We left Kettle Moraine under cloudy skies. We made good time as we started out on this dismal day, pedaling through the trees of Kettle Moraine State Park. The itch on my back became more noticeable. Pretty soon the itch became unbearable. I clawed at my back and dumped water on it trying to ease the feeling. It was a strange feeling. It wasn't painful. It didn't burn. There were no visible marks on my back. We didn't know what caused it and we didn't know how to stop it. The only thing we knew was that it was driving me crazy. We called this unknown disease the "Crazies"! It stopped after a little while and I settled down.

We made one of our few directional errors. We were supposed to make a right turn on Highway 149 but it wasn't marked so we just rambled on by. A couple of miles later we realized our mistake and rerouted ourselves accordingly. Feeling hungry we decided to look for a place to eat but all the towns we went through either did not have a restaurant or they were closed. It seemed that every town we went through had a bar. Some towns consisted of two bars and nothing else. Another town had a population of 400 and had eight bars in and around the town. This was most discouraging when we were looking for a place to eat.

We finally ate breakfast at noon in a town called Stockbridge, It is located on the northeast shore of Lake Winnebago. We ate at Cal's Lunch, a small greasy spoon restaurant with high prices, lousy service and even lousier food. We don't recommend that anyone eat there. Coming into Stockbridge we encountered the biggest downhill of the trip. We estimated our speed to be almost 50 miles per hour. The beauty of the hill was ruined because of a sharp right turn at the bottom. We all managed to negotiate this turn without difficulty. We'll never forget that hill.

The sun came out and it turned into another hot day – cooler than the previous two days but still very hot. About ten miles beyond Stockbridge the "Crazies" started again. They were awful! After battling them with cool water and scratching, I tried to ignore it by taking it out on my bicycle. For every painful twitch I would push harder and faster on the pedals. After a while I decided to stop at an A & W Root Beer Stand in Seymour and wait for Tom, Eddie, and David to catch up. When they got there we all had something to drink. Between the four of us we drank at least a gallon of root beer. Throughout the trip the A & W Root Beer Stands were our favorite places to stop.

Before leaving Seymour I got the map from Tom showing the way to his uncle's house. I needed it just in case I got the "Crazies" again. Sure enough about five minutes later they were back and I took off. I said, "I'll see you at Uncle Art's". I swiftly pedaled through the booming metropolises of Rose Lawn and Hofa Park. Soon I came upon a mailbox that said Arthur Olson. I figured that this was it so I pedaled up the driveway to a house on the hill shaded by lots of trees. A man stepped out of the house and I introduced myself as one of Tom's friends, and said that Tom and the others would be along in a few minutes. Five minutes later they rolled up the drive and then the "Crazies" started again. Uncle Art diagnosed the case as too much sun too quickly. Since we were all hot and sweaty we changed into some shorts and dry clothes on his front lawn. We soon had dinner consisting of fresh lettuce, beans and a meat dish that looked like dog food, but did it taste good! After dinner we went swimming in Shawano Lake. The water was very warm and it felt real good. After swimming my back felt a lot better. We piled into Uncle Art's Hornet and returned to the farm.

When we returned Tom gave us a tour of the place; the barn, the storage buildings, the outhouse, the tool shed, the strawberry patches and pointed out all the land that belonged to the family. It was getting dark so we went into the house. Uncle Art said we could have ice cream cones or fresh strawberry sundaes.

We had traveled over 250 miles from Evanston in approximately 29 riding hours. Our speed was a little disappointing, only 8 miles per hour. After realizing how far we had traveled we became very tired and went to sleep. After a wonderful night's sleep we got up at nine in the morning. When we tramped downstairs we were greeted by Uncle Art busily cooking bacon, eggs and cereal.

