PERRRRRFICT!!

As the old saying goes, "It doesn't get any better than that!", describes the ride we took on Sunday.  Not a cloud in the sky and temps in the mid 70's greeted 14 riders gathered at Casey's for a "make up for Wednesday" ride.  We had Meryle & Mary, Gary & Gloria, Wayne & Sandy, Chuck (not Chuckles), and Bob & Julie on trikes while 2 newbies, Lois, Chuckles, and Jim mounted bikes.

MERYLE GETTING HELP AT THE GAS PUMP

GARY AND CHUCK (NOT CHUCKLES) COMPARING RIDES

SANDY & MARY STILL BUNDLED UP

CHUCKLES ARRIVES

OUR TWO MYSTERY GUESTS  (WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHO THEY ARE AND WELCOME THEM)

JIM ARRIVES AFTER A STINT WITH THE GRAND KIDS

  Our destination for the day was to ride to LaCrescent and take the scenic four mile stretch of CR T-258 Tescemper (Thumper) Road.  We departed Waukon heading east on Elon Road and then turned north on Lansing/Harpers Road and on into Lansing.  Motoring through Lansing, we picked up HWY 26 and headed north again passing through New Albin, Reno, and Brownsville where Jim left us to return to the grand kids.  We had enough Gelos with us to finish the trip however.  At the junction of 26 and HWY 16 our two guests departed also.  The rest of us continued on into LaCrescent where we stopped at the Kwik Star for a break.  Because of the beautiful weather, we saw lots of bikers, boats, and convertibles on our journey.
After our break, the real fun began.  We left LaCrescent on CR 6 and then onto CR 25 that took us up a long scenic hill to the WXOW towers and the start of "Thumper" Road.  Down the hill we went taking our sweet time (the speed limit is just 25 mph) and enjoying some of the best scenery in the tri-state area.  The road is narrow enough that there are no real turn-outs to stop for photos, otherwise you would fill up a whole SD card with spectacular scenes.  This stretch of road is well worth the time to get here, and passing through the orchards is also a special treat!
When we reached the bottom of Thumper, we turned onto CR 21 heading west until we reached CR 25 and journeyed south for a short distance to HWY 16 west.  There was still some rather good scenic views of all the green forestry and the purple wild flowers along the road edges.  HWY 16 took us to Houston and onto HWY 76 south.  There are several different routes that can be taken to get from Houston to Caledonia.  This particular time I chose CR 10 because is has some scenic views and I knew it had recently been resurfaced.  CR 10 was a smooth ride back to HWY 76 just outside of Caledonia.  Of course, what would a Sunday ride be without ice cream.  So a stop at the Dairy Queen was in order.  

LOIS & JULIE READY FOR ICE CREAM

MERYLE DOING SOME TRICK RIDING WHILE TRYING TO PARK

CHUCK (NOT CHUCKLES) TAKES A LAP AROUND THE BUILDING

As we were ready to enter the Dairy Queen, we were informed that only the drive-through was open.  Since it's pretty hard to eat an ice cream cone while riding a motorcycle, we decided to walk across the street to the Kwik Star and eat our treats on their outside tables.  After our fill at Kwik Star we continued our ride south on HWY 76 and ended a really pleasant journey into Waukon.  For some of our riders it was their first trip down Thumper Road, and from their comments, I think they agreed that the scenery was spectacular.  We had 120 perrrrfict miles on the trike when we got her home!