Today, my two boys, my brother, Jerry, and I drove up to Oshkosh to see all the action at AirVenture.

It’s an amazing event and anyone that gets the chance should go. It’s said over 10,000 planes are at the event, and over 100,000 people per day attend.

My other son, John, arrived today. It’s great to see both of my boys together.

Also my father was sent to the hospital due to low hemoglobin found in a routine blood test. His status is not critical, and we will know more after further tests.

My replacement mirror arrived today.

First thing I noticed on the package was the lifetime warranty. Maybe I should have received a free replacement for the broken one. I’ll have to reach out to Blackburn.

I plan on resuming the bike adventure on Thursday by riding to my brothers house in South Milwaukee. From there I’ll take the high speed ferry to Muskegon, Michigan.

I jogged about 10K this morning with Thomas. Not much energy or speed, but at least I got out there. We stopped at the local bike shop. The proprietor, John Sotherland makes custom steel frames he calls the Sotherland. He’s been involved with Waterford and still can get you a Waterford bike, so I expect he knows what he is doing. John’s website is https://www.bicyclewise.com

I might go back there on Wednesday and talk to him about maybe building a custom touring bike for me. There are a couple of things about my Trek that are suboptimal for touring. I wish it had just slightly longer chainstays and it had braze-ones for the front racks. Slightly longer chainstays would help keep the bike from getting tail heavy if the rear panniers and racks get overloaded. The front racks are clamped to the forks which isn’t the most elegant setup. Also, the drive train is an old school half-step plus granny system which I’m on the fence about, though I could change that without changing the bike.

Quiet day today. My son Thomas arrived and we went for a run.

Yesterday I broke my bike mirror so we ran across town to the bike store in order to see if they had a suitable replacement. The store closed at 2, 20 minutes before we got there. There was a Walmart 1/4 mile down the road and I figured we might as well try that. No bike mirrors there.

We ran back to Charlene’s house through the neighborhood I grew up in. I showed Thomas the grade school I went to which is still in use as a grade school. I showed him the site where the house blew up due to a gas explosion. I showed him greenhouse lane, where there were greenhouses when I was little. I showed him the house I was raised in. I showed him the lot which the town would flood and turn into a skating rink and apparently still does. I told him how we would grab our skates after school and go there and skate almost every day after school. We ran past the post office, where my dad used to work.

In the last few days my friends and family coined a term for the type of upbringing we had. We have decided to call ourselves free-range children. We had the run of the town and beyond as long as we were back at the house for diner. Once I reached a certain age, I don’t think my parents really knew where I was all that often.

In the end I ordered a replacement mirror on Amazon. By the way, there is only one bike mirror available that mounts on a brake hood and it’s not the best possible design, which should be a business opportunity for someone. It should arrive on Monday which is fine as I plan to move on, on Thursday, weather permitting.

Many years ago, I became interested in a form of gaming that attempted to simulate military battles using fairly sophisticated game systems. The hobby is called war gaming. A company called Avalon Hill distributed the games widely, which is how I discovered this hobby. They published a magazine, which was used to promote a few conventions. In 1973, I read about a war game convention in nearby Lake Geneva. My friends and I convinced one of our parents (none of us had drivers licenses) to drive us down for a day. The convention was held in Horticulture Halls in those days.

At the convention, we met a fellow named Gary Gygax, who invited us to come down and join the Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association for some additional games.

A few months later, I had a drivers license and borrowed my moms car and we drove down for a game of Chainmail that was held in an unheated garage on a sand table. They invited us back for a new game, which they called Dungeons and Dragons, and was to be held at Gary Gygax’s house.

On the day we were to play D&D, instead of going directly to Gary’s house, we met at another gamers house. We piled into one car and rode together over to Gary Gygax’s house arriving early. Since Gary didn’t like early arrivals, we had to sit in the car and wait until we were no longer early. This modern picture shows pretty much the same view we had of his house from that car, except that I believe that visit was in winter.

Once we arrived, we were ushered down to the basement, which doubled as Gary’s shoe repair and leather shop. I remember there were about 12 of us crowded into that basement. I think two of us survived that epic trip into Greyhawk. After that game, each of our group from Whitewater bought from Brian Blume a copy of the game rules, which were hot off the presses. We had to put the labels on the box ourselves.

A couple of years later, TSR was planning on republishing a set of Civil War Miniatures gaming rules that I had developed and self published. By then, they were operating out of a house on Williams Street.

However, it was not to be, as D&D had become so successful, that TSR decided to focus entirely on D&D and they dropped other forms of wargaming.

