A Quick Ride at the Cottage

It is a beautiful August day at the cottage, so we decided to take a ride on the back roads.

About a mile from the cottage, we cross the Oconto River on the old iron bridge (now a snowmobile trail) that leads to Lena.

The dam in the background forms the Machickanee Flowage.  This is the first dam from the bay of Green Bay at Oconto.  You can see large salmon here in the spring and fall.

Does anyone need a new car?  This one is siting high along Younger Road.

There were a number of calves at this farm.  We figured this one won the good calf award for the week, so it got special privilege to lounge in the shade at the front of this farm on Military Road.

This semi passed us and then pulled up to load grain from the freshly combined field off Logtown Road.

We stopped at the bridge on County J. This is a common starting/takeout point for canoes, rafts and tubes floating down the Oconto River.

I love sheep!  These cuties were grazing at the corner of County J and Chicken Shack Road.

We stopped for a snack from the hedge of blackberries on Crawford Road.

We biked just over 21 miles today.  Now it's time for a swim!

Biking Langlade County WI

We checked out a map of Wisconsin counties and learned that we have biked in 46 of the 72 counties in Wisconsin.  So, we now want to attempt to have a significant bike ride in every county. 

Menominee and Langlade counties are the closest "un-biked counties" to Appleton.  Since Menominee does not have much for bike friendly roads, we picked Langlade county for our next adventure.  Langlade county is known for mountain biking, but we are into more leisurely (road/trail) riding.  We decided on parts of two loops in northwestern Langlade county – the Summit Lake Scenic Bike Route and the Pearson Scenic Bike Route.

On 7/25/2016 we drove up to Summit Lake Park just off highway 45 about 20 miles north of Antigo.  It was a cool, dry morning after a hot, humid period in Appleton.  The day turned out beautifully.

Summit Lake Scenic Bike Route

We rode out of the back of the park through Merlin Drive to get onto Forest Rd heading south.  This is a beautifully scenic route on a smooth road (about 8 miles).  On the way, we passed Bogus Swamp and various lakes. The only vehicle we met was another bicycle until we turned east on County J. After a few miles on J we turned north on County B and stopped on a bridge over the East Branch of the Eau Claire River for some pictures. 

We completed this portion of the Summit Lake scenic route - 18 mile loop back to the car before noon.

Pearson Scenic Bike Route

We then started the second loop.  We crossed Hwy 45 at Summit Lake Road and headed north on County B (1.3 miles), took a right on Hunting River Rd (gravel road just before Hwy 47) then Left on Hunting River Dr  (3 mi).  We rode into Elcho and had lunch at Koni K’s restaurant before continuing east on county K.  It was a quick 5.6 mile ride to the Wolf River bridge between upper and lower Post Lakes.

Just after the bridge we took a right on Clear Lake road and continued on to County U (about 7 miles).  On the way we passed a young deer.

 

We also saw a house and a barn made with cord wood construction.

 

We continued west on County T back to Summit Lake (about 8 miles).  Once back to the park, we cooled down with a nice swim in the lake.  The lake is clean and clear but the water is a copper color from the tannin of the tamarack trees - it is the color of a nice glass of beer.  We had a good day of riding; beautiful scenery, peaceful scenery with little traffic and good roads - biked a total of 46 miles.