Breakfast and Bike Show

Hi guys, happy new year.

It's time for our annual breakfast meeting. It will be Saturday morning, February 4, at 8:00 AM. We will meet at the Perkins in Golden Valley at I394 and Louisiana Ave.

Afterwards, those who can, will head downtown and go to the Motorcycle show at the Convention Center.

Bring your calendar so we can plan our 2012 rides.


Hope to see you there.

Feel free to invite any who you think may be interested.

Please send me an email if you are coming so I'll know how many tables to push together.


Grace and Peace,
Fossil Wayne


link to the Motorcycle Show: http://www.motorcycleshows.com/

Fall Ride

Our fall ride was on Saturday, Oct 15. It was a chilly buy nice and sunny day.

We met at the Fleet Farm on I694 and Lexington at 10:00 AM. Just three Fossils strong, Lloyd, Greg and Wayne.

We headed east on MN97 to Scandia. Then a quick no-name twisty road to MN95 and up and across the river to Osceola, WI.

From Osceola we took a series of "alphabet roads" (X & M) over to Star Prairie where we found a friendly bar and grill called "Friendly Bar and Grill". They had a special on a shrimp dinner so it was three shrimps for the three Fossils.

From Star Prairie we spent the early afternoon on more alphabet roads, zooming around the hills and dales, enjoying the scenery and the nice fall day. A few hours later we made our way back to Osceola and the required Dairy Queen stop.

This completed out Fall Ride, 2011. Time to put the bikes up for the long, cold winter. See ya all next spring!

Last Day (4) Mississippi River Trip

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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!

Day 3, Mississippi River Trip.

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Sunday, July 31, 2011. decorah ia to wildcat mountain state park, wisc.

Another hot and humid day, in the mid 90s. But it was OK as long as we kept rolling.

Attended church service at Decorah Covenant where John's sister is the music leader and he was the guest percussionist. Then lunch at Culvers before heading out of town. John and Rick needed to get home quickly so headed straight north on the main drag. That left four of us, Greg, Bill, Jim and Wayne, to take the scenic route home through Wisconsin.

State hwy 9 east to Lansing, IA where we stopped for ice cream at "Skinny Dippers" again. This time I had a banana split.... yum!

We then headed across the Mississippi to Wisc where we took some twisty alphabet roads for a while: C, B then state hwy 26 up to Viroqua. As mentioned, the plan was for all of us to head back home but I was having so much fun on these roads that I asked Jim if he would consider camping overnight and going home the next day. We both already had the day off of work so he quickly agreed.

So, we split from Greg and Bill since they had plans the next day. They were heading home via state hwy 35.

Jim and I took some more alphabet roads to state hwy 131 north to Ontario, WI then state 33 to Wild Cat Mountain State park on the Kickapoo river. Again, beautiful roads, beautiful scenery, little traffic.

After setting up camp we headed back to Rockton WI and had a greasy burger at the Rockton Bar, home of the almost famous BBQ chicken. (I should have tried the chicken).

We got back to camp then walked out to the scenic overlook and waited for a beautiful sunset over the Kickapoo Valley. Walked back to campsite and started a fire and watched it burn before hitting the hay.

Day 2, Mississippi River Trip

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Saturday, July 30, 2011. Decorah, IA to Decorah, IA. via county A52 east to state 76 north at Waukon to Cnty A26 east to IA 26 south to Lansing (ice cream stop). Cnty X52 south to McGregor Pikes Peak State Park. County X56 south to Guttenberg and the Lock and Dam number 10 (barge traffic). Cnty C7X west to X3C west to Elkader. Cnty X16 north to B60 west to Clermont to B40 west to W42 north to to W38 north to Decorah (pork chops)

Beautiful day but a bit hot and humid. A lot of the nicest roads were high and offered great panaramic views of the countryside. They also had nice sweeping curves which we could take at highway speed and very little traffic.

