Another Day Another Bike Ride...

...another bike ride, another few lakes.

Eagle River to Land O' Lakes (LOL) our tour for today. Quiet back roads and a bit of the LOL paved bike trail would be our route. One section of the trail rather heavily wooded, another part very open in the lowlands lined with jack pine forests.

Again we passed a ton of lakes with a rest stop at Deep Lake and lunch stop at Black Oak Lake.

 

The Natural Helper strikes again

 

He just cannot stop helping ;'-)

We had an educational stop where our leader of the day, Mary Beth told us a lot about the trappers and fur traders that traded along the Wisconsin River. The traders came from Canad as well as from Europe and had portage along the way where they had to carry very heavy packs quite a few miles. She said a few words in French and it turns out that Deb speaks fluent French and gave us a few sentences (that no one really understood) and the language she spoke sounded flawless.

 

Everyone listening to Mary Beth

 

Deb gives us some French

The Deep Lake rest stop served not only for rest, but for a bike rescue as Kathryn's bike had been acting squirrely for days and today was the worst so she went with it to the bike shop in town.

 

Our leader called the office for a truck rescue for Kathryn's bike

 

Watch the handle bar mirror says Kathryn

 

We "spoke" of Deep Lake and here it is.

 

Rob was the only one who got his feet wet

 

It was warming up enough for Mary Jo to take off the long pants. And Susan's bucket comes to a rescue of its own.

It was suggested that we could go for a swim at the lunch stop -- but no one brought their swim suit or took advantage of the beach.

 

 

End of our day trip, and our relief leader is exhausted

 

Some of us tried to get a ride with the woman on her jet ski and were almost successful.

 

Another day of cycling, and our last, comes to an end

Returned to camp in the mid afternoon, we had relaxation time before the dinner hour.

 

Woman of many talents -- not only does she speak French, she plays the guitar.

 

Mary Jo and Joe do some reading

 

I took a photo of this memorial that is on the grounds

Delightful dinner and wine before our final evening's classroom lesson. Kim gave a very thorough educational talk and slideshow about Birds of Prey, particularly Raptors. We learned details about their feet and talons; eyes; ear holes; sound of wings when flying; voice sound; the different types of Hawks and Owls.

 

 

 

Comparison of eye size of swan, eagle and owl

 

Wing shapes and sizes of many raptors. Accipiter is a Hawk

After learning more than our brains could retain, Kim opened Apollo's cage and exhibited this red tailed hawk for us. This hawk was hit by a car and found almost dead by the side of the road about seven years ago. Lots of medical help and assessments were done, and it was determined that Apollo could never survive in the wild. He is very well taken care of here and has one handler to bond with. The past handler has left TFT after working with Apollo for abut 4-5 years, and Kim has become the handler.

 

Apollo has only one good eye due to his injuries from being hit by a car.

 

Right eye is OK, left eye is not

 

This ends our bike touring with TFT and we are a bit sad to be saying our goodbyes. A few of our friends will leave very early in the morning so we will not get to see them at breakfast so some goodbyes came early. This has been a fantastic group of people and both Susan and I feel privileged to have met each and all of them. Thank you all for such a great and memorable time.

As an ending, Kathryn wanted me to give this tip to you cyclists. When I bike a lot of days in a row I get "bike butt" (thank you Nancy R for this title!) where my butt gets more chafed than sore. I have found this product to be most helpful and offered it for Kathryn to try. She did and said "it is magic".

 

Magic bike butt solution

It is not always easy to find, but look in the pharmacy near or in the baby chafing area. And --- men use it too ;'-)

Farewell all.

 

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