Very chilly morning about 50 F, poor Sportstergirl (Ann Marie) had to start about an hour before us too, but she arrived at our house with a story to tell. Her S.O. decided to wash her bike for her the night before. Now this would normally be a nice gesture, but he decided to shine up her tires with OMG! Armor-All. So I broke out the wheel & tire cleaner and sprayed them down while she hosed them off. (No pics sorry!) But this was an on-going joke all week-end (Hey Sportstergirl, next time I see a sample size, I’m buying it for your tank bag!)
Myself, my wife Vickie, and Sportstergirl took off at 9:00 heading north up the IL and WI 2-lanes to Madison WI to meet up with the rest of the crew Marousek (Jiri) and Kyle - from the Milwaukee area, OU812 (Steve) and Ves (Ves) - from the Chicago suburbs, and Jen (Jen) – from the Madison area.
First stop for us was the New Glarus Brewery to pick up a couple six-packs for the evening get together. It’s a micro-brewery that is very popular in WI now for their Spotted Cow Farmhouse Ale, which is now on draft almost everywhere up there.
http://www.newglarusbrewing.com/
This is a good time to introduce you to two of Sportstergirls friends. Quackers the Duck originally from South Carolina and now rides with her everywhere, and Quackers’ new friend Spot the drunken cow from New Glarus WI. Both take great photos and are great conversation pieces too. Here they are in New Glarus, ready for Spot’s first road trip!
While we were stopped getting beer, OU812 and Ves had to stop because OU812 was leaking beer (bummer). But they got it straightened out minus a couple bottles, and finished their slab-ride to Madison with out further issues.
Leaking good "Fat-Tire" beer on the slab - Bummer!
This is where we met up, had lunch and finally put faces to names and voices. It’s the Quaker Steak & Lube in Middleton, WI. (a suburb of Madison) Some of you further east have probably heard of them. Nice place even if the waitress tried to make off with a $7.00 tip by forgetting to bring back my change.
[/url]http://www.quakersteak.com/[url]
After lunch, Marousek led us north-west up WI state highway 14 to La Crosse. Awesome sweepers all the way up, great run and no stops except for gas, we were having too much fun to stop for pictures! We arrived at Trempealeau WI, where we had reservations for 2 nights at the "Historic Trempealeau Hotel".
Getting ready to check in at the Tremp (Yo Jiri, you testing that battery or what?)
Views from the main Hotel:
A little Trempealeau and Tremp Hotel info: Trempealeau is a small town (pop. 1400) just north of La Crosse right on the Miss. River at Lock and Dam #6. Not much there but a couple bars, hotels, a gas station, and a bar & bait shop they called a “marinaâ€Â. But it was nice and quiet, ummm except maybe for us, and we had everything we needed. The Tremp Hotel was interesting. They had 8 rooms above the Bar and Restaurant that shared a bathroom, European style, Marousek & Kyle stayed there and the rest of us stayed at the Kingfishers cabins down by the boat landing. These were small remodeled rooms, OK, OK, very small, but functional.
We decided to use the rocks to hold our bikes down
Our faithful steeds parked at the King Fishers:
...and somehow Ves got the room with the view!
Actually I think this was larger than our bathroom:
Views from the Kingfishers:
...and here's Quackers getting ready to take morning dip
After checking in, those of us going to the Kingfishers set off to find our rooms, about 8-10 blocks away from the main hotel by the way, to unpack, make an ice run, ice down the beer for later consumption using all the waste cans we could find, and then headed back to the main hotel to unwind and have dinner.
Ves, Jen, and Ann Marie decided to walk back which turned out o be quite a trek for them, but they did get a couple nice shots:
...and here's Jen (L) and Ann Marie (R):
At dusk we all headed to the deck at Kingfishers to celebrate our first rides great start which finally ended around 1:00am. (It was rumored that some people were slurring words too...yep a good time was had by all!
Now things start getting weird:
Spot before:
Spot after "Spotted Cow Tipping"
now you understand the name Spot the drunken cow.
This is to show you the size of the Fat Tire beer bottles:
ummm yeah, say goodnight Spot!
That was a recap of Friday's events, I will post Part 2 - Sat. tomorrow.[/url]
Saturday May 19th – Great River & Back Road Ride
Saturday early am, Ves and I were up taking pics and discussing motorcycles & track days while Kyle and Marousek were off in search of breakfast – no luck. After we got ready we took off in search of food too. Luckily my wife stopped and asked a couple of locals and found out we had to go to Holmen about 10 miles east, Jeez! Beautiful morning so we sat outside:
Marousek missed the group photo-op
there he is:
...and just for DJ Downunder
A western scramble
Ham and Eggs
Waffles w/Strawberries
and OU812 had to be in his Biscuits & Gravy shot
Had a local take a pic of the group ready to leave:
After the much needed human fuel stop, we headed north up the Great River Road, WI Highway 35, as far as Alma where we stopped for some pics and water at Seymore’s Red Ram.
Group shot:
Views:
Ready to head out to the twisties!
Shortly after the Alma stop, we turned off to take the back roads to wind our way to Durand. Wisconsin is great for twisties as most county roads are paved and lightly traveled. At a corner in middle of nowhere we got a free car show!
