I live in the flat lands of northern Illinois. For most, the Midwest is good time to hit the super slabs and blur by this boring stuff. I know the feeling. I always love getting away to the mountains and canyons of the Western states. But, in the end, there is beauty in the Midwest. And there is good, rich topsoil to feed the world.
Plan was to ride the Mississippi River bluffs and camp out. It was a good plan.
Started Saturday morning visiting a good friend for coffee. After 38 years teaching in our district, Ken is retiring leaving a meaningful legacy. He is a student and family favorite to the end and will be missed by all – most of all, me. We honored him at 8th grade promotion the night before, so was good to review the evening. He is also a potter and made that cup.
Our flat lands.
Plenty o’ grain
Getting to the Mississippi meant a stop in Savanna, IL. It’s a simple vactiony kind of place with the usual fare. You know, walk around holding your sweetheart’s hand while eating ice cream and window shopping picture frames carefully crafted from birch tree branches. You know, lame stuff for laid back days.
Black Jack Road connects Hanover to Galena. It is an awesome ride with many tight turns and hills. Very little traffic and good road conditions leads to inadvertent scraping of floor boards. Wasn’t really going that fast ….
Galena was too crowded with cages. Crossing in at Dubuque, I headed north to the Iowa hill towns of Sherrill and Balltown. No traffic and great roads. Views for miles and miles.
By 2:00 I had my pretty yellow tent set up at Pikes Peak State Park out side of McGregor, IA. Lightened the bike to go riding and fishing the rest of the day.
With my helmet off to pay for the site, I heard a rattle. I had attributed popping on decel earlier in the ride to the rear exhaust loosening up. I had it happen once before and tightened up using locktite. What I found was both acorns off the FRONT pipe. Yow. The flange was just rattling. The closest Hardware store was across the river in Prairie Du Chien. I was hoping for just anything that would work, but they had the perfect pair matching metric acorns. $.50 for each and some locktite later, back on the road with no issues.
Ate here in Marquette, IA. Highly recommended. Great food, witty bartender with funny, talkative patrons. Not a “biker” bar - Just great one liner after one liner.
Rode the Great River Road all the way to Minnesota. Awesome scenes hard for my “point and shoot” to capture well.
Riding the bluffs. So, here’s the deal. The roads are awesome with bluffs on one side and drop offs on the other. Most have no shoulders. Plus, I was just riding. I have no good pics of these roads and I feel shame for it.
Buzzards fill the sky.
Minnesota welcomed me.
Downtown McGregor.
The overlook from Pikes Peak State Park – a short walk from my camp site. My camera can’t handle the scope of these views.
Met up with some folks on a GW – with their pop up camper / trailer. Nice set up. We took another ride up the river roads at Sunset. Came back at dark just in time to get a good fire going.
Going home, I crossed the river at Marquette / Prairie Du Chien. I saw a reminder that the Mississippi is a working river and still important to US transportation.
Had to start heading away from the river. Many small towns with silly little things to interest geeks like me…. Here is one example.
Outside of Mountfort, I saw these. I just can’t help it. The big windmills always catch my eye.
I am also a geek for vintage Volvos. Have an 1800 in my mom’s garage. Saw this beauty on the side of the road and had to get a shot. For sale, too…..
A lot of this.
And this.
And this.
And this.
I rode many roads like this. Slow and easy.
Apple River Canyon State Park
Then down the Rock River for some smooth canyon roads. Here are the Byron Nuclear towers. The windmills are a lot less scary to me. IMHO.
Some flat, fertile soil
And back home.
So, the ride to the campsite and back would have been just over 400 miles round trip going through all the areas I wanted to make sure to see. My total odometer reading for the trip was just over 700. All told, there were about 300 extra miles of just cruising around for two days above the somewhat “planned” routes. Most of that was Saturday.
It was an awesome weekend for riding. The vast majority of roads were in great shape with very little traffic. The bike did great in every regard and was a blast to ride. So much so, that I never took the fishing pole off the bike. Thought about it a few times, but just kept riding.
