relax, catch up on emails and start on the blog. We’ll see what the next few days bring. In the meantime, I wanted to share just a couple of additional photos of our ride around this Great Lake.

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We haven’t been able to find warm shower hosts recently or motels with showers so I had to hand wash a couple of things. I washed, rinsed and re-washed a jersey and a pair of shorts. This is after the second washing. Who would have thought we’d pick up so much dirt after a day on the road?

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We’ve had amazingly beautiful picnic lunch spots along Lake Michigan, such as this one today. We generally start looking for a spot to have lunch between the 50-60 mile mark, and have had no problem finding wonderful places around the lake. We’ll see how things work out tomorrow. Lunches are usually sandwiches packed from the morning breakfast or subway sandwiches.

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I admire the local communities for providing a lot of public access to the lake. This was one of many along Rt. 2–a fairly major road with pull-offs and these stairs to the water.

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A juxtaposition of the old and the new: an old cannon on Mackinaw Island from the War of 1812 and in the far distance you can see the Mackinaw Suspension Bridge finished in 1957.

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We almost always bring our bikes into the room with us. It makes for a crowded room but gives us peace of mind.

Reflections

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27:11. Hint: you can enter both of the things I’m counting.

“In organic architecture, then, it is quite impossible to consider the building as one thing, it’s furnishings another, and it’s setting and environment still another.” –Frank Lloyd Wright

As we get ready to depart Wisconsin tomorrow, we are also leaving Frank Lloyd Wright’s home state and the area in which most of the FLW buildings we will see en route are located. Charles has already described most of these in previous postings. I just want to focus on a couple of things.

First, as Charles has mentioned, FLW was a major innovator in the field of architecture, being the first to design what we now call great rooms that combined kitchens with family and dining rooms, using under floor heating, track lighting, seamless window corners, and folding doors to open whole walls to the outside. He also invented the concept of car ports and, it can be argued, was the real father of ranch houses. The way he thought about his designs as being organic and part of the environment was truly unique. I could go on and on. But what really stood out from our visits of FLW homes was how far ahead he was of his architect cohort. His designs have much more in common with modern houses being built today, 70 or 80 years later, than they did with those of the day. FLW was truly a visionary. And so were his clients. They were individualists who valued what FLW had to offer and were willing to stand out in a crowd.

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If you look closely enough, you will see one lone stalk of corn in a huge field of soy beans. The foot of the corn stalk is about an inch from the bottom of the photo and just right of center. I couldn’t help but think of the corn representing FLW, rising above his contemporaries.

We were lucky enough, on several occasions, to meet the owners or owner representatives of FLW houses that they had saved from almost certain destruction. Charles and I were so impressed with the passion that these owners brought to their homes, the precision with which they restored the structures, and their willingness to open the homes to the public. They, without exception, view what they are doing as a public service, both to the general public and their communities. We really couldn’t believe the “before” state to which some of these houses had fallen compared to the “after restoration” that we were viewing. In most cases, the restorations took years and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars over and above the purchase price for the house. In some cases, like for the Willey house, the new owners, using FLW’s original plans, finished several rooms that had never been completed by the original owners. We have so much to thank these individuals for and we look forward to keeping in touch with them.

 

Day 46 – Taliesin, Spring Green, to Beaver Dam

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25:9. Hint: every single one of you will recognize both things I’m counting.

85 miles. Rolling hills and a wrong turn at the very end that added 6 miles to the trip when we least expected them.

After a busy “rest-day” yesterday we said good-bye to Taliesin and started riding back toward our original planned route in the north. We will rejoin the Northern Tier route at Escanaba, MI where we hope to be on Tuesday. Spring Green is the most southerly point in our journey.

I have been asked several times what my expectations were for the countryside we would be riding through. I can tell you that I had no idea what eastern Montana or North Dakota would be like. I also hadn’t expected so much of our riding to be on relatively busy country highways with trucks, RVs and pickups hauling heavy loads. But today was a day much as I had imagined we might be having.

It was almost a picture perfect day. It started out cool — we actually had to put jackets on — and the fog was lifting picturesquely over the pond at Taliesin and the Wisconsin River as we started our ride at 6:45 am.

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It was a little chilly when we started today.

