Friday July 24th-- Never bike through Milwaukee/Things have a funny way of working out (Cormac)

It was about an 80 mile trek from Columbus to Milwaukee, and we had a 7pm ferry to catch (we had decided to take a ferry across lake Michigan rather than go through Chicago or bike around Chicago), so we got a very early start, fortunately the wind was at our back and we blew into Milwaukee at about 330 pm.

First, I want to say that, as one of the first major cities that we biked through (with the exception of Minneapolis, where we used the bike freeway), we found that, on bike, the segregation of neighborhoods is even more obvious. In one moment we were in an impoverished, delapidated part of town, with awful roads, and less than 1/4 of a mile later we are in a yuppy neighborhood at a healthfood store. We also noticed an enormous racial divide. Apparently strucrual racism didn't go up in smoke as soon as Obama was elected. Who knew. But the dramatic differences really was a shock to our system, and what was worse, I think for both of us, was that we felt much more comfortable in the yuppy area. I don't think we would have stopped for coffee in the "rougher" part of town, but we didn't even think twice about pulling into this health food store and cafe. It really made us look not only at our national racism, and classism, but at our own, personal biases. We didn't really have any solution--except to admit our feelings of guilt, our culpability, to each other over organic Mocha Lattes.

But for all the hard time I give this health food store/cafe, it was very nice. We had a lovely talk with the barrista, who gave us directions to the ferry (it turns out that mapmyride.com did not offer realistic directions). You see, Milwaukee is laterally bisected (multisected?) by many rivers, and the only way to cross these rivers close to lake Michigan is on freeways (where bicycles are illegal). So we had to go back way west to find roads that would cross these rivers and take us to the southern part of town where the ferry was. We didn't think much of it... it was 330 and we didnt have to check in until 6 (though we were told that the deadline to check into the ferry was pretty strict). We were, of course, wrong.

Not only is Milwaukee a maze of biker-unfriendly-streets, but it turns out that pretty much the only way to get to the ferry terminal is off a freeway, so even though it wasn't for particularly long, Lindsey and I mounted a city freeway, braced our selves, and finally got to the ferry with only a few minutes to spare.

When we finally checked into the ferry we noticed that there were a couple of very nice bikes there. It didn't look like they were doing major touring (they didn't have panniers) but we were still eager to talk to them.

For whatever reason, on the Milwaukee/Muskegon ferry they let bikers on first, so it was there that we met Ken and Bob, two bicycling gentlemen who were friends from high school. We related our story and they almost immediately offered to let us stay at their places, which was an enormous relief-- Ken lived in Muskegon, where the ferry landed, and where the only place to stay cost 140$ (we were arriving too late at night to bike anywhere else) and Bob lived in Grand Rapids, where we were planning on going, but hadn't figure out where we were going to stay.

We had a lovely conversation with them before the ferry ride, but then spent most of the ferry ride looking for lindsey's phone which was right where she left it in my handle-bar bag, but which we didn't find until we landed.

We biked with Bob and Ken to Ken's place. Bob drove back home to Grand Rapids, and we spent a lovely evening with Ken and his husband, who funny enough, is also named Ken. We drank delicious wine (they were confessed wine snobs) and talked about their religious experiences, how they met, and their experience of coming out of the closet. Both Lindsey and I were both deeply compelled and moved by their story, by their commitment to be themselves, despite expectations of their generation (they were in their mid 60s we would guess).

We finally fell asleep, grateful for the extreme kindness and hospitality of strangers--not to mention their willingness to share their wonderful stories with us. Fortunately, the non-biking Ken was on facebook, and we are now facebook friends, so hopefully we can maintain some contact, and certainly return the favor if they ever come to Boston.