Sam’s summer tour, day two: Fond du Lac to Appleton

To differentiate between altocumulus clouds and their lower-lying cousins, stratocumulus, compare against the size of your hand held out at arm’s length. Altocumulus clouds, because they sit up above 6,000 feet in the air, appear smaller than your thumb, whereas stratocumulus clouds look about the size of a fist.

I hope that neither of us gets bored of looking at long flat roads any time soon. If the first few days of this trip are any indication, our future holds an abundance of idyllic, though somewhat one-note Wisconsin pastoral.

Fortunately, even though the Badger state may lack landscape variety, the sky-scapes  are out of this world!

My ride today was meditative, meandering, and, most importantly, relatively brief.

I briefly considered heeding the siren

call of a cold Pabst Blue Ribbon around lunchtime, but cooler heads prevailed.

I’ve decided to take a more laid-back approach to my riding during this tour. Just because, at one point in my life, I was an epic being, capable of cranking out a manic stretch of 80 mile days, doesn’t mean I need to follow such an aggressive schedule NOW. My body and my brain will both thank me for taking some time along the way to smell the roses.

For now, it’s a beautiful evening in Appleton, Wisconsin. I’ve got Twelfth Night loaded up on my kindle, and I’m ready to get a good night’s sleep so that my own personal comedy of carbohydrate-fueled errors can continue tomorrow!