Things I learned on vacation

1) People in WI are big into their "yard art" and I mean BIG!

2) It is ok to chase deer while riding a snowmobile?? Unfortunately I never got a picture of this but they had a Caution snowmobile sign with a Caution deer sign in front of it so it looked like it was Caution snowmobile chasing deer! Didn't know that was legal...haha

3) Don't be afraid to order Liver and Onions at a bar, you might be surprised!

4) They have happy cows in WI as most of the bi-products from the breweries go to feed the cows!

5) Not only great cheese but great beer also!

6) Women are inboards and men are outboards! (bathroom signs at the Blacksmith shop) Ok, I knew this but we had fun watching people walk up to the bathroom doors trying to figure out what they were. One poor little guy around 7-ish had to run back to his parents table, holding a specific body part, as he asked his dad if he was an inboard or outboard.

7) Loons change color in the fall from the black and white speckling to a gray color.

8) No matter how close you sit facing a bonfire your butt still gets cold!

9) Little brown bats can crawl in a hole 1" wide by 1/4" tall.

10) Red squirrels are aggressive little dudes.

11) ZYMOCENOSILICAPHOBIA is the fear of an empty beer glass.

12) No matter how many times I travel to whatever destination, I am always amazed by natures beauty.

Best part of coming home....

The best part of coming home was picking up Abe from the spa and Wrigs from a friends house! Well, ok, not so sure Wrigley is happy about being home....haha!

Day 7 of vacation

We got all loaded up and headed out for our journey home. We stopped in Minneapolis at the Mall of America for some shopping and food then onto REI for more shopping before pulling into the driveway at 6:30pm.

At REI I got:

Day 6 of vacation

Dawn (Mackie) and Christi (Gilly) headed home on Wednesday as they wanted to be back to work, Thursday and Friday.

Kris and I decided to clean up the cabin and take the towels, sheets and other laundry to the laundry mat since Lenny, the poop guy, had not been there to clean out the septic tank yet.

We found a great little bakery in Frederic so we got some old fashion donuts for our Thursday morning breakfast and we also purchased a couple loaves of bread. Then it was off to the laundry mat. This place was the cleanest laundry mat I have ever been in. We figured out how it stays so clean when we left. Seems the owners house was attached to the laundry mat. This also explained why they asked you to not start loads of laundry after 7:00pm.

We got back to the cabin and about 10 min later, Lenny, the poop guy, shows up. Then the bat guy shows up about five minutes later. So, yup, I braved the smell standing out by the septic tank and talked with Lenny. Meanwhile Kris was in the screen porch talking to the bat guy. So I am having this conversation with Lenny, the poop guy, and he is asking if we had bat issues. I told him not really bad but there have been some get into the cabin in the past but the owners wanted to get things caulked so there wasn't anymore issues. He then tells me that is one job he would not like to do at all. Ok, so, here I am standing talking to a guy that has a hose in a septic tank sucking out GOD KNOWS (well you do know but I will not go into it here) what out of there and the smell is nasty. He has no gloves, mask or any protective gear on while he is doing this and he is telling me he would not deal with bats! So again, meanwhile, Kris is talking to Batman, yes that is what we called him, anyway he is asking if we were having sewer issues and of course we told him no that it just needed to be pumped out. Then he said that is a job he could never do, which I have to agree with him on that! Anyway we thought it was funny that both Kris and I were having similar conversations with two different people and they both thought they would not do ether's job. Ironic? Que the Twilight Zone music......

We packed up a few things to make the morning exit a bit easier and then headed to Indian Head Supper Club for supper a few towns away. What a place that was. Decor was log cabin meets home interior party meets velvet paintings. They had paintings of Indian chiefs on black velvet and then of course had lights on the pictures. Food was good, at least mine was, pan fried walleye..YUM! We had a very interesting waitress. She had quite the conversations with her bartender about the Twins and the Vikings while we waited for our wine. Of course they were very funny conversations that took place across the dining room so we heard all of it! She told us she had traveled to South Dakota to camp and horse back ride a few times in the Badlands. She also said she camped at Evil Women camp ground on the east side of the state. We think she meant Enemy Swim so we got a chuckle out of that. She hoped we enjoyed their state (WI) as much as she enjoyed South Dakota. I thought that was nice to say and we sure did enjoy WI.

We got back to the cabin to watch the CUBS LOOSE..........................DANG IT!

