Day 35 Fond Du Lac to Manitowoc, Wisconsin 58 miles with 1599' of climbing

Today we had a fairly short day and breakfast was at 0730 and we didn't load until 0830.  The main reason we don't get an early start is the motels on the other end do not have the rooms cleaned so they keep us on the starting end for a little longer on the shorter days. 

Today started out at 62 degrees with a slight east to south east wind.  This gave us a head wind most of the day but it was not too bad with the amount of climbing we had. The roads were once again  very rural with little traffic and small rolling hills.  Once again there were fields of Corn, Soybeans and we saw wheat again, something we had not seen since South Dakota.  There were numerous wind turbines on the ridge tops, which tells you that the wind blows here most of the time.  We had only one rest stop today at mile 30 which was in a parking lot next to a McDonald's.  With the cool breeze and mild temperatures I wasn't needing to drink as much, but as always I topped the bottles off and had a lite snack and we were on the road once again.  We continued to head East North East and as we got closer to Lake Michigan you could feel the air getting cooler.  When we made the turn at mile 47.2 we were able to see the lake for the 1st time and the blue water was beautiful.  We only got to see it for a short time as we turned left and there were fields and trees blocking the view of the lake the rest of the way into Manitowoc.  When we got into town we went to the Holiday Inn where we were staying for the night and got our room keys.  They told me my room would not be ready for another hour, so we got on our bikes and went to eat lunch. 

After getting  back to lunch we checked with the front desk and the rooms were ready and they had a sign in sheet for shuttle service to the laundromat.  I got cleaned up and took my dirty cloths and 6 of us went and did team building at the Laundromat.  It was great talking about today and the ride in general and Sandy had her laptop with her and we were looking at pictures of the 34 days prior to today and the time went by quickly.  We got the shuttle van back and at 4:45PM he had rap and went to eat Dinner.  After dinner some of walked to Wall Mart and got a few items we needed and came back and I am now updating my blog.

Tomorrow we do not load luggage until 0830 and then we ride 3.5 miles to the lake and we are boarding a ferry for the 4 hour ride across Lake Michigan.  We are moving to eastern time zone and arriving in a new state tomorrow.

We are all looking forward to the cruise on the lake and just relaxing on the ride across.  When we get to the other side we will take pictures of the Welcome to Michigan sign and then ride 3.8 miles to the nights motel.