For once in a very long time the weather was slated to be absolutely gorgeous for the whole Memorial Day weekend. My favorite type of weather, high 70s to low 80s, not much of a wind or dew point, including mostly sunny. With that said, I plan on riding every day and today was no exception. I posted to the FB group page, but didn’t have any takers there. Although posted we’d meet at Menard’s parking lot with kickstands up at 10 a.m. So, that is where Kevin and I met with not expectations of anyone else joining us, but had to hold true to what I posted.
I also sent a route to Kevin on Thursday evening with plans to go to Iola for lunch at the Crystal Cafe, but when he told me it was only 80 some miles there and the same back, I told him we should possibly extend it to Big Falls. I also was kind of hoping we could change the direction so that we’d be going through the lakes west of Waupaca on our way up vs back to stop at the Wheel House on Long Lake for lunch instead, but he had already plugged it into his GPS and would be a hassle to change the direction. Next time as I am told it is popular by my boss.
We took a lot of the usual roads up to Omro, but from there I planned some I have never been on before. Lake Poygan Rd and then some back roads off of Hwy 49 north of Poy Sippi.
We made it to Iola around noon. One of the things the Crystal Cafe is known for is their homemade pies, but I cannot eat that much and wanted to save my sweets for ice cream later on. I couldn’t even eat more than half my sandwich.
From there we headed up to Big Falls and for the first time we decided to take a gravel road into an area near the power/pump house by the dam there and walked around a bit. Both on the Dam side and on Big Falls Pond side of Cty G. So beautiful there! Found some crawfish too. Even the remains of some that were lunch on the granite rocks by the falls. Possibly from an egret or crane?
From there it was back to Iola with some different back roads and Cty Q by Spencer and Long Lake west of Waupaca and more back roads from there eventually connecting to Cty E south for quite a ways.
We stopped in Red Granete by the quarry for a stretch and some water, and watched a bunch of young men doing flips off of one of the rock formations. Brave souls! As I am also sure quarry water is probably pretty cool yet this time of year.
From there we continued on E to F into Berlin where we stopped for ice cream at Shepard’s Drive-In.
It was a granite type of ride today because almost everywhere we went had plenty to offer, and finally broke 200 miles.
Now, where to for tomorrow? Was thinking Port Washington this weekend, but the winds are coming off of Lake Michigan and only supposed the 60s lakeside. So, we’ll see...