 

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And the fog was lifting over the water of both the pond at Taliesin

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and the Wisconsin River just around the corner

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This looks kind of spooky but the weather clearly up shortly after this photo was taken.

The fog quickly lifted and soon we were riding under crystal clear skies that turned partly cloudy toward the late afternoon with beautiful, fair weather cumulus clouds. The temps maxed out at about 90 degrees, but it never really felt too hot.

For the most part we were riding on quiet back-country roads imaginatively named County Road T or V or S with a couple of Mueller or Lange roads thrown in. There was little traffic, which was good since most of the roads had no shoulders. With the exception of some stretches that had annoying expansion joints, the riding was smooth and enjoyable. There were rolling hills for the whole day, with as many downs as ups so we got to coast as much as we climbed. The wind was calmish and coming from the south, so we enjoyed a slight tailwind during parts of our day as we zig-zagged first north then east then back to north, etc. for the day. It was fun to switch it up a bit, rather than being on the same road all day long.

I found the scenery today very, well, scenic. We were riding through lots and lots of corn already silking out, wheat that is very heavy on the stalk and about ready to be harvested, some soy beans, and hay that was being turned as we biked by, enveloping us in its aroma. Some of the corn fields were bordered by beautiful wild flowers including corn flowers, Queen Anne’s lace, Black-eyed Susans and alfalfa. As we biked I was thinking that with the addition of some vineyards, this area could be sold as the American Tuscany. We even saw some sunflowers!

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The scenery today reminded me of Tuscany

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Lots of corn with beautiful farms and dairies. We saw many fields with lone oaks in the middle. I was so happy to see that the farmers took the time and effort to plant around these gorgeous, old trees. Many of the fields were bordered by beautiful wild flowers.

We also passed numerous dairies. The area seems much more financially stable than some other parts of the US we’ve biked through. The farms are well maintained and beautiful and I think we passed only one establishment that was permanently closed. Interestingly, even though we were still biking in the country, we saw folks walking their dogs, a couple of joggers, and some cyclists out for day rides. Maybe this is more of a function of today being a Saturday, but I think it also has to do with the area not being dedicated 100% to agriculture.

We were entertained for a bit by a barn cat and her romping kittens and saw the usual numerous bird populations: herons, geese, ducks and songbirds. We also saw the saddest thing on our trip to date: a poor chipmunk pulling itself across the road by its front legs; its back legs were dragging behind it. It must have just gotten clipped by a car. Heart breaking.

We had lunch in the shadow of a quite large Catholic Church, St. Joseph, and passed a historic one-room school on the way.

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We saw the steeple of this church for miles, but weren’t 100% certain whether it was a steeple or the tip of a pine tree.

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Our scenic luncheon stop. We had picked up a sandwich at Subway on the way, which was a good think because we would have gone hungry had we relied on restaurants or groceries after the Subway. The next opportunity for food was at our destination of Beaver Dam.

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Historic one-room school house.

The neighborhoods of the two towns we rode through were also very picturesque and upscale and included a few old Victorian houses.

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One of the Victorians we rode past.

All in all, it was a perfect day for a bike ride and the scenery was enjoyable and interesting. The only downside came at the end when we turned right instead of left just a few miles from our destination for the day. By the time we realized what we had done, we had biked three miles into a head wind. So we turned around and biked seven miles to our motel in Beaver Dam, this time with a tail wind. When we got here we were pretty well pooped. So we took showers and then had chocolate malts at a family restaurant next door. We look forward to dinner at a neighboring sports bar and catching up on emails and reading. We continue to follow the news from Turkey. Luckily, Stuart has not personally experienced any hardship associated with the attempted coup and the meetings he was there to attend will continue tomorrow after a break today.

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A word of encouragement en route.

Wisconsinites

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20:6.  I’m surprised by how many more of the one thing I’m counting there are than the other and also by how low both numbers are given that we’ve covered over 2,000 miles.

We are spending the night in Pepin, Wisconsin, a wonderful little lakeside town.  In fact, we had the best dinner of our trip so far at a restaurant called Harbor View Cafe. I would highly recommend it to anyone who is in this neck of the woods.

