Minneapolis to Chicago, Day 3
Day 3
Perrot
State Park to Elroy via
several bike trails/paths
74 miles
Each morning I’m packing up wet from the intense dew.
After a Kwik Trip stop for egg rolls I finished the GRT (18
more miles) and picked up the LaCrosse River Trail (22 miles). I really had low
energy and had to power through. I thought if the Elroy-Sparta is as boring as
this it will be a long day. Got to Sparta
and ate a picnic lunch at the depot.
The Elroy-Sparta is 32 miles and the earliest rail-to-trail
conversion having been built in 1967. Since I was a teenager I’ve dreamed of
rising the Elroy-Sparta. After leaving Elroy I noticed a slight uphill. It was
interesting terrain, a slow, steady climb. I was getting excited. At the top I
saw a sign for ice cream. A guy was selling ice cream sandwiches out of his
locker freezer. We sat and chatted and he said he’d always lived next to the
tunnel. ?? He said the tunnel was nearly a mile long. I was sooo excited.
Tunnel #1 was dark with the sound of waterfalls cascading
off the rock ceiling. An old steam locomotive barreled through a series of 3
tunnels starting in the late 1800s. Emerging from the tunnel there was an
equally fabulous downhill. I did 4 miles in like 15 minutes. The trail was
altogether shady, hard compressed dirt—a dream after the first 2 days of rising
in heat. I wound my way up hill through karst topography and primordial
forests.
Comments