Day 13

The one unfortunate thing about doing these trips alone is that when you make a good decision, there's no one around to pat you on the back. Poor me. Oh well, guess I'll just have to do it myself! Yesterday I had stopped more that 25 miles north of where I had planned to, because it was just getting to be stupid riding at 10mph or less against the wind. But before making the final decision, I checked the weather report to see if the wind was changing the next day. And oh, did it change! With today's fancy weather information, I knew it would be from the west in the morning, shifting to the northwest later on. So I first traveled east, and then south, covering more than twice the distance I did yesterday, while still finishing at the same time (around 4:00). And more importantly, I got right back on the schedule. So nice job on stopping where you did last night Neil, good call!

Early in the morning I stopped at this Concrete Sculpture Park just south of Phillips. It's a park filled with dozens of figures, mostly humans and animals, all made out of concrete with bits of glass embedded in them. What makes it interesting is that they were all created by a Mr. Frank Smith, a man who never learned to read or write, when he was between the ages of 64 and 78. I think it's that unusual background that makes the place an internationally-known center of Folk Art, and the kind of thing where if one of his pieces (which he never sold) was to show up on the Antiques Roadshow, they'd price it at $50,000. Here's a classic Wisconsin-old-man comment on one of his own pieces: "That would be Sun Yat Sen. A China woman. Called Sun Yat Sen. I don't know what she done. I just found her in a magazine. I built that one laying down and got a truck to raise it up. I let her sit there. That's a good place for her". Ahh yes, good place for her indeed.

After going through Tomahawk, I started hitting some serious hills, actual visible hills, for the first time in the trip. On the north end of Wausau, I came to a downhill that was the steepest hill I've ever gone down. I actually took a minute scouting it out, planning places to ditch off to the side in case it started getting away from me. Turns out my brakes were good enough to hold me. If I had let it go though, I bet I would have had no problem reaching 60mph. (oh yeah, and I discovered my speedometer *does* go over 32.6mph, as I hit 42.2 a couple days ago). After that downhill, I hit the first traffic light I've seen since Escanaba, I believe, which was eight days ago.

When I had originally planned on stopping at Rib Mountain State Park, I hadn't envisioned the 1.5 mile climb to the top being my 95th mile of the day. But it wasn't too bad, a steady 6.5mph hill, which means I didn't even need to get into my lowest gear. But wow, what a view. My campsite has a giant picture window opeaning out onto Wausau, nearly 1000 feet below. At sunset I joined several others at the top of the observation tower. The skies were perfectly clear and you could see for miles and miles in all directions. One of the guys said he comes up here at sunset whenever he's in the area, and after seeing it this once, I think I'd have to do the same.