Also of interest is that Laura Ingalls Wilder, the author of Little House on the Prairie, was born just 6 miles north of here in February 1867, 4 months before Frank Lloyd Wright was born, also in Wisconsin–in Richland Center–about 120 miles or so from here.  Laura became a school teacher at age 16 and was married at age 18.  She didn’t start writing until age 65 and was surprised at how popular her books were.  She continued writing until her death in 1957 at age 90.

As I was reading the historic marker about Laura and realized that she was born the same year as Frank Lloyd Wright, I couldn’t help but compare her with him. There were certainly many similarities from the start-both were born in the same year in Wisconsin, not far apart, and both were from families of limited means but which were very focused on education.  Interestingly, neither had formal training in their field of success. Frank never went to architecture school and Laura never graduated from high school.  Both were also very successful late in their careers. While Frank had had major successes throughout his career, he also reinvented himself several times over the course of his life. For example, he started thinking about and planning the Guggenheim Museum–considered to be one of his masterpieces–about the same time as Laura began writing her books at age 65 and the building was completed in 1959, the year of Wright’s death at age 91.

Of course, there were also significant differences in their personalities.  Laura was very surprised that anyone would be interested in reading her books, since she didn’t consider herself a writer and was not particularly well educated even though she had been a teacher.  Frank, on the other hand, was supremely self-confident, bordering on arrogant, and once suggested that he could rebuild the nation in an interview with Mike Wallace.  I wonder what they thought of each other.  They were quite famous, so I imagine they knew of each other and their common backgrounds. It’s interesting to ponder…

Singing the praises of warm showers

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18:6  OK.  You all have not been guessing what these numbers mean. So I’m going to start giving you hints.  Remember, the winner gets a Frank Lloyd Wright design phone cover.

Hint # 1:  the numbers compare two different things.  They increase more rapidly in larger towns/cities.

I have been asked by some to provide a little more info on our Warm Showers hosts and experiences so here goes (sorry, no great photos).

As you know from our previous postings, our warm showers experiences have been 100% positive from a purely people perspective.  Our hosts have been welcoming, generous and warm.  So it will come as no surprise that most of them are in service related jobs, or were before they retired.  Hosts have included teachers, social workers (addiction, child welfare, parental instruction), physicians, hospital technicians, government workers (Federal, State and City).  In fact, we have had only one host that hasn’t fit into the service-related category in some way.  Many are active Christians and believe strongly in being generous towards others.  Most, but not all, had some level of cycling experience.

Our routine when we arrive is to be shown our room (we spent the night in a tent at one warm showers location) where we drop our gear.  We then take a shower, which makes us feel human again, and if we need to, do a laundry.  We then get together with our hosts to get acquainted and then generally have dinner together.  Sometimes we help.  Most often we are ordered to just relax.  Dinners have been without exception fabulous!  Pasta is generally the meal of preference, but we have had chili, bento boxes, and chicken with quinoa (which we actually fixed for one of our hosts who had had a long day).  We tend to turn in pretty early and get up at 6 am to be on the road by 7 am.  Our hosts have also treated us to yummy breakfasts–often including pancakes!  I am a pancake convert.  At home I eat oatmeal pretty much every day for breakfast but have only had oatmeal once since we’ve been on our journey.

Homes have ranged from farm houses, to lake houses, to apartments, to subdivision homes, to city homes, to houses in the middle of nowhere.  Everyone of them has been a unique slice of America and has offered us insights into the American experience.

Our dinner conversations have been the best part of our warm shower travels.  We have learned so much!

