Gearing up for the cold, mid-30s degree weather. Hat, gloves, extra jacket… and shorts.
Day # 21
Miles Covered Today: 114
Hours on The Road: 13 (including breaks)
Miles Traveled Since Beginning: 1,246
Day Overview: Today ended up being full of surprises.
We departed from Chicago a bit on the late side – at around 9.45 am and headed towards Wisconsin, 85 miles away.
The journey started off well as we rolled through the neighborhoods and eventually exited the city, getting onto a special bike path leading almost all the way to Wisconsin.
About 53 miles into the trip, we stopped to take a quick water break and noticed that the pocket on Anna’s rear-rack bag was open. Unfortunately, this was the pocket where her wallet was stored – now missing. We must’ve opened the pocket during a previous stop about 15 miles away and missed it when we headed out.
This was certainly a disappointing realization and posed a question about what to do next. Ultimately, we decided that it would be faster to find a spot, unhitch the trailers and have me retrace our steps for the past 14 miles on the chance that the wallet was still on the road somewhere.
The ride back was fast. Without the 70 pound trailer slowing you down and a tailwind behind me, I retraced the entire ~14 miles in around an hour. No wallet was found.
On the way back, however, just a few miles in – I came upon a familiar sight. It was the Trans-American business cards that Anna kept in that pocket. They were just strewn about on the road next to a train station. I saw a bump that we went over that likely caused the items to fall out of the pocket.
I parked the bike and walked around, finding a debit card, a few of our receipts and other miscellaneous items – all within a few dozen meters of each other. Unfortunately, no wallet.
After I exhausted all possible search options, I headed back to Anna, where she had found temporary shelter in a local community center.
At around 6 pm, I reconnected with her. With 40 miles still left to go to Milwaukee, we accepted the fact that night riding was probably inevitable today, geared up for the colder temperature ahead (high 30s) and set forward. Four hours later, a little after 10pm, we entered Milwaukee.
Next Scheduled Event: Madison, WI on April 30th at 12.00pm at University of Madison. RSVP here or see full schedule of future stops.
Where We Are: Milwaukee, WI (route completed so far is shown below)
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