August 6th, 2026
Baraboo, WI
Woke at 8:00am like usual, but today I got going right
away. Long ride today, so cannot waste
time.
Showered and geared up, loaded the bike and checked out of
the room.
Got on the bike and rode through residential area again to
reach the Circle K, hoping it was operational today. Saves me time versus going back into downtown.
The station was up and running, so fueled the bike and
bought breakfast.
Then we headed south.
Will be riding the same highway most the day, so not a lot
of turns to worry about.
Views were not much different than much of the region I have
been in last few days, trees lining both sides of the highway and not much
else.
Few lakes or rivers, some boring, others amazing, but no
place to stop and look at most of them.
The highway soon became a 4-lane divided highway as well, which
also meant speeds increased. And as in
Canada, no one wanted to drive close to the speed limit, most doing 15-20
over. The only real difference here is I
did not have too many people passing me in no passing zone, though one car did,
and then passed 4 cars ahead me at one time, really in some kind of hurry.
Stopped for breaks now and then to use restroom, grab a
drink or snack or fuel up. As I am
riding much faster today, my fuel economy is sucking big time.
Reached the town of Virginia Minnesota and had lunch there
at Taco Bell.
Later reached the larger city of Duluth Minnesota and it sits
below a quite high bluff, so the downhill drive was kind of cool, and had some
great views of the city.
We then crossed over the river that feeds into the tip of
Lake Superior, and had some good views over the lake looking east.
Once out of town I kept going till I started to feel
ill. Stomach was doing twists and was
very unhappy. Stopped for fuel and used
the restroom to fix that issue. Never
eating at Taco Bell again, 2nd time this trip this has happened
after eating there.
We then reached I-94/I-90 and headed southeast on it for a
few hours.
Near the end of the ride, we pulled off on a small highway
and went south a few miles, then into the town of Baraboo. We are in the west side of town, think it
used to be a separate town, but Baraboo grew into it and they sort of merged.
Found the hotel I had booked last night on Hotels.com
Parked and went inside, it was now 6:30pm.
No one at the front desk, buy sign said to use phone on counter
to call for assistance.
Picked it up, and it auto dialed a number. Phone in the office behind the front desk
started to ring, and no one picked it up, only voicemail. Left a message that I was in lobby, and no one
was there.
Already this hotel is starting to give me bad vibes.
After a minute, a guy shows up, looks more like the
maintenance guy, clothes covered with dirt and paint.
He goes in and gets computer going, but then cannot find my
reservation. Spent 15 minutes trying to
find it, but then he tells me they have been having issues syncing with 3rd
party reservation systems.
He goes ahead and enters a manual reservation, but did not
charge me anything since the payment had already been taken by the website.
Not sure how this will go, but will ride it out and see.
Got my room key, and its on the 2nd floor. Stairs are inside the building and the back
of the building. So have to park out
front (thankfully spot near door was open), and carry everything inside,
through the building, up the stairs and down the hall a bit to my room.
As I am unloading, I start to notice all the ground floor
rooms have furniture and boxes and other carp stacked in front of them. And lots of people sitting in chairs just
doing nothing. It appears all the ground
level stuff are occupied by people using them as apartments, and the 2nd
floor is for travelers.
Definitely not the best place I have stayed, bit noisy from
the main road, and lots of people outside talking a lot.
Got everything upstairs, secured and covered the bike and
then cleaned a few things off from bug spatter and finally had to take a shower
as I was dripping sweat. Was in the low
80s all day today.
After I checked for food options. A Taco Bell (that’s not happening), some kind
of steak place that was more bar than restaurant, and an Italian place in the
hotel next door. It was closing in an
hour, but was best option, so took it.
Food was very good and not too badly priced.
When done, walked back to the room to work on the blog and
figure out what my plans are for tomorrow.
Staying 2 nights here so I can go visit a few nearby places. One place that was on my list already, and
the other I found my accident last night.
Today was fun as I got to see much more of Minnesota, which I had only seen once about 25 years ago, and had only crossed to eat at a restaurant right on the border with North Dakota, so now I have spent 2 days riding a fair part of the north area. And Wisconsin is a brand new state, never having visited it before.
Then I will probably go to be early, very wore out today.
Catch ya down the road.
Todays Route
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