BEAUTIFUL DAY FOR THE "CHICKEN RUN"

 Despite the great weather and the promise to devour nearly world famous barbeque chicken, we still only had six riders appear at Casey's on Sunday for our annual "Run, Chicken, Run" Run to The Rockton Bar.  Two of our women riders on bikes were Dee and Lois.  Aboard trikes were ChucK, Darrel, and Bob & Julie.

DARREL GASSES UP "OL YELLER".

OUR TWO BIKERS

Under partly sunny skies and temps in the low 60's we headed for "clucker" heaven by taking HWY 9 through Waukon and up to Lansing where we crossed the Black Hawk Bridge into Wisconsin.  After crossing the river, we turned south on HWY 35 and passed through Ferryville and then turned east onto CR C.  We wound around the hills and the valleys on C until we reached CR J and turned north for Viroqua.  J is a smooth strip of scenic asphalt and we followed it all the way into Viroqua for a rest stop at the Quick Star there.

After our break we backtracked some until we reached CR SS and turned east again on it.  This county road had been just recently resurfaced (apparently they knew we were coming) and hadn't received any yellow lines yet.  We cruised on SS to HWY 56 and took a short jog on it to Liberty and then turned north again on CR S.  CR S is another scenic stretch of blacktop that passes through Avalanche and Bloomingdale until it merges with CR P.  We then took CR P over to HWY 131 and turned north into Rockton.

As we devoured the almost world famous barbecued chicken along with macaroni salad, beans, and bread, our conversation turned to the color changes in the trees as we made our way up here.

DOWNING CHICKEN IN THE WARM SUNSHINE

ChucK TRYING TO FIGURE HOW FAR WE WENT

We also found out why we were dodging so many "road apples" on the way here.

LOTS OF TRAIL RIDING GOES ON UP HERE ALSO

There was a large crowd of bikes (mostly Harleys) when we arrived.  We were also greeted by another group from Allamakee County including Nancy.  While we were eating, a lot of the bikes cleared out.

After eating all of the chicken we could hold, and even taking some home, we departed for Gays Mills and Sunshine Orchards where we sampled the cider and apple cider donuts.  The temps were now well into the 70's.  We followed HWY 131 through LaFarge, Viola, and Kickapoo Center and on into Readstown where we picked up HWY 61 heading south.  After passing through Soldiers Grove on 61, we made a turn west onto HWY 171 at Rolling Ground and enjoyed another scenic journey down to Sunshine Orchards and our much anticipated donuts.  Since they didn't have any small packages of frozen donuts, ChucK and Dee were "forced" to take home two large packages!  Also arriving on the scene were Jim & Cathy who just completed the famous "Slimy Crud Run".  (Sounds like fun!)  After they chose a pumpkin roll to take with them, Jim & Cathy followed us home.

We took a considerably more direct route back to Waukon by taking HWY 171 through Gays Mills and Mt. Sterling and back down the hill to HWY 35 again.  This time we turned north passing through Ferryville again, then turned onto HWY 82, slithered across the bridge into Lansing again, and onto HWY 9.  HWY 9 made for a smooth, warm ride back into Waukon.  We had about 170 miles on the trike when we garaged her.

I don't know how you could have asked for a nicer fall day along with great food, spectacular scenery, and good company.  

This ride wraps up our Wednesday Night Riders "special" rides for the year, but we will continue our Wednesday night forays as long as daylight prevails.

SOME MORE ON OUR TRIKE RIDES FOR NORTHGATE CARE CENTER RESIDENTS.

I received an e-mail along with some more photos from Diane Juran, the activities director at Northgate.  She said, "The residents are still talking about the ride and thoroughly can't wait until they ride again.  Thank you so much!"  She also sent along a couple more photos.

Jim also sent me some photos from the "Crud Run".  I'll post some of those on the blog after the possible ride on next Wednesday night.

See you then!