Three of our hosts have been involved in animal husbandry.  We could have talked about that all day long.  John and Mary raised Angus cattle, principally to sell the bulls and calves or to use the Bulls as breed stock. The day we were there, they had just finished the long and arduous process of artificially inseminating their cows.  Once that was done, they would also cover the cows with visits from live bulls, just to improve the chances of insemination.  The plan is that cows will give birth more or less at the same time, making life very hectic around calving time, but also improving predictability.  Insemination is done in the field with the cattle being rounded up on horseback and herded into enclosures. Andrew and Gretchen’s family raise turkeys and have done so for generations.  We had no idea that Minnesota is one of the biggest turkey states in the country.  They also focus on selling the offspring, rather than the meat.  In this case, they sell fertilized eggs and Gretchen spent some time for a couple of years gathering eggs from the nests, which involves lifting the turkeys off their nests and reaching in for the eggs.  There are several shifts of egg thieves every day and thousands of birds.  Amazing and incredibly hard work, I imagine.  Lifting one turkey from the freezer to the counter is about all I can handle!  And Jason’s family has been raising bees for five generations.  If they didn’t move the bees from California, where they pollinate almond trees, to North Dakota every year, they would have to feed the bees because there’s not enough pollen in California during the summer for the bees to survive.   Jason also said that his grandfather didn’t have to worry about all the diseases and hive collapse that bee keepers face today.  They lose about 50% of their hives every year, but they have enough hives that they can split to make up for the loss.  Smaller bee keepers have a much more difficult time.  We tasted some of their product, and it was yummy!

Bonnie and her husband Jeff have opened their house to others for years.  They live in an area that, until recently, had a baseball team that played in the league for college players to improve their skills during the summer–like the Cape Cod league and they have housed numerous players over the years.  Consequently, they know and have kept in touch with several pro baseball players.  Keeping in touch includes calling them for every home run and sending them home made chocolate chip cookies every year on their birthdays. Unfortunately, the team recently went belly up, but the upside for us was that Bonnie and Jeff are now warm showers hosts to fill some of the void. They also own a lakeside resort in Minnesota that they run on the honor system. You leave a check to cover your stay when you leave. Isn’t that wonderful? And they’ve never had a problem.

Ron and Joyce both had very challenging and rewarding careers in working with drug addicts and child services. They spent the evening after dinner with us driving us around Bismarck and being incredible tour guides. This was way above and beyond, but clearly they also enjoyed it so we didn’t feel too guilty. It was so nice to see things that we normally would not have from our bikes and to do it from the comfort of a car.

Joel was a man after Charles’ heart–a baseball fanatic, albeit a Cubs fan. So he and Charles talked for hours while I went downstairs and read. A rewarding evening for all involved 😉.

And of course we have always learned about the local environment, politics, and life in general.

I could go on and on, but won’t bore you. We can’t wait to get back home and become hosts ourselves. Phoenix is on the Southern cross-country route, so we’re hoping to be able to reciprocate in some small way for all of the hospitality we’ve received. If you’re interest, search for warm showers and you’ll find everything you need to know.

 

Frank Lloyd Wright

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As we’ve been biking and reading some of the historic markers along the roads, I’ve been thinking about how old Frank Lloyd Wright was during these events and how he might have thought about them as a child or young adult.  He was born on June 8, 1867 and we and lots of other organizations and institutions, including MOMA, will be celebrating his 150th birthday next year. It was fun to try to put myself in his shoes and imagine what I would have thought about some of the following events at his age. Newsworthy events included battles between Native Americans and US troops and the subsequent promises of reservations, discoveries of gold, the expansion of the railroad into and across western states and statehood.

We haven’t seen a lot of FLW designed structures so far, but hope to see the Willey House in Minneapolis next week and will be biking to Taliesin in Spring Green Wisconsin toward the middle of the month.  There’s no doubt that the times in which FLW was living influenced his thinking about buildings and architecture and I look forward to visiting his works with a new perspective gained from our ride.

WASHINGTON

  • Washington statehood in 1889.  FLW was 22 years old.  All in all, FLW witnessed the creation of 12 states during his lifetime, from Colorado to Alaska.  His death preceded Hawaii’s statehood by 4 months.
  • Klondike Gold Rush in 1897-99.  FLW was in his early 30s and was probably too well established by that time to be tempted.  But who knows?

IDAHO

  • Population. When FLW was 3, Idaho’s population was 18,999 and there was a mini gold rush going on.
  • 1870s.  Throughout the 1870s, when FLW was a boy, numerous Indian Reservations were established in Idaho and the railroad first entered the state, a momentous occasion in any of the western states’ histories.
  • Statehood.  Of the four states we’ve biked through to date, Idaho was the last to become a state in 1890.

