Today was supposed to be the nicest day over the Memorial holiday weekend, so Kevin and I planned to ride. Although he had an early morning appointment at Tytler’s for replacement of a part on his Beamer at 8 a.m. and with that said, I had to try and plan a place for us to meet which would be halfway for both of us. So, last night I planned a route and for us to meet in Chilton. The tricky part, is that he did not know how long it would take to replace the part. I just made sure that I would be ready to go anytime around 9:30 from my storage unit. Although it was supposed to get into the 70s, it wasn’t even 60 when I went to get my bike, so I called Kevin to see how far along they were. He said they just finished, and I suggested he meet me at my place since he had his heated gear. He had no problem with that, but would probably take around an hour to get here. So, I took the bike back to my place to stay warm until then.
While he was at Tytler’s they gave him one of their electric bikes to test ride while he waited, and let me tell you… that boy be talking like he was in love all day with how quickly it takes off, etc. Good pitch for selling them; just let folks test ride ‘em!
When he arrived, it still was pretty cool and my original route would keep us somewhat close to Lake Michigan with a lunch stop in Reedsville, so I suggested we scrap the whole planned route, wing it and head more inland and south. He was fine with that.
We first made a lunch stop at Three Guys and a Grill in Sheboygan Marsh and walked around checking out the new damn which was installed last year, in an effort to kill more time since it was still pretty cool out. Then I took us all the way south through Northern Kettle Moraine Unit on the marked Scenic Route, with one blunder where I missed a turn, not once, but twice. Haha!
When we got into West Bend I was kind of thinking of continuing to follow it into the Southern Unit because it was so nice out by then, but I got us all turned around due to construction in Bend and ended up back to Hwy 33, so we headed west with the thought of an ice cream stop in Horicon at the Ice Cream Station, and he suggested just taking Hwy 33 all the way there, which is what we did.
From there we headed toward Mayville and then taking Cty V to 49 into and through Brownsville. I was going to take Y north, but there was a long parade of vintage tractors heading to the bowling alley, so I just kept going on Hwy 49 to Cty F heading east and some country roads to Cty B into Eden, which is where we split up as I stopped at the gas station to clean my lid and he headed north on Cty V back to Fondy. I took the somewhat usual Cty B all the way to Cty G, then Cty T into Greenbush where I passed another sporty coming out of Scenic Drive and he wanted to play race with me. I know it was bad, but I was cruising into Greenbush to keep him off my ass. Luckily as I kept going north on Cty A, he turned south and he even had a lady passenger on the back. Jerk!
From there I took Cty A all the way home and shortly after I crossed Hwy 57 the wind shifted and suddenly it was chilly again, and my left eye wouldn’t stop watering. I really wished I could have ridden more when I was more inland today, but still didn’t get home until 4:30ish.
One thing we noticed today with all the rain we have been receiving were very high water levels on all the rivers we passed, including the marsh. When we reached the Milwaukee River in Bend there were kayakers and they were totally booking with the current! I even found a corn stalk stuck on the under body of my bike when we stopped for gas in Allenton which I must have picked up just before Bend as there was tons of it that was left on the road from flooding. Sadly after I got home, I saw on the Fondy scanner two kayakers near there had been flipped over and needed to be rescued. Stay safe out there with the higher water levels, its not so much of a leisurely trip in some places.
I have two maps below. The first from Kevin, where the blue marks his solo route and the red when we were together, and the second map is my solo ride back to Grove. Since he sent me the miles for both his mapped routes, and I had my own. My total miles were 160. Not too shabby with a little bit of a later start!