I think this was the longest straight we saw on the county roads:
Just behind Jen is the norm, 30mph rated curves on unlined blacktop=fun:
From Durand we took the county roads down to Stockholm on Highway 35. It was here that we had our only miss-queue and an unscheduled lunch stop. My wife was staying way back due to the V-Star not being as nimble in the twisties as the shorter bikes. (And having some bad fuel & carb issues which we found out later) We took a left in Stockholm and the pack kept going not realizing she wasn’t there yet. Sportstergirl and I pulled off to wait for her but she never showed. (Actually she went straight through the intersection and we didn’t see it) so the two of us headed back the way we came fearing the worst, but didn’t find her and headed back to Stockholm where the pack was now at a bar & grill. Jen said she saw her head north so Marousek went after her. (He secretly just wanted to go as fast as possible – but we all knew it!) Come to find out she just went to the next town up, got gas, and was heading back – Wow that thing was drinking gas! Lot’s of apologies and laughs over lunch.
Here are some shots of Stockholm:
While in Stockholm there was a group of 15-20 older gentlemen, dressed in authentic period style riding attire, on bicycles doing an 85 mile 3-Speed tour around Lake Pepin. If my Mississippi River history is correct, Lake Pepin is one of the largest lakes of water on the river at about 2 miles wide and 22 miles long. All of these bicycles were British made during the 1930’s and 40’s!
http://www.3speedtour.com/
We also saw a new Victory Cruiser in Stockholm, first one I’ve seen on the road. It looked even more “gihugic†out in public than it did at the Chicago Motorcycle Show!
We then headed back south down the Great River Road 35. We stopped first at an overlook for some pics and then in Alma again, initially to tell someone they left their MC on but ended up staying for a drink at the Golden Frog Saloon.
And we stopped at a Scenic overlook up on the bluff and snapped these (Thanks Kyle!):
After that little break we headed back to Trempealeau to celebrate our “Epic Ride†to quote OU812. After that full day of riding we relaxed on the deck of the Hotel and had a couple of beers until hunger finally set in. We ended up just getting a table to eat at the hotel again. No one really wanted to ride to the closest restaurant which was supposedly only 1 mile away at dusk and come back at night. Besides, Marousek and Kyle had ridden there in the morning and said it was more like four miles. Following dinner we celebrated Ann Marie’s birthday. We all appreciate that she decided to go with us on her birthday weekend! Thanks again Sportstergirl!
Quackers got in on the action too:
After dinner we went back to the Kingfishers cabins where we started a amp-fire, sat around, relaxed, laughed, and enjoyed each others company, and finished the majority of our remaining stock knowing that tomorrow would be the start of our journey home.
Looks like OU812 said something bad to Spot the Drunken Cow!
Sunday May 20th – The home stretch!
Well the weather was great up until now. We woke up to cool temps with fog and drizzle.
Once everyone was packed up:
...we headed down to the Hotel to fetch Kyle and Marousek and then went south along the river on 35. The weather held until we got near Genoa, where it just let us have it. A wall of rain a head of us and my wife didn’t have her helmet. (I know, I know, but it’s her choice, no sense arguing) Well, she had to stop because her glasses kept fogging up so I stopped to make sure she was OK and then eventually left her to find the pack and let them know she was OK and on the way. They had stopped at a scenic overlook, wasn’t very scenic that day, but we did snap some pics anyway. My wife switched glasses and was alright from then on, wet but all right. She said "From now on, always take a helmet on overnighters".
Quackers seemed to enjoy the rain bouncing off Ves's tankbag:
About 20 miles from Prairie Du Chien the sun came out, it warmed up, and was absolutely beautiful. We stopped in PDC for a last round of drinks and appetizers together at Eddies Irish pub
... and to hang our gear out to dry!
At Eddie’s, we decided to head south as far as Cassville and then stop to say our good byes and split up because the three of us needed to start heading south in order to get home at a decent hour. But somehow we ended up in Lancaster….hmmmmm? The highways and county roads chosen to get there however were awesome with nice 70-80mph sweepers! Great end to the group ride guys!
We stopped in Lancaster and said our farewells. The three of us headed south from there and the rest headed east back toward Madison. (For further info on the East group’s closing ride, see marousek’s upcoming ride report)
and Marousek left us a parting gift
next time we'd like a smiley face please
In order to avoid the Sunday traffic in Galena, Sportstergirl led us down to Hazel Green, where we turned off on county roads through New Diggings and then down to Elizabeth, IL. Where we saw this:
And then on to Fulton where we stopped at The Outer Limits Bar & Grill for one of these:
From there Sportstergirl headed south by herself and we headed east. After we left Rock Falls IL, we hit a whopping 20-30 mph headwind. It was killing my neck, and we had to go into it for about 25 miles to get home. By the time we got home I had a pounding headache. You know, I may have been just a little tired from the weekend’s events…Naaaaahhhhhh!!! Let’s do it again!
Thanks to everyone who went! Thanks to Jiri for setting this up! Thanks to all the support behind the scenes that made it possible, i.e. spouses, grandparents, babysitters, and even SO’s with Armor-All, etc.! (Ha! and you thought I was done with that) and please share this with them if you can.
Next Midwest ride is tentatively scheduled for Sept. in Northeast WI.
...Great pictures.....Thanks for posting them for us....... 
..........Mmmmmmmmm....waffles.. 
Thanks for the hard - photography - work and for posting! 
Nice job! Much better you than me. 
Just say,"I can,I know I can". 
sidebar, I put it out of it's misery.