The first time Jim approached me about this tour I hesitated a minute, as I'd never spent that amount of time on a bike tour before. I'd leave my wife home alone with our dog (who was starting to have some health issues) for 2-3 weeks, and all the other household chores associated with day-to-day living. But, after thinking about it a day or two, I was all in. I'd always wanted to do a tour like this one and there were no showstoppers that couldn't be addressed. On a sad note, our dog passed away before the tour started. I guess this did make it easier to for her to be on her own for that amount of time, but we sure miss our dog.
In preparation I reviewed several maps I had that provided detailed directions across most of the part of Wisconsin we rode across. Jim had done a solo tour in 2015 from Spokane, WA to Pittsburgh, PA (look here) and had access to the maps he used back then. This gave us a pretty good set of maps to tweak as needed for this tour. One should not minimize the planning and work needed to prepare. It is an interesting part of the process though.
When mentioning to others that I was planning on doing this tour, there are mostly three kinds of reactions people expressed. Here they are in the order of most to least common:
I understand all three reactions. I even understand those that cannot imagine any reason why someone would do this kind of thing. I feel the same way about climbing Mount Everest. Though, if someone told me they wanted to do that, I'd say, "go for it."
There's something that feels regenerative when you are on tour as it's possible to ignore what is going on in the rest of the world. There's a new freshness to our 'us, our bikes, and a destination' life. You leave 'normal' world and enter the excitement and challenges of 'bike tour' world. The only focus is getting to the next destination and finishing the tour. When you return, the world still has all the same problems it had when you left.
I've noticed that every year my life is exposed to more beeping. So many things beep at me these days. The oven, computer, microwave, dishwasher, mobile phone, trucks backing up - even the most recent car I purchased is constantly beeping at me. It's like there's a conspiracy to distract me from ever really focusing on anything for very long.
On this tour it was just Jim and I and a mission to focus on. We were together most of all day, everyday, for 16 days. It's a good thing that it's so easy to get along with Jim cause we spent a lot of time together. The trip is way better because we got along so well together. Having two people looking out for wrong/missed turns and other problems makes it a more pleasant ride.
Now that I'm back everyone wants to know the highlights of the tour. My top pick is Millennium Park in Downtown Chicago. It's just a cool place and the one place I wish we could have spent more time. Another highlight is the Driftless Area SE of La Crosse, WI. It's sparsely populated and a rugged hilly terrain. It's very picturesque. A third highlight is Cuyahoga Valley National Park and Valley Parkway that descends down into the Park. Valley Parkway is a smooth scenic downhill providing one of the best biking experiences I've ever had. The Bike & Hike Trail through the National Park is also a great ride.
The lowlight of the tour, for me, are the roads of western Indiana. Too many are in such poor condition that they are just hard to ride and no fun. Indiana does have some nice bike trails though.
We were fortunate to complete the tour with no bike problems. Not even a flat tire. Bike touring is still an interesting and unique way to see the countryside. I am very happy Jim talked me into riding with him. So many good times and so few bad anythings.