Country roads, take me home....

Deciding it’s time to up the training hours even more, I figure I’ll head up to Delavan for some new and different country roads, because I’ll soon poke my eye out with a spoon if I keep riding the same roads in Huntley. Or at least new and different this year, since I rode them so much last year that I believe the good people of WI finally just went ahead and named a county after me.

I set out on my usual route – past Millie’s Pancake Haus, past Deanna’s favorite titty bar (as she likes to refer to it), etc. – but then I make the fatal error: I turn. Oh, I thought about it first, certainly, and even looked at my Garmin to see where that turn would take me – not understanding why said road wasn’t on said Garmin, until I remember that not having the special add-on “street level” map meant that it was just me riding around in a swath of cornfields as far as Garmin mapping is concerned. But Salt Box Road is a familiar one, so what can it hurt? And so.....I turn.

Naturally, 45 minutes later I find myself unexpectedly in the town of Sharon – which to me has a mythical, mystical quality to it because not only do all roads lead to it, but once you find your way there, you can apparently never leave. Somehow every single country road around here loops around in such a way that a cyclist will always unsuspectingly wind up...back in the town of Sharon. Trust me, I know of what I speak.

I’m going past Main St., when I peek down and see......a coffee shop? Hmm, it is pretty early, and a cup of coffee would be just the thing....

(45 minutes later)

With 2 cups of coffee under my belt, I leave this wonderful little emporium happily loaded down with pamphlets for the Roun’da Manure bike ride (8/16/08) that starts in Sharon, a sketched-out map on how to get back to Delavan from here drawn by a local farmer, leads on Victorian houses for sale in Sharon (which I bike past, and yes, they’re very cool), tips on growing eggplant and other veggies (lime is apparently a great soil additive – who knew?), and friendly but dire warnings about staying away from CR-K (the road I was looking for) because it’s “way way too busy”. Chucking it all and moving to Wisconsin is starting to look more than just vaguely appealing.

However, the one tiny thing that puts a slight damper on my newfound love for all things WI is that the map that Mr. Farmer drew for me, well, it’s not quite right. Because I do find Peters Rd., and it does take me to Darien, but as for meeting up with CR-X, it does not, and now I’m all turned around and unsure of which way to go. So I pick a road that seems plausible, decide if I’m going in the right general direction that’s good enough, and set off.

(1 hour later)

A sign that things are not going right would be when you’re on a road that you’ve never heard of, when you should at least recognize vaguely all of the roads because you’ve traveled them so often. Saltbox Rd., check. Brick Church Rd., sure. But Old 89? WTH? The Garmin keeps shifting perspective on me and is almost useless, though it does point out in a vague way that Delavan is somewhere up yonder, in the general direction in which I’m going. So this is the bad news, that yet again, I’m hopelessly lost.

The good news is that if I hadn’t decided to go on my little adventure, I would have missed the most excellent 12-foot fiberglass, painted ear of corn that’s occupying the space of honor in front of someone’s house (note to self: take camera next time!). Given that this is a cute departure from the usual Green Bay Packer-painted mailboxes and corn silos, I’m happy I wound up on this random road in the middle of nowhere. Even though I’ll probably die out here. A slow, painful death, empty GU wrappers tucked under my shorts leg.

A little bit later, I come across an elderly farmer who seems to be having more problems than me – he’s on a mini-tractor at the edge of his cornfield, which is basically half under water, just sitting there, tractor idle, with a hoe across his lap. I slow down – is he not feeling well? Is the tractor stuck? Perhaps I can be of assistance. So I stop and wave to get his attention.....at which point he starts up the tractor and motors closer to me, and I simultaneously realize that with me in my cycling duds and clip-cloppy shoes, I’d probably be of limited help when it comes to pushing tractors out of fields. Oops.

So I rather sheepishly admit to him that I thought he might need some assistance, and he looks rather bemused as he tells me he’s just trying to figure out how to get the water draining from his cornfield. We chat about the weather, which has sucked, and he comments on how “the people in Iowa have it a lot worse, so I can’t really complain.” Buoyed by such Midwestern stalwartness, since he's saying this as his tractor is knee-deep in water and beavers seem to be industriously building a dam across his cornfield, having mistaken it for a river, I toodle off, with his wishes to have a good ride echoing in my ears.

Eventually, I wind up at Highway 11, which I wanted to avoid because it’s pretty busy, but at least it’s familiar. Apparently I’ve done a huge loop that has taken me into the town of Delavan as opposed to out by the lake – but at least I’m no longer lost, lo these many hours later. I head back out to the lake, on CR-K, which is indeed very busy – I have at least THREE cars pass me in a 30 minute time period, as opposed to none while I was on the Farmer’s route. Madness. At least the ostriches at the ostrich farm look happy to see me, though they don’t want to race today, as they usually do. Maybe next time. A girl can dream.

The next day, I do go riding out around Huntley, and nothing untoward happens: I don't get lost, I encounter no vicious snapping turtles that I attempt to move off the road, when I ignore the "road closed" signs and forge on ahead, I'm actually able to make it across the torn-up road without falling into a gulley or getting hit by a utility truck, etc. Hmm. Clearly I'm doing something wrong here......