LET'S SEE A PARADE!

 On a rather cool, but sunny evening, we had six Wednesday Night Riders show up at Casey's.  Lois came with the only two-wheeler, while Terry, Richard, Wayne, Dave, and Bob rolled in on three wheels.

RICHARD TELLS ABOUT HIS TRIP OUT WEST

HERE COMES LOIS

From now on our rides were to include a trip across the Black Hawk Bridge at Lansing until it is no longer there.  Apparently now the destruction date or final closing date is October 20.

We departed Waukon via the Elon Road and followed it out to the Lansing/Harpers Road.  There we turned north for a short jog and pointed our wheels onto Lafayette Ridge Road.  All this time, with no humidity, you could see for miles and miles.

At the end of LRR we made our way onto the Great River Road and motored along the Mississippi River on into Lansing.  Across the bridge we went (hopefully not for the last time) and into Wisconsin.  We followed HWY 35 south through Ferryville and picked up CR C just outside of town.  While on C, Bob had to brake for a doe to cross in front and waited to see if a fawn might be following, so we proceeded with caution.  That was the last deer we saw, but Bob got buzzed by a stubborn buzzard that didn't want to leave a fresh road kill.

CR C took us over to HWY 27, and we turned back south passing through Fairview and Mt. Sterling before arriving in Seneca and stopping at Greener's Corner for a break.  Up until this stop, we were making good time and should have no trouble getting back before dark.  That was about to change!

We continued our journey south on 27, passing through Eastman.  With HWY 35 still closed, we could not turn back west on any of the alphabet roads, so we kept on 27 until we reached Limery Road and turned westward on it.  At this time of year, the sun is at a perfect angle to be right in your eyes as you motor west.  So taking our time on Limery was in order.  Limery took us across HWY 35 just south of Prairie du Chien and onto CR K.

We followed K on into PDC, and to our surprise, the longest homecoming parade we had ever seen was blocking our way onto HWY 18.  We kept thinking that the parade would end when we saw a fire engine approaching, but no luck.  There was pickup after pickup pulling trailer loads of kids along the parade route coming by and throwing lots of candy.  After about a 15 minute wait, we decided to try to work our way around the parade.  No luck yet.  At our next stop, the parade was still passing.  A traffic cop told Bob that it would be at least another 15 minutes before the rest of the parade passed.  She did offer an alternate route that we eventually tried and were able to get back to HWY 27 and cross the bridge into Marquette.  By this time, we were going to have to hustle to make it back to Waukon before darkness set in.

We motored up HWY 76 north with some sun still available, and arrived in Waukon right at dusk near 7 PM.  Four of us stopped at Uptown for eats.  I had exactly 100 miles on the Gold Wing parked on Main Street in Waukon.  On the way back, the temps got down to 50 degrees at times, but except for having to view a parade with every kid in PDC, it was a good ride.

WE WILL TRY TO CROSS THE BLACK HAWK BRIDGE AGAIN NEXT WEDNESDAY, WHICH COULD BE THE LAST TIME.

REAL H O G RIDERS!