32 miles (oops) on the Badger State trail

On Saturday we met Courtney, Paul, and Tiz in Belleville to ride the Badger State Trail from Belleville to Monticello. This is a nice trail, level, good scenery, and a tunnel thrown in for good measure. Here you see Tiz all ready in her "cart" for the big trip. She was equipped with Elmo, brownies and water. Courtney pulled her almost the entire way there until we decided to do some switching to give Courtney a much needed rest. Here we are at the beginning of the tunnel. It was very cool and foggy near the tunnel. This is not the longest tunnel on a bike trail but it is hailed as the darkest because it has a curve so you are not able to see the end. It is so dark in there! We had two small flashlights which helped a bit. I think I am glad you can't see in there becaue I am not sure I would be happy with what one might spot in there! It was also very wet with standing water on one end. Needless to say I was very happy to exit the tunnel safely on the other side.

Shortly after the tunnel is when we made the first switch with the cart. I took over and I did very well if I must say so myself. It is a great workout! I was feeling the burn in my legs.

We stopped for lunch at the M and M Diner in Monticello where we all enjoyed some great home cooking and a much needed Diet Coke for me. Tiz enjoyed some French Toast. Shortly after lunch we were back on the trail again.

But, not before I modeled Tiz's bike helmet.

Here Tiz is filling up her tires for the trip back.

It was a really fun way to spend the day together and get some good exercise at the same time. I have a speedometer, but it wasn't working until we left the restaurant. I was so excited to be able to figure out exactly how far we had traveled. Well, the miles turned quickly and by the time we arrived back in Belleville the odometer read 16.1 miles (or so we thought)! Wow, were we ever excited. When we got home we enjoyed pizza and a whole lot of ice cream because after all we had just biked 32 miles so a little (lot) of ice cream couldn't hurt.

I decided to consult my scrapbook and find out the last time that John and I had ridden this same trail. Found out it had been three years ago and I also found an official map which clearly showed the distance to be 9 miles from Belleville to Monticello so where did we come up with 16.1 and why did we eat all that ice cream?

Come to discover that the odometer was measuring kilometers, not miles and we couldn't take back all that ice cream!

Oh, well, 21 miles isn't anything to sneeze at and we still had a great, fun adventure.