Planned a trip to visit Dad and Candy for Memorial Day Weekend with the bike. I have only been on it once so far this season. Super excited to hopefully break last year’s miles. The weather was supposed to be perfect for it, except they kept adding more rain to Memorial Day (of course), which was the day for our ride back home.
Kevin met me at my place around 8:30 Saturday morning to load up and head out. I chose a more direct route to get us there around 1:00 right after Dad’s lunch time (Hwy 23 to 82, to 16 then 90 to 61). Ran into fore-warned construction in Montello which detoured us all the way north on Hwy 22 to Wautoma and then potentially southwest from there. We stopped in Wautoma for a break and gassed up. We decided to take Hwy 21 from there to Sparta, which would still connect us to Hwy 16 so we could still stop for lunch as planned at The Big Boar BBQ in West Salem. We arrived at the Big Boar around 12:30. Headed straight from there to the nursing home in Winona. Candy was already there and Dad was up and awake, although he was a little confused and very sleepy. After visiting with Dad we left to check into our hotel and later met Candy for dinner at the Ground Round next to our hotel so we could be off the bikes for a bit and dressed more comfortably. Also it was only my second time on my bike this season and after putting in close to 200 miles that day, I was ready to be off it for a while.
When we watched the weather forecast Saturday evening they ramped up the chances of rain to storms, with wind gusts to start around 2:00 a.m. Monday morning around the Winona area and not to let up until later in the day. So Sunday morning when we were getting ready to head out on the bikes to visit Dad we decided to check and see what penalties we would receive if we cancelled that night’s reservation by checking out at that time since it was before 11 a.m. They said no penalties, so we proceeded to get all of our stuff packed up and checked out before heading by Dad. When we arrived, he was in a deep sleep and hadn’t woken up for breakfast. While we were there, we looked for hotel in Mauston for the evening and found something on the east side of town, so we booked it. We took the bikes up to Garvin Heights for stop to enjoy the view and a drive along River Road to observe the high waters along the Mississippi River before stopping by the house to visit with Candy and Lucky. Supposedly the Miss was at its highest levels in over a decade and I believe that. Around 1:00 p.m. Kevin and I headed to the nursing home to see if Dad was awake. He was not, but one of the aides was able to wake him. While they were getting him up the RN helped us to get some lunch for him. Candy showed up while they were still getting him up and we had a nice visit with both of them before we headed out around 3 p.m. for Mauston. Since it was such a beautiful day, we agreed to take Hwy 71 south of Sparta through Norwalk, Wilton, Kendall and Elroy before getting onto Hwy 82 into Mauston. I just love that route because it is full of lots of sweeping curves and beautiful scenery through the bluffs and valleys. After checking in we freshened up and walked across the Hwy to the Mauston Park Oasis Restaurant for some dinner.
After waking up Monday morning we checked the radar and it appeared the rain and storms were closing in but we had enough time to get some breakfast at the hotel, pack up and get going before it could catch up with us. Also, luckily the holiday traffic wasn’t bad yet either. Home around 11ish. Rain started here around 12:30 and was just a steady to light one. We could have handled riding in that but I prefer not to if it is storming.
Not a bad weekend of riding for only my second time out on the bike. Map below...
