Jelly Belly = Great Mid-Ride Fuel
Saying bye to our great hosts in Milwaukee, it was time to head back to Chicago.
Because we are shackled by the MLB schedule, teams that share a city rarely have home stands that overlap. Because of this truth, we attended a game at US Cellular, hopped on our bikes to ride up to Milwaukee and see a game at Miller Park; then turn right back around and head back to Chicago for a game at Wrigley Field! Would have been nice to stay in Chicago the whole time, but alas, not the case.
Pedaling out of Milwaukee was gorgeous. Our time in Milwaukee had been trail-and-bike-lane-filled. We’d used the great trail connections within the city to take us to the Harley Davidson museum, the Great Lakes Distillery, German Fest, Miller Park, and Bradford Beach for a professional volleyball tournament. We were loving the great bike culture of Milwaukee as we were equally as surprised as you are reading this, that Milwaukee HAS a great bike culture. Being a wintery city, I’d figure the city wouldn’t have such a great network because the trail system wouldn’t be utilized all year long. However, Milwaukee citizens get out and about as soon as that sun comes out. Festivals pepper every single weekend that the temperature is above 80 degrees. The weekend we were in town, three huge festivals were partying in two days. So, when the time was ripe, the people of Milwaukee took advantage. And so did we!
The Oak Leaf trail led south along Lake Michigan and out of the city. All good trails must come to an end, and so did this one. But it dumped us on to Highway 32 and a solid shoulder as we pedaled out of the city and through South Milwaukee. We weren’t in any rush to get to Chicago. We knew that we had to be there by nightfall and that we had nearly 100 miles to cover from Jeff and Ann’s house in Milwaukee to the corner of Addison and Clark out front of Wrigley Field. We found our solid cruising speed of 15 mph, put our heads down and cranked it out.
But as we passed through the small town of Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin we pulled our heads up to a “pleasant” surprise, a Jelly Belly distribution center with a tour! Well, it was time to break anyways, why not have our break over a few dozen jelly beans?!
We arrived just before the Jelly Belly tour rush and hopped on a little train with a chipper tour guide. As she pumped up the crowd for jelly beans (not difficult), we looked around the center and wondered what we were getting in to. Well it wasn’t a whole terrible lot. We rode around in the train as video boards played on screens at various corners of the distribution warehouse describing how Jelly Bellies are made in California. Whatever, we didn’t care, we got our small pack of free beans at the end and were able to learn about that Ronald Reagan held all of his meetings in the White House with a fresh jar of Jelly Bellies on the desk.
Back on the road, we had another Rails to Trails ride to look forward to as we neared Chicago. Riding through the urban areas, it was a relief that there was a trail available at all, much less a fantastic Rails to Trails ride. It wasn’t an entirely fluid trail, as it broke up a couple times as it passed through suburbs in Highland Park and Lake Forest, but it was worth the no traffic. Nice safe ride into a ginormous city sounded just about OK with us!
Riding into Chicago was surprisingly quite pleasant. I would assume that a city as large as Chicago would be difficult to ride through. Not really the case. We rode alongside Lake Michigan via Lakeshore Drive for a couple miles then jumped onto the bike lanes as we rode down Clark St and straight into a Hispanic Festival. I love this about big cities. We are just riding down the street and then all of a sudden, the street is blocked off because of this probably pretty big Hispanic festival that has gone unnoticed to much of the city of Chicago. But we were able to see it! We walked our bikes through it wearing our cycling kits, as people danced in the streets, chomped on empanadas and guzzled down cervezas.
We wanted to get to Wrigley, as we were under 10 miles away on our 100 mile ride of the day. We smiled at the festival-goers and returned to our bicycles.
Only one mile out, we couldn’t resist. Fantastic sports writer, Jim Caple, had tweeted at us, suggesting for us to finish off a ride with a tasty Slurpee from 7-eleven. We love Slurpees and we wanted to tweet back at Jim Caple, cause we like Jim Caple. We loaded up with a few large Slurpees and hopped back on our bicycles for the last mile to Wrigley.
Riding up to a ball park each time is such a moment of triumph. A whole day’s work, 100 miles of riding, lots of water and sweat, and many granola bars all were put in to get us here. And not only was it a destination, it was a Major League Baseball ball park.
Chasing the game I love to visit all 30 ball parks, riding up to the stadiums, and seeing each one slowly be unveiled among the city skyline; is like the feeling of finding your long-lost wallet after a lifetime of searching. All of your belongings have gone into that wallet. You can’t get it out of your mind, because you don’t feel right without your wallet. Not only that, but it’s been gone your entire life. But that moment that your wallet is back in your eyesight, you have this feeling of being complete once again. That feeling of becoming complete, is still in process. And actually since Wrigley Field is the 19th park of the summer, we are 63% complete!
But what a feeling it is to see a new stadium. I feel like I just won a race. I don’t race anyone, it’s not timed and there is no course, but there is an award. That award is seeing that stadium. I win!
We rode up to Wrigley and chatted with the many people wandering around the intersection of Addison and Clark as the Cubs finished off the Cardinals with a Rizzo homer on a Sunday afternoon. Save some for us tomorrow Cubbies, cause we want to see something special!