MONTANA

  • Yellowstone.  In 1872, when FLW was just 5, Congress created Yellowstone National Park.
  • Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce Indians retreated across Montana in 1877 after their surrender at Bear’s Paw Mountain.
  • Railroad.  The railroad entered Montana in 1880.
  • Statehood.  On Nov. 8, 1889, Montana became the country’s 41st state.

NORTH DAKOTA

  • Custer’s last stand on June 25, 1876.  FLW would have just turned 9, an age when boys and girls were playing Cowboys and Indians when I was growing up.  At age 70 he was finding Native American petroglyphs at Taliesin West and giving them prominence in his new home in Scottsdale, Arizona.
  • Statehood in 1889.  North Dakota entered the Union as a State on Nov. 2, 1889 when FLW was 22.  In the intervening years the State had welcomed thousands of homesteaders and the railroad, which was a constant companion during our ride, entered the state.

 

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

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HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY TO ONE AND ALL!

14:4

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Yesterday was possibly the most uncomfortable day of our whole trip and it had nothing to do with our biking.  As you know from previous blogs, our Warm Shower stays have been some of our best experiences on our trip.  Our hosts have been welcoming, interesting and interested, friendly, informative and the places in which we have stayed have been more than acceptable.

Yesterday, unfortunately, was the exception.  We rode into Moorhouse, MN expecting to spend yesterday night and the night of the 4th with warm shower hosts–enjoying what we hoped was going to be a well deserved and fun day off on the Fourth of July.  We arrived at the home of our hosts, who were very welcoming although we later realized not terribly interested.  It seems they make a habit of inviting people they don’t know or barely know into their home.  The abode was all but unlivable–perhaps the inevitable result of housing 5 cats, 3 dogs and 5 humans in a small space.  We were allocated a small area–to call it a room is to glorify it– in an unfinished and moldy basement. The shower and toilet there hadn’t been cleaned in months even though an acquaintance who was living in an RV in their driveway has been using the facilities. The washing machine emptied onto the floor.  The room we were in was filthy and claustrophobic as was the rest of the house–dirty dishes, dirty counters, dirty bathroom, etc.  We should have just turned around and walked out, but we decided to grin and bear it because we didn’t want to offend our hosts, but did shorten our stay and left this morning.  At about 1:30 am, when I woke up feeling as though I couldn’t breath, I almost woke Charles up to suggest that we just leave.  It was truly an uncomfortable situation.  It was an adventure of a sort, but one we hope not to repeat.

It was wonderful to get out this morning and ride in the fresh air and clean countryside.  Tomorrow will be a very short ride–16 miles or so–and we hope that today’s short ride and tomorrow’s will equate to a day off.

Onward and upward!

Musings (6)

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9:2

I wonder when men stopped taking their hats off indoors?  It seems that every table in every restaurant we’ve eaten in has at least one man with a baseball cap on.  Why is that?  So it was refreshing, at the Medora Musical last night, when all the men took off their hats as we all stood to the song:  I’m Proud to be an American.  Charles will have written more in his posting, but it was a fun evening.

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The flags were whipping at the Medora Musical!  We were worried that our tent would be gone by the time we got back to the campground, given the high winds, but it hadn’t budged in our absence

And again we’ve had some great people experiences.  As we were walking the couple of miles uphill to the Medora Musical, a couple in a car offered us a ride up.  They also said they would drive us back down afterwards if we didn’t want to walk.  And as we were waiting for the parking lot to clear out after the Musical, they asked if we wanted to spend the night at their house in Dickinson where we planned to be the following night. How nice was that?  Unfortunately, Charles had already paid for a motel room, so we had to decline.  But we really appreciated their offer of hospitality.  How often would any of that happen in Phoenix, Washington, Brussels or wherever you live?  Or, when was the last time you asked a stranger into your home?  Then yesterday, on our ride into town, we stopped by a truck selling cherries from Washington State.  The owner, who said he had also done some distance biking (in Uganda and Japan of all places), said that cherries for cyclists were free and we walked away, or rather cycled away, with a pound of incredibly delicious cherries.  There isn’t a day that goes by without some unexpected kindness from a total stranger.

One of the things that we end up paying attention to as we’re biking along is street names.  The other day we passed a street called Do Drop In.  Really!  Today, in the middle of nowhere North Dakota we passed the below street:

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The intersection of 36th St and 134th Avenue!

