Note: Scott wrote A Summer Adventure for his sophomore English class. He and Eddie were 14 at the time of the trip. David was 13 and Tom was 15.

A Summer Adventure

Sometime last winter Tom Klamm had a pretty nutty idea, at least I thought it was a nutty idea. He envisioned a 380 mile trip by bicycle. He had it all planned out. There would be from eight to ten of us leaving on June 21, 1971. Maps in hand, Tom would lead us up a preplanned route that would use only country roads and secondary highways to lead us up to Elsen's summer lodge in Three Lakes, Wisconsin.

A couple of weeks before the trip, people began backing out until there was only four of us left, Tom, David, Eddie and myself. Together the four of us would attempt the journey.

To get us there, we needed maps so Tom ordered county maps of all the counties we would go through. They cost 25 cents a piece. For thirteen counties it cost $3.25. We also needed tools, first aid equipment, spare parts, and last but not least, money. The tools, spare parts and first aid supplies were readily available at home, but the money wasn't. We all had some money, enough to make the trip on, but we wanted some emergency money, just in case. Tom, Eddie, and I got emergency money from our parents. The money was no problem.

The morning we left was a cool, dark and clear morning. I left at three-thirty a.m. and went to the Klamms to eat breakfast. My bike felt awkward with the extra weight of two saddle bags and a sleeping bag strapped to the carrier on the back of my bike. I found I couldn't turn as sharp nor accelerate as quickly as I usually could.

When I got to the Klamms, Mr. and Mrs. Klamm were already up. Mrs. Klamm was making breakfast and Mr. Klamm was looking over Tom's bike and making last minute packing adjustments. Tom's stuff was packed in a plastic bag strapped to his carrier and a backpack. After we finished our breakfast of bacon and eggs, the Klamms wished us good luck and we went over to Eddie's house. Eddie was almost ready to go. His stuff was strapped to his carrier and he also had a backpack. Before we left Eddie's Dad had to take some pictures. We stood in the street and he took the pictures by the light of the street light at four in the morning.

After he took the pictures we departed for the Elsen's to pick up David. When we got there he was cooking his eggs. He has eggs almost every morning. He brought along sixteen hard boiled eggs and a variety pack of cereal to eat on the trip. David's stuff was stuffed, and I mean stuffed, into a garbage bag liner and roped to the carrier on the back of his three speed. It blobbed and bulged all over the back of his bike sometimes rubbing the tire or clicking in the spokes.

The real journey began when we left Evanston about 4:30 a.m. We rode down the middle of all the busy streets all the way to Highwood, where we began to encounter traffic. Everything was going smoothly until we hit North Chicago and Waukegan during rush hour. We continued to stay on the road and let the cars pass us until a purple Dodge Challenger whizzed by us at about sixty miles per hour and missed us all by about only six inches. After that we rode on the shoulder until the traffic cleared up.

We arrived in Antioch, Illinois at about nine a.m. and had our second breakfast. We were making good time, four and a half hours to go approximately fifty miles, an average of eleven miles per hour. We left Antioch on Route 83 and soon thereafter crossed into Wisconsin. This was the farthest any of us had ever ridden our bikes. We had just made it to the Wisconsin border on a shorter previous trip.

When we hit the first flat farm lands, we suddenly made the realization that it was a very hot day. The blazing sun was scorching us as we pedaled our way to South Kettle Moraine State Park. We planned to spend the night there. Being as hot as it was I took my shirt off for a little while to get a tan. A couple of days later I felt the effects of my "tan". We also got very thirsty. Tom, Eddie and I all had water bottles on our bikes. We would all give David drinks whenever he wanted them. We had started out with lemonade in the bottles but when that ran out we had to find some where to fill up with water. One stop, around one o'clock, the hottest part of the day, we stopped at a gas station to fill up. Under an eave on the station there was a thermometer. It read ninety-six degrees. If it was ninety-six degrees in the shade, you can imagine what it was like pedaling through the open farmlands on asphalt roadways.

We all sweated a lot, but Tom and Eddie sweated more because they had backpacks on. When they took them off they had big wet spots on their backs. David and I were sure glad that we didn't take backpacks. We stopped for lunch in a town called Rochester and bought some snacks. Then we sat down in front of the store and ate. We tried some of the water from a nearby pump but it tasted terrible. I wouldn't feed it to a dog. Tom dumped some of the water on the seat of his bike to cool it off before we left the town.