After breakfast Uncle Art wanted us to pick fresh strawberries from the patch. A few strawberries turned into thirty-eight quarts. We picked almost all morning. After lunch we went exploring around the area. We rode our bikes over to the church, and cemetery and then played a game of Hide and Seek in the barn at Uncle Art's farm. Some pigeons were flying around inside the barn. We tried to chase them out by throwing stuff at them. It was a lot of fun while they were flying, but soon they just perched on a beam at the top of the barn and refused to move when we threw things at them. It got very dull so we went outside and climbed the silo again. Tom took a picture of the three of us when we reached the top of the silo. Dinner was soon called and we went in and enjoyed another good home cooked meal. While we were resting in the living room after dinner Tom figured out exactly how far it was to Three Lakes, our final destination. It was 139 miles and we planned to do it in one day making this our longest day of travel. We fixed ourselves fresh strawberry sundaes, ate them and went upstairs to sack out. It was still early, "Early to bed, Early to rise". Tom said we would leave at five in the morning.

Tom woke us all up at three o'clock in the morning, the middle of the night! We still had two more hours before blast off. Unwillingly we drowsily rolled out of bed. We packed all our gear and brought it downstairs. Uncle Art was already up fixing breakfast. He said that after we went to bed it rained and that it was still cloudy this morning. We didn't mind as long as it wasn't windy, rainy, or snowy. Uncle Art had prepared bacon and pancakes for us. With four hungry boys eating he could barely turn them out fast enough. We ate them smothered in maple syrup and butter covered with strawberries. They were delicious. It was about 4:15 when we finished breakfast so we sat down and relaxed before mounting up and riding away. After we went out to the storage barn and packed up our bikes, we thanked Uncle Art and rode off down the soggy driveway. Just after we turned out on the rode my back wheel fell off. It just slipped right out. Was this a warning of things to come? We hoped not, but a few miles later we missed a turn and were forced to go over a much hillier road.

We finally got on highway 32. We encountered a slight headwind so we rode in a close single file and changed leaders frequently in order to keep up a better pace. Because of the good pavement it was an easy ride to Surling, where Uncle Art informed us we would encounter an extremely steep and long up hill climb. We saw it and decided to rest before tackling it. When I was trying to get a sweatshirt out of my saddlebag I threw a tee shirt on the ground and forgot to pick it up when we started to ride. It was the biggest uphill we encountered the whole trip and we had to walk up over half of it.

After the big hill it was smooth sailing all the way to the Nicolet National Forest. Highway 32 went all the way through it. The forest was beautiful, everything was spring green and the air was clean after the rain. It was still cloudy and showed no sign of breaking, but we just hoped it would not rain. After riding into the forest we stopped and found approximately where we were. We were about fifteen miles from a town called Mountain. We planned on eating breakfast there. Before we arrived we encountered a little road construction. It was about a mile of sand and rocks but it wasn't too bad because the sand was mostly packed down.

We came into Mountain, a small town in the middle of a deep, dark forest. We pulled up to a small cafe on the edge of town and gently laid our bikes down in front of a window so we could see them. Everybody inside saw us lay them down. When we entered the cafe we received various looks from the people. We didn't mind the looks; we were used to them. The first thing we did was to sit down. The second thing we did was to get up and take turns in the bathroom. It had flush toilets, a luxury we seldom saw on the road. We all paid our due respects. We then returned to our table and ordered our regular pancakes, french toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, O.J. and milk. While we waited, the man at the next table said he had been eyeing our bikes and asked where we were headed. "Three Lakes," we replied.

How ya going? Over to 45 and up?"

We said, "Nope, straight up 32".

"Well, you're going to run into some trouble up around Lakewood. There's some road construction for about ten miles."

"Thanks for telling us".

"Any time, boys".

Just then our food came so we dug in. The man got into a fishing conversation with another customer and the waitress. While we ate, we heard about the nicest little spot along the river, the big one that got away and the time him and his friend caught a mess of big ones and while walking out of the woods lost them all. It was entertaining.

After eating, Tom took out the maps and estimated that we had eighty more miles and we had better get going. We left the restaurant, picked up our bikes and pedaled out of Mountain.

