Day 39 Sparta, WI to Baraboo, WI

Our day started out with breakfast at Ginny's Cupboard, the place we had our awesome dinner last night.  You can see hungry bicyclists waiting outside for them to open.

Here's a view of Sparta's main downtown street.

Beaver Creek runs under the street, and the restaurant has an old picture of when it flooded and the street collapsed.  Everything's fine in 2016.

I don't often take pictures of my food, but the breakfast at Ginny's Cupboard was fantastic!

A couple blocks from the restaurant, I ran into Ben Bikin'.

The highlight of today's ride was the Elroy-Sparta State Trail, the first rails to trails path in the United States.  It's not paved, but is crushed limestone and is pretty easy to ride on.  (It's much better than that gravel road we were on a few states ago!  South Dakota, I think it was.)  It was shady and cool, scenic, and there were even three tunnels (which we had to walk through).

Here are a few scenes from the trail and surrounding areas.

The first tunnel we went through was called Tunnel #3.  It was not quite a mile long, and because we couldn't see the end, I brought my headlamp.

Tunnel #2 was shorter.

Tunnel #3 was also short.  Ilene took a picture of me walking into the light.

Here's some interesting information about "telltales."

The old train station at Kendall Depot is now a little shop and museum.

The Elroy-Sparta Trail ends at Elroy, and immediately you can get on the 400 Trail, which goes all the way to Reedsburg.  In all, we rode about 53 miles on trails today, out of about 75 total.  The 400 Trail opened in 1993, and was named for the passenger train that traveled 400 miles in 400 minutes.

I took some pictures of the 400 Trail and surrounding scenery.

These strange looking chicken-type birds wandered onto the path in front of me.  Someone said they might be Guinea hens.

Once the 400 Trail ended, it was back on the roads.  Once again, we rode up hills, down hills, and through farmland.  I saw interesting yard art, barns, old abandoned houses, and great views of the countryside.

Tonight we are staying on the campus of UW Baraboo.  The W doesn't stand for Washington, and I don't know if they say "U-dub" here.  "U-Dub Baraboo" has a nice ring to it.