My bike is ready for spring!

I had my bike picked up & dropped off for it's 5K maintenance, so now it sits in the garage all clean and ready for spring. I also had heat demons installed under the grips since my hands are always cold, and I bought some new cold weather riding gloves in the fall so I should be good to go between the 2 of them, I hope!

I guess there was a problem with my front tire, it was cupping really bad, but Harley warrantied it so I got a new front tire for free! Yay!!

All I have to say now is COME ON SPRING!!!

December 31, 2010

So, it's the end of the year. That means only 4 or 5 months until riding season starts again, right? I have the bitter sweet sensation of passing my bike by with the snowblower in the garage each time we have to snow blow. The good thing is that we bought covers for them this year, so I only see a bunch of plastic like stuff covering a blob where my bike is. Honestly, it doesn't help because I know what's under it, but, hey - it sounded good right??

I hope everyone had a great 2010, lots of fun and lots of miles of safe riding, and here's to an even better 2011 with sunny skies and smooth surfaced roads for riding on. Happy New Year everyone!

I love Wisconsin weather

Welcome to October in Wisconsin! It was in the 70's all weekend, so we went up through the Menominee Indian reservation and up to the Crivitz area today. 250 miles of sunshine! At one point we crossed over the Wolf River and the water was so calm it looked like 2 mirrors on each side of the bridge reflecting back the images of the trees.

Unfortunately most of the trees had already peaked their colors so they were bare. There were times though when one side of the road had bare trees and the other was full of color. Some spots had beautiful shades of green in the evergreen boughs poking through brilliant yellows, oranges and reds of the remaining leaves. The contrast was breathtaking. The sun was just right through the canopies of yellows and oranges we rode through as well. Some of the trees had such bright red colors it almost looked like they were on fire. All in all, it was an awesome ride. I'm hoping the weather holds out and we can head more south next weekend and that the trees haven't peaked there yet. Mother Nature is showing all her colorful glory in my favorite season of fall. I can't imagine living somewhere where I couldn't see the colors.

Possibly the last long ride of the year???

Say it ain't so! We went about 187 miles today, ended up cruising around over by Green Lake and stopped in Rudolph to have lunch at the Galaxy Drive-in. The food was good, but the yellow jackets were terrible. They didn't bother us at all until the first food came, then they were everywhere. Eating outside is the only option, so there was no where to go to get away from them. I know that's the problem at the time of the year, but seriously??? At least, to my knowledge, no one got stung.

The ride was great. The sun was warm, there was a little wind, and the traffic wasn't heavy. We took some twisty, turny back roads, and while most of the trees are still green, there were a few that had turned and were almost bare. There was the slightest hint of yellowing in the green on the rest, but I think we have a little time before we get any colors here. There were no mass murders of critters this week, but there was a lot of road kill, and i mean A LOT of road kill. It was really scenic as we wound our way around and up and down. The corn has all pretty much turned that browny-yellow color so the contrast with the green was amazing. There were lots of smells today, some good, some not so good. There was fresh cut hay smell, fresh cut grass smell, skunk, dead animal, silage, compost, and some various other butt and fart like smells I couldn't identify. Not a lot of pine trees today, so I didn't get to smell the warm sun on the pine trees smell. We also rode through the Horicon Marsh on the way home. One of our dogs wasn't feeling well so we cut off and came straight home in case he was still getting sick while we were gone. He seems to have gotten it all out of his system now so that's good.

After all the miles we have shared this year (over 5,300) I finally gave my baby a really good hand washing. She looks almost brand new again. Before you get all in my face, yes, I have washed my bike, several times, before today, but not a good really thorough brush, scrubby sponge crack and crevice wash like today. Before it was more of a power wash off and dry. She looks so pretty, and I am going to have her parked in the garage for a while now so hopefully she'll stay that way!

The riding season is beginning to wind down I'm afraid :-(

We went all over the place today with our friends, eventually ending up in Coleman and another friend's cabin. We took back roads all the way up there, and ended up going through Shawano where we ate at the Home Run Cafe. The special was a hot beef sandwich with mashed potatoes. It all came on one plate totally covered in brown gravy. I thought it was ok, my beef was a little on the dry side and the mashed potatoes were a bit thick and chunky for me (trust me, I know my taters!) Ed had the same thing and he got a piece of dutch apple pie which I had some of, and it was pretty good. All together with tip and 2 lemon aids (that's what the menu said) it was $20.

