They were predicting very nice and unseasonal weather the whole week, including Saturday. So planning a fall color run ride was definitely in order. I asked most of the usual suspects and only ended up with a group of four… Alan, Kevin, Nicki and myself. I thought Holy Hill but we’ve already been there this year, so I planned it for Devil’s Lake and to take the Merrimac Ferry across Lake Wisconsin before heading back home. Oh and to stop on the outskirts of Baraboo near the north side of Devil’s Lake for some lunch at The Barn apparently known for a good gluten free menu and very unique setting, being an old small dairy barn converted. We were forewarned that they were understaffed and it would take a while for our food, et al, but we were okay with that. When we left there our destination was to enter and ride through Devil’s Lake park on the only public road through there with hopes to be able to stop and take a few pictures, but given the exceptional day for this late in the season we knew it would be very congested and it was. Luckily since being on the bikes, it didn’t require much real estate along the side of the road to pull over for some pics which we did. We then proceeded to head through the park, only to encounter stopped traffic around the south parking lot that wasn’t moving at all with many vehicles turning around, so we did too. From there it was onto the Merrimac Ferry which we also figured would have huge lines and there were, but not too incredibly bad. Think we waited three full trips back and forth before we could get on. Apparently there was a huge group of bikes behind us on a planned ride heading to Fitz’s on the Lake on Lake Wisconsin the other side of Merrimac as well and we met a couple of gentlemen with that group just behind us who gave us pointers to pull in three wide and that they would pull in along with us since they only had two and we already had four. Worked perfect! After we went a ways past Fitz’s there was a construction sign indicating a bridge was out 4.1 miles ahead, but we proceeded with luck finding another road just before that not taking us too far off our course. Unfortunately due to the delays and how short daylight is this time of year, we were unable to take all of the planned roads I had for our route. Just before making it to Beaver Dam we decided to take more direct routes by heading straight there and taking Hwy 151 back with Alan dropping off on Hwy 33. We put in around 200 miles, and Alan around 260. Awesome day with awesome people, and with awesome views!!!
