Trip Log 21: GRABAAWR 2019: Day 3

Day 3: Wausau to Wisconsin Rapids
2019/06/11

Today I rode from Wausau to Wisconsin Rapids. A total of 64 miles or 119 km. I missed breakfast at the church where they were serving it so I and a father and son duo from Missouri headed out of town and stopped at a store on the way. That was actually better because I was able to get some hot gas station food that tasted pretty good under the circumstances.

The route today included a detour up Rib Mountain. To be honest, I think calling it a mountain is wishful thinking. It is more like a big hill than a mountain. But, for Wisconsin, it is the closest thing to a mountain that the state has. At the turn off point for Rib Mountain I looked at the elevation profile and saw that there was only 250 meters of climbing spread out over 3 or 4 km. It didn’t look that bad to me. But aI decided that the better part of valor was discretion and bypassed the mountain. Later, a woman who completed the detour said the grade was 9%. That is significant.

I made good time today. I reach each rest stop with time to spare. After the third rest stop I got caught in the rain again. This time I was more prepared. I brought my rain gear. I also jerry-rigged a cover more my phone so that I could leave it on my handlebars and still see while keeping it dry for the most part. The rain let up quickly and I was able to continue on. I pleased with my impromptu phone cover and my foresight to bring my raincoat with. All in all, it was a good day.

The forecast is for rain all night and day so I made the decision to sleep in the gym. I unfolded my tent to give it a chance to dry out. After I got cleaned up I took the shuttle bus into town where I did my laundry and got dinner at Arby’s. Afterwards, I popped into the Dollar Tree and bought a pair of flip flops and a small inflatable kick board. The most bizarre thing was calling up the shuttle driver to be picked up by a big yellow school bus on demand. It seemed impractical to operate a large school bus just to pick up one person but that is what happened. If I wasn’t so tired I could have easily ridden my bicycle the short distance to town.