We start the day fully rested and cool with some great scenery across the mighty Mississip.  After having a couple cups of Joe, we plug in our heated jackets (they so rock), fire up the grip warmers, pull on the balaclavas, and head out on our way.  Mornings don’t get much more perfect than this one.

Now that we’ve figured out the GPS (finally), we make a beeline for the TWAT and find it right away.  Unfortunately, we can only ride the dirt about halfway before we’re forced to hit some paved roads in order to make it to our final destination for the day – Manitowish Waters and our friend Tara, who has been nice enough to let us crash at her kick ass north woods retreat.  I’m still feeling the Zen.

 

 

But an eventful day it was!  We start off feeling good and just a bit chilly -nothing too burly guys like us can’t handle – and we enjoy the incredible riding through Amish country.  One horse driven buggy after another all full of smily toothed waves and everybody’s just ok to be alive.

Today was about some weirdness.  The wildlife sightings continue as we see more bald eagles (so awesome) and wild turkeys everywhere.  Check this out.  At one point, we’re cruising along this hilly, gravel road and there’s a flock (flock? group?  collection? herd? gaggle?) of wild turkeys on the right and as we approach they start running like they’re racing us.  This is not an intelligent animal apparently, and the fact that Ben Franklin wanted them to be our country’s symbol makes me question all of his accomplishments, but I digress.  So one of these huge birds takes off – yea, flying!  I didn’t even know they could!  But this one takes off right in front of me and is flying about 15 feet from me so I do what every moron would do, I stand up and speed up a bit and just love interacting with nature and playing with this bird – until it starts dropping bombs!  I’m weaving and ducking and swearing and could swear he’s looking back with each load being dropped!  Bastard!  Ha, but he never connects and instead flumbles off to the left into the hills exhausted, but I’m sure laughing and feeling quite satisfied with himself.  I am certain I saw the fucker smile.  Beware the flying wild turkeys bomb droppers.  Coulda taken my head off.

 

 

It’s onward for us as we stop for lunch.  Once again I have made another lifelong realization – I have decided that from now on, wherever I live, I want a full-sized goose mounted in flying position above every toilet in my house.  On top of that, I’d like to put more silly sayings in place.  I love it up north.

 

 

We decide after a while that it’s time to hit the roads and take a more direct up north so that we get there before dark and the deer really start moving.  That should be no problem – we’re both packing GPS, we’re both mildly intelligent, and we have plenty of time.  We’ll get to Tara’s, go out for a nice steak dinner, and go to bed early.  No problemo.  Ah, the insanity of making plans while trekking on two wheels.  All hell breaks loose.

First, when we’re about 15 miles from Tara’s, the GPS has us take a small side road, so we head down the road, which then turns into a dirt road that has a “dead end” sign on it.  Well, being the intrepid explorers we are, we obviously ignore the sign and continue on.  What could happen?  The “road” starts to erode a bit, and the bumps start getting bigger, the holes deeper, and then the holes start to have water in them.  Should we turn around?  All we really want to do is get to Tara’s, but we’re almost halfway down this road, so we’re sorta committed.  We keep going.  Then the big puddles hit.  And they’re deep.  Really deep.  And muddy.  And slippery.  And angry.

The first few we hit too fast, and we fishtailed all over the place, but we held them up.   Then, I hit the Deep One.  Things were going ok  until I gassed it midway, and the back end went left while the front end went right and Eric was the loser in this equation as he is thrown off to the right landing full-on into two feet of water.  I am a fully submerged Eric.  I am flailing about like like I’m wrestling in jello.  I’m looking for purchase anywhere, and I can’t find it!  I finally gain some traction and get vertical.  But, the water is so deep that when I stand up to push La Gigante up, the water is coming over the tops of my boots!!  So super sweet.  It’s about 47 degrees outside (8 Celcius for my progressive friends), so I’m a bit cold.  But I manage to get the bike up myself, which was really good considering Brad is behind me doubled over laughing.  What a dick.  Tuck that one away in the memory banks.

So we continue on and find the next major puddle.  This one we were wise enough to film as I went through.  Click here to check this out:  click here beeatches.  Who’s badass?  We all know the answer.

Now, keep in mind that I’m totally soaked to the core.  My feet are swimming in my boots.  I had to dump water out when we finally arrived home.  And, this puddle was so much deeper when you’re standing in front of it sitting on top of a 600 pound beast just wanting to buck you off and laugh in your face.  She’d actually never do that.  But she thinks about it.

So, we get to the end of the road, and we’ve made it!  We feel great!  What an accomplishment!  Then, we see that the road is sort of blocked at the end by a ramp and some trees and brumble, so we hop off the bikes.  And we see that there’s water surrounding us – like there should be a bridge, but there isn’t.   The first stage is absolute denial.  Brad: so, how deep do you think that is?  Eric: Well, it’s a river.  Brad:  Yea.  Probably too deep.  Second stage is disbelief.  Brad:  Wait, we gotta do that AGAIN?  Eric:  There’s no fucking way.  Third Stage is just quiet contemplation.  Brad:  Wow.  Eric:  Yea.  Those puddles are deep.  And muddy.  Fourth stage: head down sorrow-filled acceptance.  There are no other options except living there.  Fifth stage:  Rally time.  Strap one on ladies.   Let’s do this again.  But this time, let’s do it soaking wet and going way out of our way as the dark and cold roll in.  Totally.  That way sounds way better.  Off we go.  And we nail that shit.  Can’t wait to go back.

We FINALLY make it to Tara’s beautiful spot in the north woods.  She’s got warm tea waiting, and life is good.  I immediately strip down like I’m the only one in the room and realize that there’s so much mud in shorts that it looks like I crapped my pants, which I might have.  Really hard to look cool at that point.  A hot shower fixes all, and we enjoy some good wine and snacks and then Tara takes us out on the town.

We end up eating with the owner of the Bear Lodge, which was fantastic.  My only error in judgement being that I ordered a  half rack instead of the full rack – what was I thinking?  Such a rookie mistake.

 

 

But, once again, things quickly escalate (or decay, depending upon your viewpoint, but we thought we were on top of the world), and we find ourselves at three or four different bars finding Tara knows everyone in town, and it’s all smiles and laughs and good stuff.  And of course, there’s always weirdness.  I mean, every bar should have a stuffed fox driving a snowmobile, right?

 

 

 

 

We snap some photos of ourselves.  We’re celebrating anyway!  We made it!  Well, we still have a ways to go, but we’ve made it this far.  It’s truly been an amazing adventure so far, and I haven’t even swam naked yet.  That will all change.  It has to.

And of course, the T has made the night spectacular with all the hellos we get everywhere we go – it’s like we own the place.  So of course, SOMEONE has to do a headstand on the bar!  Duh.  I pick Tara.  Think we can convince her to do that?  Tara?  Where’s Tara?  Ah, there she is.  Nice work T.  Your elbows should be a bit closer together, but pretty good form otherwise.

 

 

We finally make it home, and it’s clearly time for a nightswimming.  We head down to the water.  I find it difficult just to take my close off, but somehow manage, and start wading into the water.  I am immediately shocked at how freaking cold it is.  Holy shit.  Well, that can’t stop me, so head out.  The stars are almost overwhelming in their number.  It feels like the earth’s ceiling was dropped and I can nearly reach out and touch millions of bright little blinkers.  Wow.  Almost makes up for the full on shrivel I’m experiencing.  Poor little guys.

 

 

We finally decide it’s time to call it quits around 4 am.  What a day.  I’ll end this with the same thing Brad and Tara saw coming out of the water.  So glad Brad wasn’t packing heat – I may have been shot in the confusion of the moment…