We stopped at a road side picnic/boat landing for a break and an opportunity to figure our where we were and where we were going. Then headed to Lansing, IA and found an ice cream/bait shop called the "Skinny Dip". Had a good time eating ice cream and talking over the morning's ride. Lansing has a bridge across the Mississippi and thats where Keith was going to head across to Wisconsin and find his way home. We said our goodbyes and the rest of us headed on south to MacGregor on a nice county road. It was here that we decided to play "musical bikes". I traded with Greg. Then we stopped at another little town and I traded with Bill and Greg traded with Jim. At McGregor we got our own motorcycles back.

Next stop was the "Pikes Peak State Park". A nice park with a great overlook of the big river. Then we headed down to Guttenberg and stopped at a lock and dam where we watched a huge barge get a lift up the river. It was so big that it didn't all fit into the locks so had to seperate and go through in pieces.

Now it was time to start heading back to PorkChopVille (Decorah). Our main motivation was to get to the Nordic Fest before the smoked pork chop booth was closed. We found some more nice county roads with more great panoramic views of the hills, valleys and farms. And because these county roads run parrallel to main state and federal highways we mostly had the roads to ourselves. I was particullarly impressed with the architecture and use of building materials of the old farm houses, barns and churches. The builders really put some thought and quality workmanship into these structures. I would have like to have stopped and taken pictures of them all but we'd still be there taking pictures....

We stopped at a little city park in Clermont, IA. John was the first one to use the facilities there and came back and said that someone needed to take a picture of the men's room. That there was something very odd there. We thought that was an unusual statement and investigated. The men's room has two toilets, side by side with no divider. We had to wonder, why? and who would take advantage of these????

We made it back to Decorah, walked down town and had some great smoked pork chops on the street. Back to the house and a bible study on working "heartily as for the Lord". Then we headed back down town for the fireworks scheduled for 10PM. There was also a Nordic dance going on with some very talented dancers.

Mississippi River Trip Day 1

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Friday July 29, 2011. MSP to Decorah IA. Via Red Wing, Lewiston, Lanesboro, MN.


Plan was for the NW gang to meet at MGCC at 9:30 am then travel south and pick up Wayne at the IKEA parking lot. Plan happened but a little delayed. No worries, we are on vacation. Lloyd, who was not able to make the trip came for the kickoff meeting. Scriptures were read, prayers prayed.

Those meeting at the church were John T, Rick S, Greg S, Keith R, Bill N, and Jim G. Plus me (Wayne) at the IKEA makes seven.

We then headed east and south to Red Wing via I494, US 52, 55 to Hastings. Then Ravena Road and associated roads down to Red Wing where we met up with Gordy and Nancy's for lunch. Gordy joined up for the afternoon ride until our ice cream stop in Lewiston after which he turned back for home.

Out of Red Wing roads were US 61 south to County 25 south at Minneiska to Lewiston then County 29 south to Peterson, MN 16 to Lanesboro, County 21 south to Canton, County 23 north to Cnty 10 east and MN 43 back south to Mabel. MN44 east to County 8 south to Iowa and Locust Road to Decorah. All the county roads were great but, by consensus, the road of the day by far was MN 16. It was twisty, brand new and smooth with no other traffic. What a blessing!

Lanesboro meant a stop at a bicycle shop were Jim bought a pair of fingerless gloves because of the heat. You'd think that gloves without fingers would be less money than gloves with fingers but you'd think wrong....
We also stopped in a town called Rollingstone at a town park for hydration. Did I mention it was hot? We also stopped in Lewiston for pie and ice cream. They had peach or strawberry/rhubarb. Since I have always thought that there is no better way to ruin a perfectly good rhubarb pie than to put strawberries in it, I had a great peach pie, alamode of course. We also stopped in Canton, MN but only because we were lost. With some help from a local man and his son we found out where we were and figured out a way to get back on the county twisties.

Decorah, Iowa was a special treat. Our new young Fossil, John, had an air conditioned empty house for us to stay in! It belongs to his parents who were gracious enough to allow us to spend two nights there. Some of the guys had a bed to sleep in, or an air mattress or similar. To no ones surprise, I pitched a tent in the side yard. Am I really that predictable?

