BACK TO NORMAL

 Last week's weather has departed, at least for a little while.  So without temps in the high 90's, a lucky 14 riders showed up at Casey's ready for our regular Wednesday night ride.  This time under sunny skies and temps in the mid to upper 70's.

Mike, Jim D, Jim G & Cathy, Howard, Dee, and Bob rode bikes.  ChucK, Ron & Helen, and Darrel were aboard trikes.  Irv "roared" in with his Vette, and Richard & Melodye arrived in their Slingshot.  Lois even came in her pre-surgery boot to see us off.

ADMIRING JIM & CATHY'S NEW SEAT

LOIS INFORMS ABOUT HER UPCOMING SURGERY

IRV TELLING HOWARD HOW HOT IT WAS LAST WEEK

THE SLINGSHOT--ANXIOUS TO GET ROLLING

After pulling out of the Casey's lot at 5, we proceeded out to HWY 76 and then a short jog to Forest Mills Road.  We cruised by the Gelo plantation and on into Luana.  There we picked up HWY 18 heading east.  We took the detour into Farmersburg, passed through there into St. Olaf (smell the tenderloins!) and over to the Gunder Road.  We followed the scenic Gunder Road on into Elkader and followed the detour around the town onto HWY 56.  (As a side note--with all the detours and road construction taking place this summer, finding good routes to take on Wednesday nights had been a real challenge!)

Passing through Elkader on HWY 56, we turned to the west onto CR C2W (Domino Road) and took a scenic, but sometimes bumpy ride into Volga suburbs and stopped at the Volga Valley Convenience Store for our break.

HOWARD & DARREL ARRIVE

JIM D ALSO HAS A CUSTOM SEAT

RON OPTS FOR SOUR ICE CREAM

IOWA'S SMALLEST WATERFALL?!

We depart Volga and head north on CR C24 (Bush Road).  Again we were treated to some incredible northeast Iowa scenery.  At the end of Bush Road, we made a short jog south on D Avenue and then turned west again onto CR C24, this time called Kornhill Road (whoever named it must have been a poor speller).  Kornhill took us on into Iowa's best known speed trap, Fayette.  Following carefully through Fayette on HWY 150, we made our way north to West Union.  There we turned east back onto HWY 18 and made our way through Clermont and on into Postville.  Some riders departed for home from there while the rest of us continued on through town on HWY 51 heading back north.

We left HWY 51 at Yellow River Drive and headed east.  After seeing a deer cross in front, I slowed way down waiting to see if another was coming.  Looking into the ditch, I saw the second deer running ahead of us.  I waited until it decided to cross the road before I continued.  Yellow River Drive took us over to CR W60,Old Stage Road (there are apparently two of them) and rode it north up to Old Nine and turned east again and on into Waukon where six of us chowed down at Uptown.  I had 114 miles on the Wing when we arrived.

NO LABOR DAY RIDE

With temps predicted to reach near 100 degrees, I thought it would be in the best interest to call off the ride scheduled for Monday.  Only in Iowa could you call off an ice cream ride because the weather was too hot!

INSTEAD

A Navy WWII ship has arrived in LaCrosse and is open for tours.  Some of us have decided that we are going to ride up there on Saturday and take a look.  We plan to leave Casey's at 9 AM Saturday morning, and eat food and/or ice cream at some place on the way back.  Everyone is invited to go along.  The link to this event is posted below.

https://www.lstmemorial.org/cruise

TRIP TO ARKANSAS

Jim G and ChucK have planned a trip for anyone who wants to go to Arkansas leaving on Sept. 17 and back on Sept. 23.  The Votsmiers had planned to go, but with Lois's upcoming surgery and recovery, they unfortunately had to drop out.  Jim says before he cancels the room reservation (two queen beds), he would like to see if anyone else would like to go along instead.  If interested you can contact Jim at 7403361216 or jimgelo63@gmail.com

WE ALL WANT TO WISH LOIS THE BEST POSSIBLE OUTCOME ON HER UPCOMING SURGERY AND HOPE FOR HER QUICK RETURN TO OUR WEDNESDAY NIGHT GROUP!

NEXT WEDNESDAY

Looking to head up towards Gays Mills.

From some of my friends in Florida!