After checking the maps we discovered we did not have too much farther to go. We arrived in Eagle, Wisconsin around four-fifteen. Eagle is about five miles from Kettle Moraine campgrounds. Tom called home to let his Mom know that we had made it safe and sound. His Mom would call our moms to let them know we were OK. We then decided on what we should get for dinner. We bought hot dogs, milk, and some more lemonade. The five miles to Kettle Moraine went pretty fast, but not fast enough to keep the milk cold.

The man at the gate was very nice and he said that since he had run out of camping permits he would let us stay for free, thereby saving us three dollars. The first thing we did was to set up our tents. They were blue and orange two-man tents that could fit three or four. We had two tents so we had plenty of room in both of them. We then went to the woods to look for some wood for dinner. I mean for a fire to cook our hot dogs on. After we had eaten our burnt hot dogs and warm milk and devoured a few hard boiled eggs, we relaxed and talked about how far we had traveled. We had traveled about 110 miles and we did it in twelve hours, give or take a few minutes. Before retiring for the night we all went over to the washroom facilities and took a shower. Boy, did it feel good! After the shower we locked our bikes and crawled into our tents. Eddie and I slept in one and Tom and David in the other. It didn't take long for us to fall asleep.

We poked our heads out of the tents around 7:30 in the morning. The sun was already shining brightly. It looked like another hot day. We all had our No. 1 breakfast consisting of hard boiled eggs, dry cereal, and lemonade. After breakfast we packed up and left. We would stop later to have a good breakfast in Oconomowoc. It wasn't too far from the campgrounds so it didn't take us too long to get there. We had bacon, eggs, pancakes and all that goes with it. It really filled us up.

It was another hot day and it was especially tiring because we had to go up and down, mostly up, a lot of hills. We had to walk our bikes up some of them. It was today that one of the most unusual things happened. We were just riding along up and down the hills when at the top of one hill there was a house blocking the road. It was on wheels and being pulled by a truck. Seeing as it was too low to go under and too wide to ride around on the road we angled off into a nearby corn field and pedaled our way through it until we were past the house. When we returned to the road we discovered that we had the most beautiful downhill run ahead of us. It was about two miles long and it was plateaued. That is, it went down then flat, down then flat, down then flat until it could go down no further. It really lifted our spirits because until then it seemed that we were always going up hill. Riding along we stopped at a small creek to cool our "tootsies". The creek wasn't on the map and we didn't have a name so we named it "Unknown Creek". We splashed around in it for awhile and then continued on.

We then came upon the unforgettable town of Wayne, Wisconsin. It is a small unincorporated town consisting of one store, two taverns, and a gas pump. We rolled up to the store and leaned our bikes against the wall. They couldn't stand on their kickstands because of the added weight. We walked inside the little store and looked for ice cream and cold pop. We were amazed at how cheap the prices were, ten cents for a pop and seven cents for a popsicle. When we went to pay for our goodies, the lady who ran the store asked us where we were headed on such a hot day. We said, "Eagle River, but we are going to stop at Kettle Moraine North for the night". We said Eagle River to most people because it was better known and only about 10 miles away from Three Lakes.

We went outside and sat in front of the store and ate our food. After we finished, we went back in and asked her if we could have some water for our water bottles. She said to walk around back and she would give us some. She told us to use the faucet on the house next door. While we filled up our bottles, she got a bucket for us to dunk our heads in. After dunking our heads and drinking our fill, we thanked the lady and pedaled away.

We had about 25 miles left to go. We didn't think it would take too long. We were wrong. It seemed like we peddled up hill all the way. It took us about four hours. We stopped at Campbellsport, which is about seven miles from our destination and bought dinner to take to the campgrounds. We bought several cans of pop, a loaf of bread, four boxes of Crackerjacks, two or three packages of smoked beef, a package of Oreo cookies, and some candy. We loaded it on our bikes and headed up highway 67 towards Dundee, a small unincorporated town one mile from the campgrounds. We made a horrifying discovery on our way. The skies were clouding over and it looked like rain was coming. We immediately increased our pedaling cadence and shifted into a higher gear. That's bicycle talk for "speeding up".

