Lake Michigan 2023 – Day 27: Best Western, Watertown, WI

• Wednesday, August 30, 2023
• Watertown, WI
• Lodging: Best Western
• Miles: 51.1 @ 9.9 mph
• Total  Miles: 984.0
• Vertical (from Strava): 629′
• Start: 8:15am. 56°, mostly cloudy, breezy.
• End: 7:06pm. ~70°, sunny.
• Elapsed time: 10:51 (includes breakfast, lunch sitting on a sunny bridge, dinner, multiple snack stops)

Today was a really good day! You must get tired of hearing this day after day, but the weather has been fabulous, the terrain is mostly flat, and today, yet again, I had a strong tail wind all day long.

Today was very sunny, but cool (I started riding in the upper 50s & it warmed to mid 60s by lunch), so it was too cool to wear my sun shirt. (It cools too well – below 75° it is cold.) As you can see from the photo at the top, I wore my stupid looking sunhat, with the neck cover. It is very effective. I also wore sun sleeves later in the morning, when the windbreaker came off.

I left the hotel reasonably early, at 8:15, and rode across the street first to a convenience store for a bottle of Gatorade, then to the Rolling Meadows Restaurant, next door, for breakfast. The veggie omelette was extremely good.

The Rolling Meadows Restaurant.

Inside the Rolling Meadows Restaurant.

My veggie omelette.

Then it was a mile and a half to another delightful dirt path, the Wild Goose State Trail. It was 38 miles in a mostly arrow-straight line through the incredibly beautiful Horicon National Wildlife Refuge and adjacent farmers fields. And there was a tailwind the entire way!

Here are a couple more photos along the way.

Lunch was sitting on a bridge on the path, in the sunshine. It was about 68°, very pleasant.

My lunch spot.

Lunch on the bridge – PB on tortilla, almonds, Gatorade.

I sat on that bridge for an hour, and not one single person came from either direction. In fact, when I had been on the trail for 5 hours, I saw my 12th person. I counted. On all the trails & bike paths I was on today, probably 45 out of the 51 mile total, I don’t think I saw 20 people total. Amazing!

The final 10 miles of the day was on a paved path next to a busy road. The tail wind persisted. It was wonderful!

The final push.

As I was winding through the town of Watertown around 5:30, I realized I was passing several restaurants on the way to the hotel. So I stopped at Taqueria Maria’s for dinner, still a mile and a half from the hotel. The steak fajita was really good! It worked out well, since I was starving and there was nothing good to eat near the hotel.

Taqueria Maria’s in Watertown, WI.

I’m checked into a Best Western, here in Watertown. Tomorrow, it is 40 miles to a reservation at a hotel in Madison. The forecast looks great!