Continued from Part 4

Packing my rig back up after a night at Potawatomi State Park, I kept my elevation as I strategically picked my way across Sturgeon Bay and a breakfast restaurant up on the hill.

Fueled by all of those calories, it was then time for a lateral 19km (11.8mi) ride back over on the other side of the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal.

Up to this point I was surprised by the lack of abandoned houses, but this route finally brought me to an area with a few of them.

Further up the road, there was a house with hundreds of broken down cars, multiple decrepit sheds and a house that looked barely livable. In addition, every other fence post had a sign saying that you need a $1000 permit to shoot photos and they're press charges if you don't secure permission, lol.

At the end of Canal Road stood one reason for this morning's detour - the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal Pierhead Lighthouse! Except that as I approached the breakwater, I discovered that it was actually two breakwaters and they were detached except for the overhead, inaccessible catwalk.

Therefore, I couldn't count this lighthouse since I couldn't stand before it.

It was comical how close it was, but unfamiliarity with the currents or how the nearby Coast Guard base takes to people swimming off the breakwater; led me to figuring that swimming across was probably best left for some time in the future. Plus, if I come back here with Isy, she's a way better swimmer than me and could rescue my ass if I start being carried out into Lake Michigan.

(edit: This lighthouse has actually changed hands recently and they're kicking the tires on guided tours/overnight stays.)

This 19km detour wasn't a total bust as the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal Lighthouse stood nearby on the aforementioned Coast Guard base. I would have liked to get even closer, but I appreciate that they let you get pretty close.

(If I was here during that Door County Lighthouse Festival, I would have been allowed right up and into the tower.)

Back in Sturgeon Bay, I hit up their library to upload my cycling routes so I could flex on the local NL cycling group kilometer leaderboard.

Just up the road, there was some type of festival going on and that meant Wisconsin brats. Don't mind if I do!

At this point I needed to go south and west from Sturgeon Bay to get back to Green Bay. Today I was going to tackle the "go south" portion. This would allow me to get a couple more lighthouses and see a few more cities, than I would have if I just returned straight to Green Bay.

Only a few minutes out of Sturgeon Bay and the traffic dropped right off. It was all quite lovely, especially when I met back up with Lake Michigan.

37 kilometers (23 miles) from Sturgeon Bay, I rolled down into busy Algoma, past a hotel and a busy restaurant, only to find another one of these stupid detached breakwaters!

Wisconsin you are officially chapping my ass!

The Algoma Pierhead Lighthouse was even closer and I didn't even know if I would have to swim if I pushed off and used my forward momentum to reach the rocks on the other side.

Again though, I'm not a good swimmer, no one knew where I was, and I had no idea how the currents work here in Algoma.

I could also hear Kid Rock's All Summer Long blaring, as there was a big party at the base of the Algoma breakwater. Not wanting to draw the level of attention getting in the water might bring, I thought even more about how Isy and I can maybe come back here for a swim sometime in the future.

Even though I didn't earn it, I still treated myself to a muffaletta in Algoma and it was dammmmmn good.

Between the pelicans and the muffalettas, I had no idea Wisconsin and Louisiana were so alike.

The road south from Algoma continued to follow Lake Michigan, and although it was devoid of lighthouses, there were some interesting regular houses (and an Indigo Bunting!)

Another 35 minutes of cycling and I found myself in Alaska?

Alaska, Wisconsin that is. So named because their post office was established the same year that America purchased Alaska.

Throughout this trip, I thought it would be a good time to get in a round or two of golf. Sure, cycling consumed a lot of time each day, but cycling was also almost all I had to achieve each day.

For example, today I'd cycled for a half-hour to breakfast, then an hour out to those first two lighthouses and back, then two hours to Algoma, then 35 minutes to here in Alaska - but it was still only the middle afternoon and I had plenty of daylight left.

Anyway, the Alaskan Golf Club looked much less hoity-toity than the other course I sized up on the Door Peninsula - and sure enough, the bartender stopped serving up drinks at the tiny bartop, to come over and set me up with rental clubs and a sufficient number of golf balls.

Driving on to the course, there was even an abandoned motel. This was perfect!

It's been a long time since I've golfed enough to be able to blame a bad game on being rusty. So yeah, it just wasn't my day on the course, but I still had a great time.

Such a great time that I'd only signed up for nine holes initially in case I wasn't feeling it, but soon enough found myself inside paying to play nine more.

It was only a little more than 30 minutes before I reached my destination for the day - the lakeside town of Kewaunee. The evening light was really nice as I entered town too, so I rode right down on to the breakwater and out to their Kewaunee Pierhead Lighthouse.

This pier was built in 1912 and an open frame (skeletal tower) lighthouse was built at that time, with a separate fog signal building. In 1931, the open frame lighthouse was removed and a new lantern room was built atop the old fog signal building.