As an added bonus, the city was celebrating their Nordic Fest this weekend. We were within walking distance of all the festivities which included many food booths and live music venues. We had pizza at the local pizza joint, then wondered around the festival. Home made Ligonberry Ice Cream was a special treat. Bible study that night was on marriage and the command to love our wives as Christ loved the church.

Where we've been

visited 10 states (20%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

2011 Summer Trip Plans

We are leaving town Friday morning July 29 and returning Monday, August 1. Some of us will need to return home earlier.

NW metro guys meet at 9:30 AM at MGCC. Pick up south metro guys (Wayne) at Ikea Parking Lot. Then to Gordy's in Red Wing.

We will be generally heading down the Mississippi but spending a lot of the time on twisty roads around the river in SE Minn, NE Iowa and SW Wisc. The primary goal will be to spend time enjoying riding and the fellowship of Christian brothers and not worrying about getting a long way from home. Lodging may be in an empty house belonging to the parents of our youngest new Fossil, John, and/or motel, and/or camping.

Those who said they are going are:

Keith
Greg
Larry
John
Rick
Jim
Gordy
Wayne
Bill

To lessen the load on your inbox, I will be making a new email list of only those going on the trip and will be communicating further about the trip only to those guys. So, please let me know if you'd like to be added to the list. All our welcome.

Also, I forgot to ask if someone would like to be in charge of our daily bible study....? (It does not need to be complicated or a lot of work)



Grace and Peace through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,

Wayne
6"one"2-7"two"9-5"zero"31

Breakfast and Show, Feb 6

Fossils: please mark your calendar and plan to come to our winter meeting. It will be Saturday morning, February 5, at 8:00 AM. We will meet at the Perkins in Golden Valley at I394 and Louisiana Ave (careful, there are two Perkins in Golden Valley).

Afterwards, those who can, will head downtown and go to the Motorcycle show at the Convention Center.

Bring your calendar so we can plan our 2011 rides.


Hope to see you there.

Feel free to invite any who you think may be interested.

Fall Ride, 2010. Red Wing to Plum City Wisc

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Our final ride to finish the first decade of the new century happened on Saturday, October 2. It was a good ride if a bit on the cold side. The skies stayed cloudy for most of the day and never topped 50 degrees. I think most of us were dressed for it, however, so all was fine and at least it didn't rain.

The northwest Fossils meet at MGCC and were 7 strong: Lloyd, Jim, Greg, Bill, Eric, Steve and Alan. They came down and meet the southern Fossils at IKEA: Wayne, (the other) Steve, Shaun, and (the other) Wayne. For a total of eleven Fossils on this trip. Scripture reading this day was Psalm 25: "... For You are the God of my salvation,..."

Our plan was to head southeast to Red Wing and meet Fossil Gordy at the Liberty's Restaurant for brunch. Fortunately, Greg remembered the scenic route from Hastings to Red Wing so even this first leg was nice once we got out of the city. This road is called Ravena, or Ramona Road or similar. Like I said, it's a good thing Greg has a good memory...

The breakfast at Liberties was fine as well as the company. It was good to head down the road on a full belly after catching up with old Fossil friends as well as acquanting some new Fossil friends. We then headed across the Mississippi to Wisconsin and turned south on State Hwy 35 to Pepin, Wisc. State Hwy 35 is a famous road for bikers and a fine ride/nice scenery in it's own right. But, we were heading for something twistier and less traveled...

Time for some Wisconsin Alphabet Roads! We got to the south end of Pepin and took a left onto County 'N'. Immediately the twisties began as well as the great scenery of turning colors on the hills as we pulled up out of the Mississsippi valley and along the Chippewa River Valley. We kept heading north and east on county 'N' for about 15 miles until the intersection of county 'SS'. There was a nice parking lot for a township hall there to stop and make sure everybody was still smiling (they were). The porta potty there was a help to a few of us as well...