We started picking up speed as we rode through the trees. We were really moving along when we hit the worst part of the trip, eight miles of road construction. It was awful. We had to ride through mud, rocks, dirt, and sand. The sand got so mushy in places that we had to get off and walk and the road got so narrow in places that cars would honk us in front and back. After a while the road became much wider and the surface was mostly rocks making riding much easier. The construction ended in the town of Lakewood.

We decide to stop and rest and look for some firecrackers in a small store. We couldn't find any so we left after browsing the store for a while. As we pedaled out of the town, I noticed that Eddie didn't have his backpack on. We forgot it back in front of the store. He rode back to get it and once again we were on our way. The riding was really easy because there were no cars and the road was well paved without many hills or long flat straights. We soon were in the town of Wabeno, a small town of a few stores and lots of shacks, occupied mostly by Indians.

After Wabeno we veered into County W. We started in a southwest direction but as we pedaled on it turned northwest and we felt we were making great progress. As we pumped along, both sides of the road became engulfed in a sea of daisies, a few which Tom picked and put in his pack for Mrs. Elsen. While pedaling a little later we picked up a silver plate that said OSHKOSH
on it. We figured it had fallen off a truck and we kept it as a souvenir.

Tom took a picture of David, Eddie and me going down the road riding "no handed". In order to take the picture he had to ride "no handed" too. We rode "no handed" a lot during the whole trip because our arms and backs got tired being bent over the handlebars for hours at a time.

The road we were on seemed to last forever and ever. We thought we would never reach Crandon. We merged with Highway 32 again and it was only a mile from Crandon. Once in the town we looked for a place to eat. This would be our last meal on the road. We saw a branch of our favorite eating place, A & W Root Beer, and went inside and ate. This place was kind of unique as it was a combination restaurant and laundromat. It was called Moon's Drive In. We took some matches as souvenirs.

Back on our bikes again, David said it was 27 miles to Three Lakes and about 4 miles less than that to the Lodge making it 23 miles to the end of the trip. Before leaving Crandon we stopped at an information center. Just for the heck of it we asked the man how far it was to Three Lakes and what the quickest route was. He told us the quickest route was the way we had planned to go and he gave us a map marking the route. We thanked him and started on our way.

We had to pass through two towns before reaching our destination, Argonne and Hiles. It was 7 miles from Crandon to Argonne and 7 miles from Argonne to Hiles and 9 miles from Hiles to Elsen's Lodge. If we could make the 23 miles in two hours we would arrive by five o'clock. As we whizzed through Argonne David proclaimed, "Seven miles to Hiles!" Those seven miles went by very slowly because we were anxious to get to the Lodge. Soon we were at the gas station just out of Hiles and David and Eddie stopped to fill their water bottles and rest, but Tom and I kept on riding.

Tom and I passed through the town and started on the last nine miles. We had traveled 371 miles and were at last on the home stretch. David told us that when we saw a Texaco station we would be only a mile away. It took us some time, but coming around a sharp turn we saw it. At that point we began to sprint, going around 20 miles an hour. Even at that speed it seemed like the longest mile so I told Tom to slow down. He slowed down at least one mile an hour and on we pedaled. Tom saw the Chicken in the Woods restaurant and immediately zoomed because the Elsen's Lodge was on the road of the same name. We turned right and whizzed down the road past three mail boxes, the fourth one was Elsen's. As we entered the driveway we hit a big sandy spot. Tom lost his balance and got off and walked his bike through it. When I hit my bike stuck and couldn't go anywhere. Tom rode on down the driveway. I walked my bike through the sand and followed him.

Through the trees we saw some cabins. We wheeled up to the Lodge and parked our bikes next to it. We walked over to the cabin where we saw Mrs. Elsen sweeping. We said "Hi". She replied "Hello boys", just like we were home. Then she said, "Oh you're here! I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow. Where are David and Eddie?" Moments later we heard some wild screams from the driveway and David and Eddie whooshed out of the woods. After five days and 380 miles we were at last there.

Dedication This story is dedicated to the Elsen grandchildren in hopes that someday you too will want to create your own Summer Adventure.