2012 Spring Ride

We held our Spring Ride on Saturday, May 5. It was a good ride even though the weather man was wrong. He said there would be no rain until 7PM. By then we'd be home safe and dry... he was wrong.

Most met at MGCC at 8:00 AM. A scripture was read and a prayer prayed. Seven Fossils then joined two more in Roseville at the GolfSmith parking lot. Here's who was riding this day: Mark, Keith, Greg, Bill, Lloyd, Allan, Jim L, Wayne, and a new guy: Darren. Darren passed the prerequisite written and verbal test and is now an official Fossil Apostle.

The day was a gray day and a bit cool but a fine day for a motorcycle ride. We headed over to Stillwater, MN and then was happy to be out of the city and into the beautiful Wisconsin countryside. Next were side roads east and south over to Menomonie where we met up with another new Fossil: Kyle. Kyle is an old friend of most of the Fossils since he used to be a Youth Pastor at MGCC. Kyle led us to a nice restaurant downtown named Log Jam. After the long winter, it was fun to catch up with old friends over a juicy burger.

After lunch we headed back west a bit on US12 then turned north onto the nicest Alphabet road of the day: County Q. It was nice and twisty along some gorgeous Wisconsin hills. The beginning was smooth with new asphalt, but it turned into a bit rough after awhile. We then worked our ways further north and west on county roads for an hour or so until making it to a required Dairy Queen in Amery. As you veteran Blog readers know, it is not an official Fossil Apostles' Ride until we stop at a DQ.

While enjoying the ice cream and fellowship in the DQ one of the locals who had noticed our bikes or our biking apparel said; "Did you guys know there is a big storm heading this way?" We did not know that but one of the young Fossils had a smart phone and pulled up the weather radar (Us old Fossils don't have Smart Phones, we have Stupid Phones)! Sure enough, there was some tough weather coming up from the south and east. Our plans up to this point was to take some more Alphabet roads to the south and west back to Stillwater, MN. It was pretty obvious from the radar that this would be a recipe for some wet riding. We quickly decided to try and outrun the storm by heading north up to US8 and then west to Minnesota and I35. This was a good plan except that it didn't exactly work. By Taylors Falls the weather caught up to us and we were getting plenty wet. I did hear later that we did miss the worst of the storm in that Bill and Kyle who had split from us ended up in hail. At least we didn't see any of that!

The rain actually wasn't so bad but when we got on the Interstate the wind had picked up out of the east. This created some hairy moments as the cross wind tried it's best to blow us off the wet pavement. I decided I had enough of this so exited as quickly as possible and told the other guys that I was going to play it safe and take the side roads home. I was closer to home than they so I waived "goodbye" as they continued on to the northwest suburbs.

So in summary, the 2012 Spring Ride was very similar to many of our rides. We made some new friends, ate some good food, found some fun roads, had an adventure, enjoyed the fellowship and rode some motorcycles. Thanks to all you guys who came with and thanks to the Lord for the great time!

God Bless,
Fossil Wayne.