HAPPY DAY TO HAPPY JOE'S

Another near perfect Sunday morning greeted ten Wednesday night riders gathered at Casey's for the "You Gotta Love Summer" Pizza Run.  This year our journey would be down to Dyersville for pizza at Happy Joe's.  Howard had the only bike, while Meryle & Mary, Chuck (not Chuckles), and Bob & Julie were on trikes.  David & Suzanne along with Kenny & Gloria supplied the "support" convertibles.

MERYLE "TOUGHENING UP" HIS BUTT ON THE CONCRETE

MORE MILEAGE GOING ON THE HAHN SUPPORT CONVERTIBLE

With sunny skies and temps in the low 80's the group departed on HWY 9 and 76 and then down Forest Mills Road.  After passing the Gelo "ponderosa", we turned onto Cherry Valley Drive and on into Postville.  Just outside of Postville we left HWY 18 for the Gunder Road and followed it through Gunder and down through Elkader.  Outside of Elkader we took HWY 13 south to Grandview Road.  Grandview is a good name for this road since the views are grand!  The great scenery also continued as we took the Colesburg Road after passing through Garber.  After passing through Elkport and arriving in Colesburg we took a short jog on HWY 3 and turned south onto CR X47.  X47 was a smooth ride through Petersburg where we passed the beautiful St. Peter & Paul Catholic church.  We later learned that this church was undergoing a 2 million dollar renovation!  We continued on X47 down to 210th St. (old HWY 20) and turned east.  After going through "dead man's curve" and through the viaduct, we arrived in Dyersville.  And then after a complete tour of the entire town, we finally found Happy Joe's where we were joined by Clair.  Kenny apparently was too tired to continue and he and Gloria returned to Waukon.  I still can't believe he passed up food!
Happy Joe's pizza was every bit as good as I remember it, and after everyone finished their share, we bid goodbye to Clair and started for home.  I got onto HWY 20 heading east with plans to go through Balltown, but I then remembered that Clair said the road was closed.  So we turned around and headed west to HWY 38 north at Delaware.  38 took us through Greeley and then onto HWY 3 and into Edgewood where we stopped at the country club for ice cream treats.  However, the largest treat was yet to come.  We turned onto the newly refurbished Littleport Road and were treated to some spectacular scenery all the way back through Littleport and back onto Grandview Road.  Retracing Grandview and HWY 13 south back through Elkader we continued on 13 to CR B65 west and into St. Olaf.  In St. Olaf we turned north again onto CR X28 (Fawn Hollow Road).  We didn't see any fawns but a lot of geese as we continued on into Farmersburg and picked up Golden Avenue north up to HWY 18.  We then turned west for a short jog onto Volney Road north through Monona and then Rossville.  At Rossville we turned onto bumpy HWY 76 north and back to Waukon where we had 174 miles on the trike.  (74 of which were probably spent driving around Dyersville!)   

Great day!  Great pizza!  Great scenery!  Great company!