Day twenty four

We awoke in the morning to clear skies and ideal riding weather. We discretely packed our bags and carefully exited the bushes that had given us cover for the night. Again we selected back roads to take us towards Fond du Lac. We rode making decent time eventually passing through the town of Brandon. Somewhere near there, we stopped to have a meal at a restaurant. We were ready for a major carbo loading event. The riding had been continuous and strenuous for days. We found a bar and grill that seemed to have some promise. It failed miserably. The food was greasy, unappetizing and bland. Virtually all of the patrons were morbidly obese. It was not our greatest culinary event of the trip.

Full, but not satisfied we returned to the job of making miles. We made calculations on a daily basis. We were on track to make it to State College on time with very little leeway. Our detour would add several hundred miles to the overall plan.

Fond du Lac is at the bottom of Lake Winnebago. We managed to transit the metropolitan area without incident. Now, however we were on a more traveled highway. We had to contend with more cars and trucks, though the road was wide with a proper shoulder. Eventually we made it to the town of Pipe. We found a generous campground on the shore of Lake Winnebago. It was populated with happy campers, had nice facilities and lots of lush grass to pitch the tents.

Once established with our night time set up, we ventured to an old lighthouse in the park.. As we climbed the stairs, the sun began a show that didn’t stop for at least a half hour. The colors were spectacular, the evening warm and the sense began to sink in that we were heading down the home stretch of this long journey.