The weather man promised only a "slight chance of hit or miss showers, nothing to worry about, not a wash out". The weather man was wrong....
As we met first at MGCC then IKEA there were some sprinkles around but not a big deal. As we grouped in the parking lot we noticed blue skies in the north, dark skies in the south. We were heading south to Red Wing, anticipating a wet ride. I mentioned to Keith; "You know, if we weren't meeting Gordy for brunch in Red Wing I'd suggest we change plans and head towards those blue skies to the north." Keith replied; "I'll give him a call, he'll understand he'll agree that we should try and stay dry".
Keith was right, Gordy suggested we head north. This is what we did and the plan worked for the most part, for a while. But then the rain caught up to us early afternoon when we each learned the effectiveness or lack thereof of our respective rain suits.
We started the day eight fossils strong: Jim L., Jim G., Lloyd, Greg, Keith, Larry, Eric and me (Wayne). The scripture reading for the day was Psalm 121. From our meeting place we headed up I494 and State 36 to Stillwater, MN where we stopped for breakfast at a nice friendly restaurant. We crowded around the counter and had a nice time talking and eating breakfast. After breakfast Larry decided to head home, we were now seven.
We headed through downtown Stillwater and north up State 95 and across the St Croix to Osceola Wisc. We stopped at the DQ in town and bid fair-thee-well to Jim L. who had to to work.
The rest of us headed north on Wisc 35 towards destination unknown. Since we had planned a ride in southern Wisconsin, we had no idea where to go in Northern Wisconsin. But, we were enjoying each others company and the opportunity to ride anywhere together. At St. Croix Falls, Keith ran us over some interesting side roads to hook back up the state 35.
It was beginning to drizzle more earnestly as we stopped for gas in Frederick, WI. A few of us had mentioned perhaps making it all the way to Jay Cooke state park near Duluth. As the clock wound down and the rain picked up we realized that this was probably not feasable today. So we decided to head a bit more north to Highway 70 and then cut back across to Minnesota to begin our return leg home. Now that I am home and have the privilige of looking at a Wisc map, I see that from that point there were some interesting roads to take which would have got us to MN in a more fun manner. But, since none of us planned on being in this part of the state, no one had a map so we just blindly keep heading north on Wisc 35 to Wisc 70 at Siren, WI.
We stopped at Siren to put our rain pants back on since it had been relatively dry since breakfast and some of us had shed the extra layers. Now it was becoming quite apparent that it was going to rain substantially and steadily. This prediction turned out to be true.
After getting west and back into MN we headed south on MN 361 and stopped at the Dennis Kirk warehouse store. On-line I had noticed a helmet on clearance that I wanted to try on. The helmet, though a good price was not the helmet for me so I passed on it. We continued south until Forest Lake, MN where we found the required DQ. It would not be an official Fossil Apostles' ride without a stop at a Dairy Queen.
After our fill of ice cream it was time for our last leg of the Spring Ride. We jumped across on MN97 and down to I35W in Lino Lakes, then home. Raining steadily the whole way.
Though the weather did not cooperate as we would have wished it was a good ride. It was good to get together with friends and have a chance to ride some motorcycle. Thanks guys, see you at our summer trip!
