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Monday, August 1, 2011. Wildcat Mountain State Park, WI to Minneapolis.
I slept well in my tent, Jim, not so much because of the heat, humidity and hard ground. This was my third night in the tent so I was used to it and tired enough to sleep anywhere.
Time to head home. Took State Hwys 31 north to 71 west. We tried to eat breakfast in Norwalk but even though the "Main Street Cafe" sign read 'OPEN', it was dark and locked up tight. Headed to Sparta, WI and after searching a while found a greasy spoon serving breakfast. Omelets were the choice this morning.
Hwy 71 showed a detour at Sparta so we searched our map and Jim found a county road heading north and west called "DE". This was nice and twisty but a bit run down and short of highway marker signs. I remember coming over one steep hill which caused the road to disappear at the peak and then turned tight left without prior notice. Wheee!
Some more county roads got us up to State 54 heading west towards Winona, MN. This road had a lot of traffic so we dumped it for county P up to Fountain City along the Mississippi on the famous biker's road, State 35. 'P' started out wide and new but soon changed to old asphalt with a lot of rubble. Still beat the traffic all to pieces, though.
Gas in Fountain City, WI then north to county E out of Alma which brought us up to a cool overlook over the town and the Mississippi River.
Now it was time to get serious about heading home so it was State Hwy 35 north to Prescott, WI then back across the river to MN and US Hwy 10 to Minneapolis.
Up to now the weather had always been hot and sunny but all of a sudden it started to change. We got our first inkling that something was up when the sirens started sounding as we traveled through Diamond Bluff, WI. In Prescott we pulled into a gas station to see what was up and a guy told us that there were thunder storms heading our way through the Twin Cities. We should have put our rain gear on but hoped we could skirt south of the storms and miss them... not gonna happen! Just as soon as we got across the river the skies opened up with heavy rain, high winds and lightning. We pulled into a nursery, grabbed our rain gear and headed for a convenient roofed gazebo they had there. The clerk in the store showed us the weather radar on her smart phone and we decided to wait it out for a while.
About an hour later the rain let up a bit and the winds and lightning died down so we headed on home. It was wet, but OK in our gear. I was home and drying off by 3:00 PM.
In conclusion, we had a great time. We found some great twisty roads, made some new friends, had a great time in Decorah, and had some wonderful fellowship. Thanks be to God!