After Shawano, we worked our way up through Keshena and the Menominee Indian reservation. It was in the mid 60's, so the sun felt warm on my back as we were riding, but it wasn't warm out. The neatest part was riding through the woods and feeling the cool of the shade but getting that warm sun on the evergreen needles smell. I love that smell! Today was also a very sad day for the butterfly population. At first we thought it was going to be the day of the Monarchs because they were EVERYWHERE! Most of them were able to get out of the way, but I did murder a few. After them, we had a stretch where the yellow butterflies were literally in swarms on the sides of the road. Between the 5 bikes, I'm sure we took out quite a few of them. I have pretty yellow smudges all over my windshield, chaps and bike.

The one thing I can't figure out from today is what the heck hit me in the leg. Something hit me really hard, almost felt like a frog or something, right below my right kneecap. It actually made my eyes water it hurt so bad. Took a while for the pain to go away too. All I could think of was the game Frogger (ok, I'm dating myself now) because if it was a frog, it would have been toast. We had nice weather, the breeze picked up a bit on the way home, but 250 miles later, here I sit typing this out. I'm hoping we have some more good riding yet this year, I've got over 5,000 miles on and counting :-)

Friendship Ride

So today we took a ride over to Friendship. The ride out was nothing special except for a few dead deer on the side of the road, but the ride back was a lot better. Shortly after our AWESOME lunch at the Friendship Cafe (I'll talk more about that later) we headed back home. We had the weirdest experience, it was reminiscent of the great butterfly massacre of 2010 a few weeks ago. We were riding along, and for about a minute we were getting pelted by grasshoppers! There were whole groups of them in the road, and they had the most excellent timing for hitting my shins and arms. I actually ducked behind my windshield since they were heading up toward my face at times too. Those suckers hurt when they hit you! I was laughing but Ed wouldn't talk because he didn't want to eat any of them. After that, there were some nice rolling hills, and at one point there was a row of HUGE pine trees right next to the road, but they were sheared off on the back side to make room for the power lines. It made me kind of sad because they were magnificent trees. It is obvious that summer is starting to wind down. The fields are mature, the hay is getting baled and everything looks like it's putting forth it's last best effort before getting ready for fall and going to sleep for the winter. The weather was perfect, lots of sun and no wind. We did about 145 miles, and I am within 30 miles of turning over 5,000 miles on my bike :-)

Now about the food: We stopped at the Friendship Cafe to eat. We walked in and it was packed. I felt sorry for the 2 ladies waitressing and the 1 lady cooking. They had a special, BBQ pulled pork and soup or fries which is what we both had. The meat was excellent and the bun was nicely toasted to give a good crunch to go with the meat. They ran out of soup (it was chicken dumpling so we were both pretty bummed) so we got crinkle cut fries instead. They were the skinnier ones, and they were fried to crispy perfection. They had 4 choices of pies for dessert, cherry, peach crunch, apple and rhubarb. Ed got the cherry, he said it was ok, a little tart and he wasn't a big fan of the crust. I got the rhubarb and it was delicious. It was nice and sweet even though it was a little thicker than I am used to. We left there nice and full, and the total bill for 2 sandwiches with fries, 2 pieces of pie and 2 sodas was $16. We spent that much for 1 meal and a soda last weekend for lunch so I thought it was a great deal and would eat there again. The waitress was really nice even though she was really busy so we tipped her well.

Yes, I am a slacker about blogging

Last Saturday we went for a short ride (130 miles) out around Green Lake and back. County Hwy E had just been repaved - no lines in the road yet - and we rode on that for quite a while. The area around Green Lake was really nice and quiet. and we pretty much had the roads to ourselves. There was one point when we were coming back that we came around a curve on top of a hill and the fields were amazing. There were two different crops in different shades of green, and the tops of the corn were blowing & rippling in the slight breeze creating the coolest effect of tan moving against the green. We tried to go to a new Mediterranean restaurant in Appleton, but it was not open so we ate at KFC since I've been craving the mashed potato bowl, and the KFC in Oshkosh got torn down to make room for the roundabout.

Today we went across the lake to meet some friends to go riding. We ended up going up to Manitowoc, Two Rivers and along the lake. Lake Michigan was very colorful today too. There was tan under where the water wan't deep and then beautiful shades of deep blue and aqua depending on the depth of the water. It was a little windy, but the ride was great. The humidity finally broke today and there were some clouds so it was very comfortable to ride. We had a buffet brunch at a cool little restaurant in Manitowoc. It's a Thai restaurant called Nikko's We were going to eat at a different restaurant but it was closed (I am sensing a theme here!) They had all kinds of things to eat including an omelet bar, French toast, bacon, sausage, a variety of Thai dishes and a fruit & dessert table with blueberry or cherry cheesecake. It was $13 a person, a little expensive I think, because there was no way I was eating $13 worth of food. It was good, but I would have preferred to order off the menu but that was not an option today. On the way back we stopped at Scoops in Chilton. They have great ice cream and they make it all right there. We didn't eat any because we were still full from lunch, but we have stopped there and had ice cream there before.