Thundertent!

We just arrived here about 40 minutes ago, to find that there are no showers. There never were showers. Probably never will be showers. We just assumed there’d be showers at a campground within an hour of Madison and only minutes our primary benefactors up here… Illinois folk. Anyway, bike touring without a shower is sort of worst possible scenario, but throw in an impending line of thunderstorms and that makes for one of the fastest, most chaotic camp setups ever. We bathed, kinda, behind a blind formed by our tent fly, our clothesline and my bike. 5-6 trips filling up our one collapsible water bucket at the nozzle. And I do mean collapsible, because if you don’t hold it upright it collapses and all the water drains out.

Also, apparently nobody works at these parks any more (thanks Walker), and there was no pen, and we forgot our pens, so I had to scratch our registration form with a stick like it was on a stone tablet. Also, the registration station where you have to deposit payment is about 1/2 mile from the campground. So first, bike up to campground (at the top of the giant hill), pick out site, then bike back down the hill to pay for said site.

So, two round trips for me on that front.

And don’t even get us started about yesterday’s destination — SLINGER, WI — which is apparently the intersection of every major highway in the midwest, somehow, and has not a single bike friendly road. It rains a lot there too.

Oh, and mosquitos.

But hey! We’re here, and we had a great ride today through beautiful terrain. And the rain is lightening up with plenty of time to make dinner (rotini with red sauce). We have tonic water, ice (if the camp host returns), gin and limes. We have bug spray. We have nowhere more important to be. Life is good!