All's Clear in Eau Claire

Long Ride

So I made it to Eau Claire after about 9 hours of riding. I won't do that again. It was pretty comfortable except for the knees.

There is a phrase that I hear all over the motorcycle community: monkey-butt. Not sure what this is. Everyone talks about it, but never in specifics (maybe it's really gross), so people say things like, "Don't ride too long or you'll get monkey-butt. Don't need to say anymore, man." Maybe it's related to monkeys scratching their butts? Anyway, it seems to be a well-kept secret that I can comically compare to "love". As in, "you'll know it when you have it".

Road kill

Recently a friend of mine posted an article about eating roadkill. Let me clarify. The woman who wrote the article was not advocating eating any old roadkill, she had seen a grouse hit by the car in front of her, so she picked it up took it home and ate it. There were a few dead porcupines that I saw today on the side of the road, thus I've made them the roadkill of the day.
I had an uncomfortable encounter with two bugs today, one large one rocketed into my right shin, followed 2 minutes later with one to the left. Nature likes to balance things out. I guess you can add that to roadkill as well, but I didn't feel bad for the bugs vs the porcupines.

Other notes

Drove by a couple of these: http://www.polarfurnace.com/ which are wood burning water heaters basically. Huh, interesting country technology.

Upper Peninsula

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is known for mining, there are tons of signs for mine tours and "pasties" (pronounced PAY-STEES), which are like Jamaican patties for miners, flaky crust filled with meat, onion and potato. I was ready to see some civilization after all of that. I kept imagining how disgusted those miners would be with us for turning mines into tourist attractions. I think you know what I mean.
Also very popular in this area was the architectural motif of "melting barn", whereby the they uniquely designed the roofs with a sunken middle, by which I mean of course that a lot of barns were just collapsing on themselves.

Wisconsin

Roads in Wisconsin were really nice, as well the scenery. Nice rolling hills and trees. It's obvious that Upper Michigan clear cut everything some time ago, but Wisconsin had more strict laws about it. Wisconsin, however, is terribly muggy. It's nice to see that Montreal has some competition in that dept but I think Wisconsin so far takes the cake. 

No helmet

Michigan just became a "no helmet" state about a month ago, I asked an older guy and his wife (both with helmets) on a Honda Goldwing what that was about. I'd say that 1/3 of the riders in Michigan are not riding with a lid. In Wisconsin, which has long been a no helmet state has about 2/3 I'd estimate. Seems like no one wears them here.
I can sympathize a bit, because when I was in Dominican, even with the extremely dangerous driving, almost no one wore a helmet. Me and my girlfriend stuck out like sore thumbs when we were bombing around Puerto Plata on a scooter with helmets on! In fact, on our way back to the hotel, we were following a scooter with two men dressed up and carrying guitars. Later that night they were the guys playing music at our dining table and they laughed (probably at us) because they'd seen us following them and probably had a chuckle between themselves.

I ended up staying two nights with a girl named Katrina, who's going to UW Eau Claire, and is pretty well traveled for her age (19). Went out with her and her friends for the 4th, watched the fireworks in the park and ate Mexican food from Burracho's. Before that, she introduced me to a local pasttime: floating down the Eau Claire river in a tube! We floated for only about 15mins because we had to get to the fireworks, but I'll do it again today before leaving. I was considering staying but I think I need to keep up the pace. Not 9 hours pace, but at least 2. On the second day I floated down the river with Katrina and her friends, and I madly tried paddling perpendicular to the current to see a crane that was perched in the bushes. I never made it and was told later that it was a sculpture of a crane, not a real one. Lame.