Saturday
I planned a trip to visit Dad & Canders for this weekend. Although there was a slight chance of rain for Saturday, it was still supposed to be warm with highs in the upper 70s/low 80s. I didn’t bother with wearing or taking a liner, and chose the vented jacket since it was also supposed to be very warm the next few days as well. Kevin met me at my place around 8 a.m. The humidity when we left was still pretty high, so it felt a bit chilly at times heading west away from the morning sun, but very tolerable. I planned Highway 23 to 82 into Mauston and then some different roads out of there we hadn’t taken before, Highway 12 north to New Lisbon. Out of New Lisbon we took Cty Rd A west and what a very good choice. It was a nice winding road up and down through the bluffs. However, I was getting low on gas and not sure if I would make it to Sparta so we ended up getting off of County A taking a back road north towards a gas station along the Interstate. It was barely a two lane road winding up through a bluff, so it was a pretty cool detour. Once we got to the Mobile along Highway 16 and the Interstate we were pretty chilled since the clouds had thickened with some sprinkles and the winds had also picked up. So, we put on rain jackets over our gear to keep the wind out and boy that made a huge difference. I was quite comfortable after that. From there we back tracked to County A which ended up taking us to Highway 16 again just outside of and into Sparta. I wanted to stop some place besides our usual DQ lunch stop, but didn’t see anything except a local drive-up which we had already passed. From DQ we headed west again on Highway 16 almost all of the way through West Salem before taking County M north to County W west into Holmen, and then D to HD to Highway 35 all the way to the bridge over the Mississippi into Winona.
Sunday
Today was all about spending time with Dad & Canders in Winona and no trips planned for the bikes.
Monday
The weather today was just as beautiful as yesterday and we thought about taking Highway 33 back home, but we take that route so often. So I decided the night before for us to take Highway 61 to Highway 14 all of the way through La Crescent and La Crosse, and then taking County P through Coon Valley and all of the way into Hillsboro. It was around lunch time when we arrived at Hillsboro and I was hoping to find a new place for lunch besides Barbie’s Kitchen which was now Holvy’s Cafe, but the bar across the street from there which I had also thought of is closed on Monday’s. So it was Holvy’s. The burger and grilled sandwich we ordered were very good. From there we took County FF to Highway 33 into Portage where I took Highway 51 to County P into Pardeeville for an ice-cream stop at Carol’s Cones. Then County P to Fox Lake, Highway 68 to Waupun and County M to County T back to Fond.
Only 470 total miles this trip. Map and pictures below...