I guess my East coast sensibilities still have me thinking of Avenues as something grand, not country dirt roads.  A couple of “blocks” later we saw 132 1/2 R Avenue.  Funny.

One of the things I love about this trip is that we get to see, close up, states we’ve never even been in before and, in the case of North Dakota, states we haven’t ever known anyone from.  Now we’ve seen thousands of North Dakotans and met a lot.  My expectations were for a state that was boring, flat, non-descript.  It has been anything but.  Very beautiful countryside and incredibly varied, from fields of rye and clover, to the gorgeous, albeit somewhat desolate, Painted Canyon, to the Bad Lands and rolling hills.  And while the population is pretty monochromatic, we had a really good Mexican dinner last night, right next to our motel.  It rivals Mexican dinners we’ve had in Arizona.  We also saw our first oil well of the trip here.

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Our first oil well on the outskirts of Dickinson, ND

Later on we saw one in Dickinson in the middle of a residential area…

Today is my birthday.  We’re celebrating with a leisurely moving, a day full of errands and a short ride to our final destination of Richardton where our warm showers host will be waiting for us.

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The Medora Musical stage in the middle of the Badlands.

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Song and dance at the Medora Musical.  What an amazing setting!

 

Musings (5)

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8:1

Well, I’m officially over feeling sorry for myself and full into feeling sorry for the Brits and the EU.  Condolences to all of our British friends in Brussels.  What a depressing outcome.  Brexit leaders are already admitting that they exaggerated (read:  lied about) the advantages of leaving the EU and the downsides of staying.  Brady just texted that the most googled question in the UK now is “What is the EU?”  Truth…

As I was riding today (much better on all fronts) I was thinking about how all of our senses play a much bigger role when we’re outside on our bikes, but particularly our sense of smell.  Obviously, through our photos we’re sharing what we see.  But we can’t really share what we hear, smell or feel.  For the most part, our ears are filled with the sounds of passing cars, trucks and semis and trains.  We’ve gotten quite good at identifying what’s coming up behind us. But we also hear a lot of birds–many of which are new to us.  Smells on the road are numerous.  In Washington and Idaho we smelled a lot of pine, especially when trucks carrying logs came whizzing but, but also as we traveled through forests and past lumber mills.  The smell of decaying carcasses is a frequent one, even when we can’t see the dead animals.  The odor of skunk is one that hits us quite often.  Over the past two days we’ve biked past road crews cutting grasses along the edge of the freeways, so the smell of freshly mowed grass and sweet alfalfa accompanies us.  We also smell cattle, horses and manure.  And every once in a while we’ll smell what someone’s cooking for breakfast or dinner (if we’re on the road that late, which is not that often).  For me, the smells along the road have become an interesting and enjoyable part of my ride.

Believe it or not, now that we’ve turned off the hi-line and the neighboring BNSF railroad tracks, I find that I actually miss seeing the trains, counting the cars as the trains pass, and listening the the train whistles and the sounds the cars make as they pass us buy.  We did ride next to an abandoned track today.  Quite scenic…

We’re still enjoying ourselves most of the time.  I realize that the worst thing for me is a headwind.  I’ll just have to make sure I mentally prepare myself better for days that I know are going to include a headwind.  Luckily, tomorrow we’re supposed to have a very strong tailwind and I’m getting a massage in Medora.  Yippee!

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Nature taking over an abandoned railway line

Musings (4)

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Dies horribilis:  Wind, hills and more wind.  Some marital strife.  Landscape was pretty, but monotonous.  Today was the Brexit vote.  I hope the stay voters win so I don’t have to stop feeling sorry for myself and start feeling sorry for the UK and EU.  I guess we’ll know the results tomorrow.

We rode through only one little town called Vida.  It had a post office, two churches and a bar.  Interesting combination.

Today we rode past several crude billboards with anti-meth messages.  Meth is quite a scourge in the more rural areas of the country, and Montana is no exception.  According to some of our warm showers hosts, it’s a particular problem on the Reservations.  It’s so sad.  Hope to be more upbeat over the coming days. 🙂

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One of the meth-related signs we’ve seen.  Another showed a mirror reflection of a skeleton head saying something like “The true reflection of meth.”