I will be meeting up with an old friend this evening. Rick was one of my friends that participated in those trips to Lake Geneva.

I took these pictures today after riding my bike back down to Lake Geneva. It’s surprising how little these buildings have changed. It was a very nice ride totaling 60 miles.

One funny thing happened while I was sitting on a park bench by the lake waiting for the house on Williams Street to open. A lady walking by saw me and my bike and asked me if I had biked far. The answer certainly surprised her.

I went on a dinner cruise of Lake Geneva with Jerry, mom, Wendy, and Charlene.

The food, weather, sunset and entertainment was very nice.

The lake itself is rimmed by the summer homes of wealthy people, many from nearby Chicago. There is a relatively small state park near the town of Lake Geneva, but otherwise large homes, boat clubs and condos dominate the long shoreline. The most surprising thing left in the lake are a few steam powered yachts that can be seen as you cruise along the shoreline. This lake has been the hangout for the wealthy citizens of Chicago since the great fire of 1871 forced them to find an alternative place to live while the city was reconstructed.

The shoreline is cluttered with docks, boathouses, vessels of every description, and many other reminders of man’s ability to alter the environment around him. It’s not really the kind of place I would gravitate to, if I had the kind of wealth that was on display there.

The town was also the home of D&D co-creator, Gary Gygax, who introduced me to his newly created game sometime around 1973, but that is a story for another day.

I went to the Milwaukee County Zoo today with Charlene. It’s been perhaps 20 years or more since I visited this zoo. My overall impression is that the staff have done a pretty incredible job maintaining and updating the facilities. I remember some of the facilities from when I was a child, but somehow they have managed to refresh and maintain them in great condition, which can’t be easy. Of all the exhibits, only the inside of the old pachyderm house seems like it needs some refreshing.

They had several brown bears, and after seeing one in this safe setting, I’m so glad I didn’t run across a Grizzly in Montana.

The hippo was also very impressive to me. He was in the water just on the other side of a piece of thick glass so you could get very close to him. The whole thing made me wonder how before the advent of firearms, relatively frail humans could survive in the midst of such large and dangerous beasts.

Today I made a bit of a move east, relocating from Lake Mills to Whitewater, adding 33 miles to make the total 2426 miles.

This was a mostly uneventful ride, though the trails and roads were a joy to ride and the weather was fine, as well. I did meet someone walking a dog that used to work in bike shops back in the 70s and 80s. This fellow had a collection of classic bikes and I was amazed that he recognized the Weimann A129 rims that I have on my bike. He noted that they had a reputation of being extremely tough. He was also familiar with my old Cannondale rear panniers and took a good look at my Trek’s drive train.

Towards the end of our conversation he said he always wanted to do a Trans-America ride. I told him “do it, you may quit, but you will not regret trying.” He replied that he wasn’t likely to quit. I hope this fellow gets an opportunity to give it a try.

I heard Bob Barnes, who I met yesterday, made the news on the Madison NBC station.

Today I visited family in several different towns around here and got in about 46 miles of bike riding between the visits. I did have one new experience during the last leg, today. While I was riding, a chipmunk ran under my bike between the wheels. I’ve narrowly missed running over a number of chipmunks over the years, but this is the first time this has happened.

On a totally different topic, I’ve noticed a funny phenomenon occurring during some rides on long straight stretches of roads. These are the kinds of roads where you can see a very long way down the road. Sometimes I will see objects in the distance, but not be able to make them out very well. In many cases like this, my brain will kind of morph an indistinct distant object into something that is desirable. For instance, a number of times, indistinct pear shaped objects in the distance looked like they might be fellow bike-packers coming down the road in the other direction. This object may end up being a simple mailbox of something like that. It’s really funny how your mind can play tricks like that on you.

I’ve been using my mom’s car to get around, but decided she should have her car back and I should use my bike to get around. I loaded my bike into her car and drove it down to Whitewater. After my mom fixed me a nice lunch, I got my bike together and rode it back to Lake Mills where I’m staying with my brother and his wife.

Along the way I ran across someone who was doing some long distance bike packing. I just haven’t seen many long distance bike packers, and try to stop to talk to them when possible. I asked what route this fellow was on. Turns out it was Bob Barnes who is on an 11,000 mile trek around much of the coastal regions of the US. He calls his operation Bibbery Travels and has managed to gain a bit of notoriety along the way.

It was fun to talk to Bob and see his setup which includes a lawn chair and a solar panel array. I always try to find stopping points that include a picnic table, but Bob has a different way to handle breaks, he just breaks out his lawn chair.

By the way, todays ride was a little over 33 miles long.