Kevin and I had planned to take a four day weekend for the Fourth of July and take the bikes to Boscobel on the 4th because we have been there before on the bikes for the holiday and know they have excellent fireworks. We would stay there two nights and ride around the area the second day before heading to Winona MN on Saturday to spend the night and visit Dad and Canders. Unfortunately the parts for my bike still hadn't come in prior to our trip, so we had to go two up on Kevin's bike. Bummer, but I was able to take 100s of pictures and enjoy the scenery more than if I’d been on my own bike. We initially took the Merrimac Ferry to cross the Wisconsin River and then crossed back over the River at least three more times. Zig-Zagging over it all the way down.
As planned we arrived into Boscobel Thursday, 4th of July around mid afternoon. We took advantage of the pool at the hotel, then walked downtown to find some food. Not many choices. We ended up at the same bar and grill as last time, The Double K's. Later we walked down from the hotel for ice-cream to Udder Brother's Creamery. Talk about a hot day…. 80s with 70 dew points. Weather app said it felt like 95 and it sure did. I was practically sweating just standing still. We also ventured to the Fireman’s Park to see what they had going on. Not much, typical fireman’s picnic, minus any rides. However, as I mentioned, they put on one heck of a fireworks show. Plus thay had some really nice Pierce and other brands of fire trucks.
The next day Kevin had planned a route around southwestern Wisconsin’s driftless region into Iowa via Dubuque and then north to Pike’s Peak along the Mississippi near McGreggor. We crossed back into Wisconsin into Prairie Du Chain where we stopped to have lunch at Buckhorn’s. From there up along the Wisconsin side of the old Miss and back roads into Boscobel.
Saturday morning was cloudy and cooler, hence some storms moved through the Boscobel area around 3 or 4 a.m. Felt like a good break on our way up to Minnesota; however, we did run into around five miles of unexpected rain. Not very heavy. We laughed because we had a chance to run into some the last two oppressively hot days and when we could have really used it, of course it did not happen. We arrived earlier than expected, so we met Candy at the house before going to see Dadders. Dad was awake when we arrived and although very confused he stayed awake and talkative. Very nice visit with him! Later we had dinner with Candy at the Ground Round and a nice visit with her.
I had a planned a pretty long route for home Sunday after our visit with Dad. Well he was fast asleep and never got up for breakfast. We tried waking him a couple of times to no avail, so we decided to head out and hope he’d be well rested enough to get up for lunch and for his afternoon visit with Canders. We took the I-35 bridge over the Miss out of Winona to the Wisconsin side right away and then back roads and ended up going through Wild Cat Mountain outside of Ontario, and then more back roads and two lane highways. We stopped for lunch at the Log Cabin in Baraboo for lunch before proceeding home. It was around 4:00 when we arrived home. I guess I took around 500 pictures. I have to say it was easy to do this with all of the awesome scenery we passed through on our 700 mile trip. It felt so good, I didn’t want it to end; except my body kept saying it had enough.
Maps and photos...
