Day 22 - Saturday September 5th

128.78 miles
8:00.21 hrs
39.5 max
16.0 avg

With my family coming down to Madison the following weekend for my brothers soccer tournament, I packed up all the essentials into my two panniers and left my trailer in Madison for my 270 mile trip home to Hudson, WI. Losing the trailer allowed me to pick up the pace and really make good time on the longer ride. The combination of decreased rolling resistance and increased aerodynamics made riding much easier. I was surprised to find that the increased height of my center of gravity did not bother me while riding.

I had strangly gotten in contact (they rarely ever answer their phones) with two of my old high school friends the previous night who currently attend Iowa State University. I asked them, with little hope of them accepting, if they wanted to go camping at La Crosse on Saturday. They were both quick to say, "Okay, sounds good", without any hesitation. I was very excited to see them and this just gave me more motivation to make it to La Crosse in good time.

I took highway 14 all the way into La Crosse and the scenery was gorgeous. I had never been up the South West side of Wisconsin and had the opportunity to ride through my mothers birth place, Viroqua, WI. After making the trek through this quadrant of WI I have a new found respect for Wisconsin's landscape. Much to my dismay I strained my left calve some time between arriving in Milwaukee (maybe at the soccer game) and leaving Madison for La Crosse. On my trip to La Crosse my calve really started acting up (about 60 miles into the ride). At this point I could not put a lot of preassure on it without some intense pain. I pushed through the pain in excitement for the night to come.

Camping that night was a ton of fun! We shared stories, played cards, grilled some burgers and brats and just joked around till 'way to late' in the morning. Even though I knew that I had a long hike ahead of me the following day, I was ok with staying up late because it had been way to long since I had seen my friends and it was only one more day of riding before I would have a week at home with my family to rest.