Sigh, winter is upon us

From December 29, 2012:

Well, the bikes are parked off to the side in the garage to make room for the snowblowers.  Unfortunately they have been getting quite a workout over the last week or so. 

We were in Florida last week, and I think that moving somewhere warm, where I can ride all year round, is looking better all the time!

Here's to a new year and new adventures and maybe some new riding friends in 2013!!

2012 Riding Season - is it over?

From October 15, 2012:

Well, we haven't gone riding in a while and fall is definitely here.  I guess it's time to wash the bike and get it covered up for the winter.

Part of me hopes that we still get a decent day or two of riding in yet, but I don't think we will :(

So, I guess this is goodbye until next spring....or is it????

E J Q V couldn't get a U

Today was an amazing day for a ride.  Not too hot, not too cold, just right with my middle layer on.  75 and sunny, really no wind, couldn't ask for much better that that!  It was great winding around the back roads, through the corn fields and we had some great views out over the lake when we got around to the east side of it.  Not a lot of traffic, and almost no road construction the way we went either.  I love this time of year, I would be happy if the weather was always like this :P

We knocked off Eureka, Jericho, Quinney and Van Dyne today, as well as Winnebago and Fond du Lac counties.  We have U, X and Y left for cities.  We tried to get Utica, but couldn't find a sign anywhere - grrrrrr.....

Our letters took us halfway around the lake so we decided to keep going and went all the way around, stopping at the Menasha Grill on our way around.  I have yet to be disappointed in their food!  Good, fast service, reasonable prices and excellent food.

Now to get those last three city letters.....

Lots of letters today!

Today was a great ride with Ed.  We did Brown County, De Pere, Doc's Harley Davidson, Zachow, Appleton, and Lawrence.


It started off a little chilly, so I wore the outside layer of my riding system.  Wow, it was way too much jacket, I was pretty toasty.  I'm going to go back to wearing the middle layer or my light jacket next time.


Getting the pictures takes some courage - we have to pull over on the gravel shoulder and hope there isn't too much traffic.  We're getting better at catching the signs before we pass them, but I will say that I am getting to be the queen of u-turns!


We decided to have a late lunch at Stevie B's in Appleton.  For $6.50 plus the price of a drink, you get all the pizza & salad you can eat.  They have "normal" pizzas, dessert pizzas, anything you can think of pizzas as well as some of their own recipes. I have to say, there isn't a type of pizza there that I haven't liked. It is way to easy to overeat, but today I didn't for once :) The s'mores pizza and the cinnamon roll are my favorites, I could just eat them and skip the regular pizza but that is good too!

We have all the letters we need for SWITCHBACK now, and are just missing a few city letters E, J, Q, U, V, X and Y. We need a lot more county letters though.

I is for Iola

So, is there a better way to end a work day than a ride with friends?  None that I can think of!  Ed & I headed out to Iola with a childhood friend (and neighbor) of mine and her boyfriend.  The weather could not have been more perfect.  


We had a great ride, saw some cranes, had our photo op in Iola, and due to time restrictions had to take the highway.  There was some construction that gave us the opportunity to take some back roads to get where we needed to go.


We came back to Oshkosh, ate at The Chalice followed up by dessert at Leon's.  I had the roast beef au jus with the pasta salad at The Chalice, it was fabulous as always.  I tried a new flavor at Leon's, Raspberry swirl.  It was good, but I still like chocolate best :)


Looking forward to more rides soon to finish up our ABC's!

Riding weekend day 2, June 24

Good day of riding today.  We went around Lake Winnebago to knock some more cities off our list.  We got Fond du Lac, Sheboygan, Kiel, Plymouth, Harris, Chilton and Neenah.


It felt cool when we left, so we both wore jackets, but soon I was sweating my butt off so we took them off and enjoyed the sunshine.  It was a mix of clouds & sun with almost no wind so it was perfect.  There were a few times it looked like we might get rained on but we didn't.  Animal sightings today were pretty much zilch.  We saw a couple of geese with their goslings, otherwise besides the normal birds nothing.  Very uneventful with the exception of an old (antique) Mustang that had no brake lights and decided to stop and turn on the highway and gave us a little heart check, but nothing like the day before.


We stopped at Scoops in Chilton, it was amazing as always.  I had a peanut butter volcano sundae with chocolate ice cream and Ed had a grasshopper sundae.  The place was busy, but not too busy, so we got good service and were able to enjoy our delicious sundaes.


We logged 150 miles on this ride, and we took off to ride Monday too, but we were a little sore from the 2 days in a row so we just vegged at home and went to a movie instead.

Slightly damp ride June 23

Today we headed off to Friendship to knock off another county & city on our list.  Got rid of Adams county  & Friendship from our list.  


Pretty much all the excitement happened on the way to Friendship.  First thing was outside of Princeton the traffic came to a complete and sudden stop.  I think I actually heard Ed's tire squeal.  We'll call that heart check #1.  Heart check #2 came a little while later when some old lady decided that the curve in the highway was optional and came heading straight at us.  That was the last heart check for the day.


Animal sightings for the day were plentiful.  We saw 3 brown cranes and I saw 2 white cranes, possibly whooping cranes.  We also saw 2 deer, 5 turkeys and a woodchuck.  There was also a dive-bombing suicidal bird that went after Ed and many, many brown winged creatures that we couldn't agree if they were butterflies or flying grasshoppers.  They felt a lot like grasshoppers when they hit me, but Ed said he thought they were butterflies.


Just outside of Princeton, we did get rained on for about a half hour, but it wasn't bad, just a light rain that was pretty annoying.


The ride back from Friendship was very uneventful.  We had a great ride with lots of hills and curves in the road.  Not a lot of traffic, and riding back through the hills we did get to  see all the crops growing.  Some of the farmers were irrigating and got a little too close to the road so we got to ride through some very brief fake rain showers.  When we were in the open spots, the birds of prey were soaring looking for a meal.  I always love watching them just glide.


We stopped at the Wheelhouse for a bite to eat and they were having a steak fry and had a band.  We didn't have steak and we sat inside and ate burgers.  It was the best bacon cheeseburger I've had in a while, just the right amounts of everything including grease.


200 miles more put on today, and we are looking forward to riding the next 2 days for H-D World Ride June 24 - 25 and getting some more things knocked off our ABC's of touring list.