July 15 Thunder and crisscrossing Wisconsin River

Last night, somewhere between 11 and midnight, a group of people arrived at the campground, and settled at a campsite almost across from ours. Thet were a bit loud and having a good time for quite a while. It also started to sprinkle slightly. We fell back asleep but then at 3 am it started to thunder and to rain harder, so first we took the heavier objects out of our tent and carried them over to a picnic shelter, and then carried our assembled tent with sleeping bags and sleeping pads in it to the picnic shelter. (We had put our bikes in the shelter before we went to bed.) We got up at 6 but it was still raining and thundering, so we waited until 7 to get up. We dallied around until about 9 when we didn't hear any more thunder and the rain had mainly passed. 

 In the next town, Avoca, we stopped for hot cocoa and a snack. We started talking with lady buying gas who had lived in Muscoda or Avoca most of her life. While her husband was in the military, they had their first child and out-of-pocket expenses were $7.32. She has done mainly cleaning work locally over the years and her husband worked for an implement dealer. We had very nice roads to travel on, following the Wisconsin River for much of the day and crossing it at Lone Rock and Sauk City. We retreated into another picnic shelter in Spring Green because of rain and thunder--timing worked out well! The last two-thirds of our ride varied between quiet country roads and busy roads with a bike path adjacent to it. Then good news! We found 3 smiling grandsons in Madison, Andrew, Ben and Caleb which made the end to section one most pleasant. We are now going to take about 3 weeks off from our cross-country trip. Part of that time includes a family bike ride, so we might post a little bit about that.