Omaha / Somewhere in middle America
Get right to the heart of matters  / It’s the heart that matters more
I think you better turn your ticket in  / And get your money back at the door
– counting crows

It became downright spooky when we arrived in the community of Elroy, WI  early Sunday afternoon.  Elroy is where the stars, or I should say the bike trails align.  The 400 Trail, The Elroy Sparta Trail & The Omaha trail all meet in this little town.  It’s here where the Elroy Commons, a renovated train station with gift shop, showers and bike rentals, stands as a gateway to about 100 miles of beautifully maintained bike trails. It’s here where we found out there were no restaurants, no shops of any sort and not a car on a road or a person on a sidewalk. Not even a cliché dog barking in the distance.  Having just watched a flick from New Zealand called, “The Quiet Earth”, the day before, we had the spooky feeling we’d arrived on set.

Elroy is one of hundreds of little rural Wisconsin communities that had sprung up around a mill and a railway connection in the 1800’s, bloomed for a short time, then faded back as time passed them by. The railways that had once sustained them lost their importance and eventually abandon their tracks all together.  Today many of these  small communities hold on tenaciously with just a small number of  residents. Outposts in a way that still act as a gathering place for people living within a few miles radius. Most have a gas station, church and a hardware store that survive even when most of main street is for sale, lease or simply boarded up.

Passing through these tiny communities on a warm summer day you’ll often find a few people working in their lawns. You seem to always pass an old truck with dented, mix and match fenders, that leaves a long trail of black soot swirling through the air in it’s wake like an old coal steamer.  There are usually a few faces framed in a rundown café window somewhere along the main street.  Not here. Not this day anyway. That’s what seemed so odd really.  Here we were in this quiet community on a warm, sunny, Sunday afternoon and the streets were empty, the park void of children, and nothing but a curtain fluttering in an open upstairs window to catch the eye.  The sound of our bike tires on the gravel path cut the air like gun shots.

There was a woman in the Commons who sent us over to the local quick mart as the only restaurant in town.  A mini-mart that offered bottled libations, coffee machine cappachino, and stale, tasteless, dollar burgers that seemed to have sat under a heat lamp for days.  It was here where we at last found the bustling community we  had failed to find on main street. People came and went, getting gas, picking up a few supplies, and for the most part I’m sure,  just passing through.

The Elroy Commons

Walking back toward the trail head to where the grass was manicured and the signage cared for, back to the well maintained recreational outpost, I wondered if people in the community surrounding it had expected more of the bike trails which by default maybe, seem the focal point of the their town.  Were they told that the coming of these major trails would bring in outside dollars?  Would the trails help support a local grocery store or main street diner?  Did they expect the trail to help draw employees to the handful of employers that still exist in the area?  Would it help draw more industry to the mostly available parcels of the North Industrial Park?  Would the trail help keep a doctor or veterinarian in town?  Hard to tell I guess.  One thing is sure, on this day anyway, things were very, very quiet.

Related Posts:

1. Changing Gears
2. 3 Days by Bike…
3. 400
4. Beyond Boundaries
5. i walk