We had to stop in Dundee to call home. It was Eddie's turn to call. When his parents answered they had to know everything – Where are you? How are you? Are you taking your pills? How far have you gone? How are the other boys? They had a Wisconsin map and were trying to find our location, but couldn't. While all that was happening, we stood outside the phone booth watching the skies grow darker. We pounded on the phone booth and screamed at Eddie, trying to get him to tell his parents that it was about to rain and if they didn't shut up we were going to get soaked. Finally he hung up and we hurriedly pedaled to the campgrounds.

We came to the gate and found out that it was going to cost us money tonight, so we scrounged up three dollars for our camping permit. Then it started to rain. We jumped on our bikes and rushed to our campsite. It was the farthest away. It was raining pretty hard when we pulled in so we decided to wait for a break in the rain before setting up camp. We took the gear off our bikes and stuck it under the picnic table to keep it dry. While the rain poured down, we planned the best place to set up our tents and collected some firewood. About fifteen minutes later the rain stopped. Our tents weren't waterproof so we brought some sheets of plastic and a shower curtain to put over and under each tent. The highest ground on our campsite was on a slope on a small hill. In no time flat we had laid the plastic under, set up our tents and had the plastic draped over the top but not secured. It started to rain again. David and Eddie got inside the tents while Tom and I piled rocks on the corners of the plastic. We didn't get too wet because we had rain gear on. He wore a poncho and I wore my Sears rain suit with pants, coat, and hood.

After we finished piling rocks we walked down to the lake to wash the mud off us. The water was unbelievably warm. We wanted to go swimming, but the weather conditions halted us. The rain had diminished to a slight drizzle. When we returned Tom locked the bikes and went into his tent for the evening. I stayed outside and covered the wood and cleaned up the campsite. The rain started once again. Thunder and lightning exploded all around while the rain came down in buckets. The wind was flapping the plastic on our tents so much it shook the rocks off and caused the plastic on Tom's tent to rip.

I quickly piled more rocks on the corners and stopped the tent cover from ripping by fastening it together with a rubberband. I told them it was pouring out; if they wanted anything from our tent they had better have me get it now. The only thing that had to be done was to divide the food. Tom's tent had the bread and Crackerjacks. Our tent had the beef and cookies. I acted as messenger service between the two tents. They gave us half a loaf of bread and a box of Crackerjacks. In return we gave them two packages of beef. After all the trading had been completed and the tents secured, I was confronted with another problem. How was I going to get my rain suit off without getting soaked? It took a while but I finally figured out a satisfactory method. I unsnapped, untied, and unbuttoned the rain suit. That left it dangling loosely. In one swift motion, I shook it off and dove headfirst into the tent. Eddie stuck his arm out, retrieved the suit and put it in a plastic bag.

All things completed, we settled down for dinner. Eddie and I split the bread up leaving each of us with five slices, enough for two and a half sandwiches apiece. We made our sandwiches and opened up our by now warm pop. We consumed all the food in our tent except for the Oreo cookies and some water. While the rain pounded down on our tent we decided to play some Gin. I got out my deck of cards and we settled down and started our card game. Eddie won the first game and lost all the rest, so we soon quit and discussed the weather and how far we had traveled. We went only about 70 miles but it seemed like a 100 miles because of the hills. For tomorrow we hoped that it would stop raining but stay cloudy so that the sun would not kill us.

We crawled into our sleeping bags and listened to the rain plopping on the tent and soon fell asleep. I slept soundly until around midnight. Eddie was sneezing and coughing and the noise woke me up. When I opened my eyes I discovered that both Eddie and I were crunched up in the bottom of the tent. We had slid down the hill until we could go no further. I woke Eddie up, told him to shut up and move back up before he slid out the door, and we both went back to sleep. Same thing happened all night long.

When we woke up and stepped outside in the morning, Tom was already up. He said it was a nice day for biking. There was no rain, no sun and lots of clouds and cool air. David uncovered the firewood and attempted to start a fire. He managed to start a smoldering smoke pot with an occasional flame bursting up. We wiped off the bikes and tried to dry out in general. We used the fire to dry out our shoes, poncho and clothes. The smoky fire left all of our gear reeking of smoky campfire. We were able to dry out the tents and plastic by just shaking them out and folding them. We continued to dry out our gear while we ate another delicious breakfast of hard boiled eggs, dry cereal and water – remarkably similar to yesterday's breakfast, only a day older. Just before we left I has a strange itching sensation on my back. I didn't pay much attention to it then, but later I did.