By the Sea, by the Sea, by the Beautiful Sea

We had to say good by to Xerxes this morning ... 80 pounds of playful puppy. Before he would let us go, though, he took our hostess Annette's purse, with her cell phone and keys, and hid it in the bushes where he could chew on it later. Fortunately, with a bit of detective work, we found Xerxes' hiding place. Do you think he looks innocent in the picture below?

We had a leisurely morning. The boys slept in until 9:00, then we had a lazy breakfast, packed the car, then went into town to see a bit of Manitowoc. We are even learning how to speak Wisconsinese. The town mentioned above is pronounce "Man-toe-walk" with the emphasis on the first syllable. The big city to our south is called "Muh-walk-ee." And the one to the north is pronounced "Green Bay." That's all you need to know, and you'll fit right in. Seriously, though, Wisconsin was very pleasant, as have been all the States we've visited. But it was time to pack the van and make a special journey ... book store, bike shop, and ferry. Here's our car, fully loaded. Three bikes on back, one inside, all our gear either in the back or on the roof, and we would all be piled inside shortly thereafter.

We actually covered one mile of our journey by car ... the mile from the Henry farm to the shore of Lake Michigan ... and from there, we parked the car and climbed aboard the car ferry, the SS Badger.

The SS Badger then took us across the lake. Otherwise, we would have had to cycle south through Chicago, so we chose the more expedient route.

The watery highway, which they are actually considering naming Highway 10. So, for the purists among the blog readers, we stayed on the highway, I was by my bike (just a couple of decks above it), so I'm still crossing America by my bike. And a 4-hour shortcut seems insignificant when you consider that we have 18 riding days remaining, nine days on, a rest day, then another nine days!

Although you can barely make out Bryce contemplating the coast of western Michigan in the following picture, it is actually a very significant moment. We are crossing from the Central Time Zone into the Eastern Time Zone, completing the crossing of one more State, and, as Pat likes to point out, we have now been on the road for forty days and forty nights, with more than two-thirds of our 59 days on the road behind us. Wow. So far, so good! The time is going by faster than I imagined possible.

We've traded Xerxes for a shy little rescue dog, maybe a Shitzu-miniature poodle mix named Toby, and we've lost an hour of sleep. But we are still rolling along! Hasta ma~nana (sorry, too late at night to figure out how to make an "enya" in blogspot).