Leg 1, Ride 2: Madison to Jefferson

Today was our first "real" ride, long enough that we broke a sweat and stopped to rest a few times. 36 miles in 3 hours and 22 minutes. Which is certainly not fast, but not awful considering that we were on a dirt path most of the day.

We rode this same path in 2011 when we did a Minneapolis-to-Milwaukee ride. On that trip, we learned that biting horseflies can fly about 13 miles per hour. This year, no horseflies.

Although it started off a bit chilly, this ended up being a beautiful day for riding. We just barely avoided some rain that passed a couple miles south of us, and then it was sunny and mild the rest of the day.

Outside of larger cities, Wisconsin requires you to buy a day pass for $5 in order to use the state bike trails. This is really weird! The path was not paved, and wasn't particularly well-maintained. Meanwhile, there's no day-use fee for cars using any road/highway in the state. This isn't a hardship for me personally -- I'm getting $10 of value out of this. But, I mean Wisconsin kinda had a choice between charging millionaires a tiny bit more tax which they would never even notice, or making it hard for poor people to take a ride/hike. And, they apparently chose the latter. Doesn't make a ton of sense to me.

Dinner tonight was at a real Wisconsin bar/supper club! What a treat! It's everything you'd wish for: wood paneling, fresh bread with room-temperature butter, prime rib special, framed drawings of waterfowl on the walls, burly bearded men wearing "Veterans Against Trump" shirts, cash only. C'mon, that's perfect. I'm just sorry we weren't here for Friday Fish Fry.