Interestingly enough, the open frame lighthouse that used to stand here, was put into storage for seven years, before being installed in Chicago.

Peering inside, I saw the efforts of the lighthouse volunteers here in Kewaunee.

The lighthouse is open five or six times a year for climbing, but since these are all timed around big local events, I much preferred being out here today without anyone else.

Riding only two blocks back into downtown Kewaunee, I now needed to check in to my hotel for the night. I was conflicted about how this would make it four hotel nights vs only three nights camping on this trip, but the local campground is a private one with sites surrounded by RVs, where each site is still $35USD simply to put up a tent.

After discovering that Kewaunee had a decently-priced hotel, I hoped that it would be a passable spot and accepted spending more nights in hotels than campgrounds on the trip. Part of the math that made this acceptable was how insane the Karsten Hotel ended up being, but more on that in a bit.

The Karsten Hotel didn't start out well, with a sign saying to phone a number in order to check in. That obviously wouldn't work with my iPhone 4 and Canadian cell service, but eventually some other traveller departed and I was able to grab the door to get inside the hotel. From there, I used the Karsten Hotel's own lobby phone to call the Karsten Hotel's proprietor, haha.

A fairly normal, skinny man in his 50s quickly appeared, got me checked in and opened the hotel's unused bar so I could wheel my bike inside for storage. Day 6 would end with 88km (55mi) cycled.

Getting all of that done meant it was time for some highly-anticipated dinner. Walking into a promising harbourside restaurant, some guy at the bar instantly hit me with "about time you got here!" Immediately I thought to myself, who is this asshole breaking my balls about being on a bicycle, but after my squint and glare, he hollered out that they were the same group that were boozing back at the Alaskan Golf Club, lol.

After dinner, I really wanted to check out one of the awesome-looking taverns along Kewaunee's main street, but all of them had people out front and/or were packed with people inside. I walked up and down the road a couple times and made a few side street loops, but couldn't bring myself to overcome the anxiety.

Instead I went back to my hotel room and grabbed a Hamm's, then headed out to the Kewaunee Pierhead Light. Once out at the light, I realized that this might be the first time I'd consumed an adult beverage at a lighthouse? This seemed like an oversight on my part.

You might think I would be in heaven here, and I was pretty close, but there was also a possum I had to keep jockeying with for position (he was out there feasting on fish guts), plus I really didn't like the black, gently undulating water below. Back at dinner, I asked the waiter about swimming off the pier and he said that people do it, but technically you're not supposed to.

You couldn't pay me enough to jump off the pier at night, I can tell you that.

Following that lighthouse Hamm's, I now had the liquid courage to go have a beer at one of the local establishments.

(Rooster's was way busier than it seems in this picture - a bunch of people went out for a dart and some others went to play digital darts.)

Eventually it was time to get back to the Karsten Hotel, where the lobby that was previously peculiar with the proprietor in evening light, was now spooky with dim lights, strange music and not another soul around.

The hotel owner tries to play up the spooky haunted angle here, but I was left hoping that Kewaunee sees enough visitors to make that viable. It really seemed like there were only a handful of other people staying here on July 4th weekend. Meanwhile, every person in Kewaunee made quite the face when I said I was staying at the Karsten.

Don't get me wrong, I loved both the price and the uniqueness of this hotel - even as it was a tad dark when I tried to feel my way up to my room, haha.

You can now see why I was happy with the decision to spend the night in a hotel instead of in my one-man tent at Kewaunee's RV campground.

My actual room wasn't that odd, save for the decorative Tennessee plate about the bed. Everything seemed pretty clean too (which is amazing considering the amount of knic-knacks!)

A porcelain doll for the month of November was situated on my bedside table, keeping an eye over me.

Of course I went for a look around the hotel in the morning. Fortuitously I found a few rooms open.

Sweet racecar helmet light? Sweet Budweiser speedboat poster!? Wavy mirror!? Man, what a room!

Oh look, it's the same giant autumnal painting that I had, haha. With bonus creepy dolls and a decorative penny-farthing!

Back in the hallway, there was a Goodfellas/The Godfather/The Sopranos/Scarface mashup poster?

Heck yeah.

The door out to the roof had a sticker saying authorized personnel only, but it was also propped open to allow air flow within the hotel.

Oh hello, Mr. Seagull.

Okay, I really needed to get going as I couldn't spend all day exploring the Karsten Hotel.

A quick ride through Kewaunee, then up a hill to their county courthouse, which was amazingly only the second county courthouse of the trip. It was a nice one too (built in 1901, Romanesque), which was a lovely conclusion of a trip to a town which I wasn't wildly excited for. Kewaunee surprised me and ended up being one of my favourite populated places on the trip.

Anyway, more to come.