First things first - I need to pack the bike. The Caponord is a great bike for packing gear onto. Lots of places to hook straps and nets.
With the bike packed, I woke on Thursday morning to pouring rain. The forecast for Friday and Saturday was dry so I decided it was worth it to ride anyway. At 6am, I was off and heading up the tollway towards the northwest suburbs of Chicago.
The rain let up just as I passed by Volo Bog in Volo Illinois.
Further north, I encountered Glacial Park and took a small detour to check it out.
The rain returned as I continued north and approached the Wisconsin border.
I had my new touring windshield on the bike and it was great at keeping the rain off of me as long as I was moving.
Lake Geneva is usually a busy place but on this rainy day there was nothing going on.
As I continued on, I rode through Whitewater Wisconsin.
Lots of farmland up in these parts.
Along with some very empty roads.
My route took me through Juneau Wisconsin.
North of Juneau I encountered the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge and turned in to take a look.
Aside from the birds, I was the only one out there....
Back on the road, I continued north and stopped by Green Lake. It felt good to stretch my legs for a few minutes.
At around noon, I was rolling through Berlin Wisconsin and thought I might have something for lunch. I try to avoid chain restaurants when I'm out on a ride, and I find that the smallest and most out of the way places are the best. Well.... I found another one! The cheeseburger at Shepard's Drive In tasted better than I'd hoped for...
With a full stomach I got back on the road but didn't make it far before noticing a quarry with people swimming in Redgranite Wisconsin. It looked like a fun place to take the family.
I was on the home stretch to the Boy Scout camp, so no more stops for me!
With the sun now blazing, I found my destination.
After being grilled by the camp chaplain about why a biker was riding on their grounds, I found our campsite and set up my tent.
It was around 90 degrees and the humidity felt like it was at 95%, but it was time to take a short rest.
I got a lot of exercise over those couple of days. Everything was separated by hiking trails like this one, and it seemed that nothing was closer than a 10 minute walk.
The food was not too bad.
The last evening was capped off with a bonfire and skits by the boys.
On Saturday morning, we packed up camp and I was back on the road. The scoutmaster took my camping gear in his trailer, which lightened my load quite a bit. It was a perfect morning with blue skies and comfortable temperatures.
I took a slightly different route home and while the roads were great, I didn't encounter any interesting sights that called for me to pull off the road to see.
Without my GPS, rides like these wouldn't be possible for me....
Passing through Lake Geneva on a nice sunny day meant the traffic would have been awful near the lake. I elected to stay on the highway.
Passing into Illinois.
The heat and humidity were extremely high by the time I was in Illinois. My desire to get home to air conditioning was high, and my motivation to take the scenic route was very low. After crawling through terrible traffic in 98 degree temperatures, I was happy to get on the tollway and get home as quickly as possible. It was a really great ride that I wish was 10 degrees cooler!
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