County 'SS' twisted west for about 10 miles then it was south and back down the hills to the Mississippi on County 'CC' and into the north end of Pepin. We had just rode about 35 miles to get back to where we began. This is my (Wayne's) favorite kind of ride: Great twisties and scenery around and around to nowhere. In my book there is no better way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

At Pepin, I was desiring a pop (or soda if you prefer) but could not find one at the Amish shop we stopped at (go figure). So, we headed back up State Hwy 35 to Maiden Rock, WI. This is a nice little river town that is filled with sight see-ers on weekends. We found a bakery which hadn't expected such a large crowd this weekend so was out of baked goods. But I was able to buy a Coke, Jim a Root Beer, and Lloyd got a coffee. Then we gathered around their porch for more enjoying each other's company. During this time, Lloyd informed me that I had deviated from my planned ride which he had inputed into his GPS. I had forgotten that I was going to grab county 'J' at Stockholm and head back into the hills but had missed it in my mission of buying a pop. But, not a huge deal, in our lost state we noticed an intriging looking road called county 'AA'. No one had it on a map but it was only a couple of miles back and I surmised it would probably head up into the hills and get us onto County 'J' as planned.

Turned out, I was right, it was another fun, twisty road heading up the hills and, sure enough, it ended right at county 'J' as hoped for. We then turned left there and took 'J' to 'CC' to 'U' to Plum City, WI. Another great bunch of roads and great fun to zoom through. What a great ride!

Plum City was the end of my planned Alphabet route. From here it was decision time as to whether we wanted to try more side roads or start heading home. Since it was now getting late (around 3 PM as I recall) the decision was to start heading home. From here we took US 10 west to state Hwy 65 north to Interstate 94 west. Even though this was more of major routes they still were pretty nice.

When we got onto the Interstate I was privately bemoaning the fact that we were about to complete an authorized Fossil Apostle Ride without ever stopping at a Dairy Queen. This, I thought, was a dangerous precedent that would be a travesty. But I then remembered a small DQ in downtown Hudson. Unfortunately, since I was towards the rear of the pack at this time I was unable to communicate my intentions to all. But, Greg and Lloyd saw my frantic gesturing and followed me off the super slab and into the DQ parking lot. Disaster was diverted as we ordered up the appropriate Blizzard, cone and/or cheese curds (Lloyd thought it was too cold for ice cream).

Thus ends another year of Fossil Apostle's rides. Again, we all had a great time and appreciate the opportunities to enjoy the fellowship of Christian brothers and the fun of riding motorcycles. Thanks guys, see you next year!

Grace and Peace from God the Father and Jesus our Lord,
Fossil Wayne.

Ozarks Trip day 7

Mount Pleasant, Iowa to home, sweet home.

Today's scripture: Isaiah 55: "... everyone who thirsts, come to the waters..."

After the rain this morning it was, thankfully, much cooler today. We had a long way to go to make it home (350 miles) so decided to take the first leg on the fast fourlane up through Iowa City and Cedar Rapids. This wasn't much fun but necessary.

We got off the super slab shortly after Cedar Rapids, IA. From there we headed north on State 150 to Decatur, IA. This two lane was better but still busy. After Decatur we got into the hills of southeastern Minnesota. Now things were getting interesting.

Keith & Lloyd wanted to take the most direct route home (US52). I (Wayne) however, had a hankering for some more twisties. So we split up at Preston MN. They continued north on US52 to Rochester and home while I headed east on State 16 to Lanesboro and Rushford. This is a very fun road but can be heavily traveled with tourists.

From Rushford I headed north on State 43. Stopped and took some pictures of an amazing abandoned brick dairy. It was quite the building (click on picture to enlarge it). After State 43 I went a ways west on Interstate 90 but jumped off at the first exit and started taking county roads. I took so many different roads that I can't even remember what the numbers were. I also drove through little towns whose name escape me as well. I really had very little idea of where I was. I just knew if I went east I'd hit US61 eventually and if I went west I'd hit US52. So I went east some, west some, north some, east some, etc. The roads were twisty and great fun. A couple of curves did have some gravel on them which was a little dicey...

