Before heading into Labor Day Weekend, my friend Kari reached out to me and asked if I would be riding either Sunday or Monday and I told her I’d be on my way back from MN on Sunday, but for sure planned to on Monday. I’ve been trying to connect with her for a while now for a ride, so I was so excited it would finally work for both of us! Kevin was also available that day, so I planned a route to meet him at his place, then meet Kari at Blumpke’s BP in Rosendale, to Eureka for lunch at the Landings and then continue west, north of Berlin and further west before making our way back east towards home.
I headed out at 9 a.m. and I did not use my tracker because I know its around 44 miles from my place to Kevin’s. As I was approaching Fondy on Cty T there was a FDL county sheriff at the Town of Empire Fire Station (the paramedics that picked me up from my bad get off in 2008) and I checked my speed well before getting close as I suspected it was the sheriff. When I passed he waved at me and I thought, how nice… the second time this year to be waved at by a county sheriff. Perhaps he was just happy to see that I toned it down as I approached?! ;)
We arrived at Blumpke’s before what I thought was the time I told Kari to meet us, but forgot I told her 10:45 instead of 10:30 and I know she’s never late! However, since I hadn’t eaten anything yet and not much over the past two days, I remembered they had a bakery with cookies. So I bought one each for Kevin and I.
From there we headed north out of Rosendale on Hwy 26 and although I took Olden Road west, I routed us north on Spring Lake or Spring View road and to 44 into Pickett and then taking Cty M north, and I also planned some other roads north out of Waukaw than the usual roads we take to Eureka ending up coming into there on Cty E. It was such a beautiful day that we opted to eat outside on their patio. Unlike every other time I have been there, the service today was very slow and the food was pretty blah! I just hate it when the waiter/waitress sits on a chair at your table to take your order. To me it shows laziness and that should have been my first clue it wasn’t going to be as good as usual. So, we ended up spending way more time there than I had liked with the extra miles for me to get home, but oh well.
When I told Kari about the route I had planned from there and that we’d eventually end up in Ripon after Berlin, including my intentions to stop at the Sweeter N Saultyer (SNS) for cream, she told me she wanted to skip the ice cream and would head home from there, which she did when we hit Hwy 44 in Ripon.
During our travels, we seen some trees changing, mostly sugar maples, and also soy bean fields turning yellow already. We seen sandhill cranes starting to gather which is what they, well most if not all birds do before migrating south. Ugh, just seems like we went from hot and sticky summer weather to an instant fall. Don’t get me wrong, we have a lot of fall to go, but just seems to have started so quickly! At one point Kevin and I realized we hit some roads we’ve never been on before which is always a thrill for me!
While we were eating our cream at SNS, the traffic on Hwy 23 was surprisingly light for the last day of the holiday weekend. So, we decided to just take that back to Fondy.
Based on Kevin’s map below and adding the more than 80 solo miles for me to get to and from Fondy, I put on around 220 miles and didn’t get home until close to 5 p.m. I was so glad to finally get a ride in with Kari! She is such a wonderful person to be around and man, does she ever know how to ride her Harley trike! Kevin was even impressed how well she kept hanging tight with me through all the curvy roads. Love it!!!
