Wisco All-Road River Tour of Headwinds, Day Five

Hatfield to Elroy

Our host called down the stairs that they were on their way out, and it was good to have them in the rearview.

I hadn't slept well and had some bronchitis rattling around in my lungs, so the scattered showers had me feeling low. Rain would start and the jackets would go on, and they'd come back off when it stopped. Our first visit was a place called Oxbo Pond, beautiful in the morning calm.


Then for a while we were on a series of roads leading through the Black River State Forest into the Ho-Chunk  Reservation. There had been plans to go check out the Wazee Lake Recreation Area, but they were scrapped in favor of finding a hot breakfast.


The breakfast was at a little tourist place named the Mocha Mouse, which actually really hit the spot. The local rescue squad was having a breakfast meeting, and their collective girth signaled that this was the place if one were hungry.

After breakfast I called my friend Andy in Sparta to arrange a possible visit (which was ultimately not to be) and checked in with home.

Proceeding in the direction we wanted to go meant navigating a clusterfuck of numbered state highways over the interstate, through town and then south a couple of miles. As a bonus, when we turned off of Highway 27 onto Hawk Island Road, we passed a residence that looked like a junkyard, and the largest pit bull I have ever seen came running out after Grant. He soon lost interest, but there I was a good 50 yards back. I got off and started walking on the opposite side of my bike. He didn't look too aggressive, and  just as I was starting to sweet-talk him, the mailman drove up and put his car between me and the dog. I thanked him, and he replied that he would go have a word with the dog's owner.


This part of Wisconsin has a bit of a Tom Waits soundtrack. Maybe because it's not far enough north to be touristy and too far away from the big cities to have much in the way of industry, Monroe County is one of the poorest counties in the state. More loose dogs than usual through this section.


Somehow Grant found a lovely little gravel named Echo Rd. Challenging climb but worth it.

We found some new blacktop just north of Sparta, which was nice riding as it began to rain again. The forecast for Sunday was looking cold, rainy and very windy, so the decision was made to keep pushing on to Elroy and then for home on Saturday. This meant bypassing White Mound and giving up a night of camping, but neither of us relished an overnight, and then riding home, in what looked to be very nasty weather.

We stopped at Speed's Bike Shop in Sparta and I bought some padded shorts to relieve my aching butt. I also called Andy to let him know that we were pressing on and that I hoped to take him up on his hospitality sometime in the future.



Here we got on the nicely-swept Elroy-Sparta State Trail, the former Chicago Northwestern line that is the oldest rail trail in the country. There were a few other users out riding, but few enough that we were able to ride through the tunnels (which normally are supposed to be walked.)


The rest of the trail was easy rolling, but gray and uneventful. The campground in Elroy is close enough to the trail, but at the top of a very steep climb. A quick check of the radar revealed storms closing in, so we staked out a base in the metal gazebo and pitched our tents at adjacent sites. Then we made a speedy run to the Kwik Trip convenience store in town for a variety of tasty foods, just barely beating the storm back to the gazebo. We sat at the picnic tables, making arrangements to leave before sunup and listening to the rain fall on the tin roof, and then listened to more rain and the highway while snug in our tents.

(All of the photos are here.)