I eventually ended up in Wabasha, MN on US61. From there I needed to decide if I wanted to head home on 61 or take some more twisties first. It was only about 4:00 PM so I chose the twisties. I took MN60 west along the Zumbro river. This is another great-fun road and I was glad I took it.

Finally my fun came to an end as I decided to head home on US52 at Zumbrota Falls. This is a quick four lane and I was home by around 6:30PM. It was an exciting afternoon. This was an unexpected benefit in that I thought today would just be travel day.


Overall we had a great trip this past week. A bit hot but that is what we expected when we decided to head south in August. We found some great roads, saw some great sights, fellowshipped with great friends and met some great people. Thanks so much, guys for all of your help in making this such a good trip.

Ozarks trip day 6

Sullivan, MO to Mount Pleasant, IA.

We got up and enjoyed coffee and rolls and good conversation with Darlene and Terry on their deck. Then we loaded up and headed off. Morning scripture was Isaiah 50: "... Let him trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God..."

It was already hot and sticky and we suspected it would be another real hot one. The good news is that it didn't get unbearable hot today but the bad news is that it was cooler because of the rain.

We headed east and north on state routes to try and skirt St. Louis. But the traffic was heavy anyhow until we got off the main roads over to the Mississippi river north of the city. We stopped at a small restaurant in Winfield, MO for a huge lunch at a small price. As we rode into town we had noticed some dark clouds in the west. As we ate it got darker outside, the wind came up and it started to pour. We decided there was no reason to rush out into that stuff so slowed our eating pace. Keith had weather radar on his GPS and we could tell it would leave as quickly as it came in. Sure enough, it wasn't long until we could suit up into our rain gear and head off relatively dry.

By the time we pulled into Hannibal it was back to hot and sunny. We had stopped a number of miles back to remove our extra layers of rain gear. We found historic downtown Hannibal, home of Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain. They have some old buildings to tour plus a Mark Twain Museum. In this museum there was Mark Twain himself giving a talk on his life. He looked pretty good considering he was around 150 years old. He gave a good talk that we enjoyed very much. We decided to head back to the main hwy where we had spied a Dairy Queen. At that location we'd decide how much further we'd head north since the hour was now getting late (4:00 PM).

Our decision was to ride 2 to 3 more hours to get to the Iowa City area. This would make our final days ride not quite so long. We didn't meet our goal...
.
As we were gassing up in Hannibal dark clouds began to roll in. We thought about putting our rain gear on again but decided that perhaps we could out run it since there were clear skies to the north and that was the direction we were going. This plan worked quite well for almost an hour of fast driving. But as we were approaching the Iowa border it became quite evident that our good fortune was about to end. The western sky was becoming very, very dark. Keith's GPS was warning him of thunder storm warnings. We pulled off at the next exit and pulled into a truck shop parking lot. As we were putting our rain gear on the sky turned green, it looked to me that a tornado could drop out of those black clouds at any minute. We retreated into the safety of the truck stop as the wind picked up incredibly hard with driving rain. Our motorcycles were shaking in the wind so that we were worried they might blow over. We put our helmets back on and went back out and drove them over to where there was more protection from the wind. Parked them right up on the sidewalk in front of the side doors under an awning.

As luck would have it, this truck stop had a very nice restaurant so we just decided to eat again and wait out this storm as well. The heavy winds and heavy rains eventually subsided but we could tell that the raining would continue for quite some time. We had been there for about an hour when we decided to head down the road in spite of the wet weather.

We rode about another hour in the rain and made it to Mount Pleasant, IA. After we got unpacked and moved into our room the sun came out and there was a beautiful double rainbow. God's promise to Noah that He'd not flood the world again.

Tomorrow: north to MN and home.