Day 5 of vacation

Ronnie and Nanci (Kono) headed out and headed north for the rest of their vacation together. They were heading to the Duluth area and I am sure the colors were great up there!

The rest of us sat and played a game of Rumicube and waited for the sun to warm things up outside so we could possibly golf. Well, it never got very warm so we went for option #2 which was to drive around and see the country. We drove back to Taylor's Falls and St Croix Falls area. It was very nice there. We happened upon a walking trail of glacier holes along the St Croix River. Very neat and great picture opportunities. We then decided to try and tour a vineyard but it was closed on Tuesdays...go figure!

BIG Glacier hole

St Croix river

St Croix River

Glacier hole

Heading back to the cabin we stopped and had a beverage at Paradise Landing. A very nice up scale resort on the lake. They had a nice patio area along the lake. We decided that this would a must do on the next trip up there when it gets warmer! We stopped at the classier joint (being facetious here), the Blacksmith Shop, again, had a beverage and ordered carry out, burgers, so we could go back to the cabin and watch the Twins...LOOSE...dang it!

Day 4 of Vacation

We woke to the smell of coffee, bacon and Kris making Belgian waffles!...YUM-O

No plans for the day really. We had our breakfast and then we decided to ride the Dau road on our bikes. This was going to be a bit scary as Dawn and Christi have mountain bike with knobbies, Kris and I have mountain bikes with inverted treads and Ronnie and Nanci were on road / hybrid bikes with skinny tires. We were worried about Ronnie and Nanci riding on this road but they were troopers and decided to go for it. What a great ride it was. The gravel had big stones, no so fun, and also was a bit wet so it was soft in places. This road was 2 miles long of hills, gravel and a canopy of trees. It was a great ride that we were happy to do a round trip on. We saw some deer when we were on the hard surface. One little girl, I named her Jane, get it Jane Doe...bad humor sorry, anyway Jane was doing the deer in the headlights look. I stopped and talked to her and Kono rode up and snapped all sorts of pics of her. Jane was so pretty and just standing there looking like she wanted her picture taken. We all made it back to the cabin 7.2 mile later. No record speed. No record distance, just a fun ride with friends and seeing nature.

This is Dau Road. Pretty much the whole road was covered with trees like this!

Four of us broke out the boccie set. It was a good friendly game but Christi and I lost...DANG IT! The other two of our six were sitting in the screen porch reading and had no interest in taking on the winners. I guess they were intimidated...or something like that.

Our supper was to be a wonderful event. Kono and Ronnie brought steaks, wine and with our grocery store stop we added salad and bread to the mix. The cabin only has a charcoal grill and it has been quite some time since I cooked with briquettes but we got it done. The food was great. We opted for a bonfire out by the lake. The evening breeze was cool and strong so the fire burned great but our backsides got quite cold!

Our fire pit area during the day!

Nothing like looking up at the stars in the country, away from city lights. They are amazing!

Side note: learned a lot about bats. The cabin has had some bats in the past but nothing bad, only one in the screened porch this year but Kris's uncle has a ZERO bat tolerance so one was tooooo many for him! Kris's aunt and uncle had a guy come and seal up any of the cracks that the little browns might be able to enter the cabin through. It seems he was to have this done before we got to the cabin so as not to scare us. No need to worry we are not afraid of them in fact while I was waiting for the charcoal to turn its wonderful gray color the "Batman" came to seal more cracks. He was a nice guy. The name of his company is "Fly by Night" which we thought was funny. Anyway he told us all about bats. Pretty interesting. We even found one little brown roosting under the cabin over hang. This guy was quite the guys. He went to school for gunsmithing and was not going to school for small engine repair and does this bat thing part time. I guess that it typical for that area of WI as it is really a poor area so people diversify to meet peoples needs. We noticed this to be true with the little convenience store down the road. Not only is it a bait, beer, liquor, produce, meds, gas, food store but you can also pick up some landscape pavers when we pick up you gallon of milk!

Day 3 of vacation

Sunday day 3 of vacation was an interesting one. After leaving the Blacksmith Shop on Saturday night four of us decided to try and find a grocery store. We didn't have any luck with that. Seems they close them down VERY early. That left a bit of an issue for Sunday morning breakfast. We decided we would try and find either a place to eat or a grocery store to purchase food. After driving around the little town of 1000-ish give or take a 100 we opted to stop at Janelle's Main Dish. It was the little town cafe. We sat down and the little high school girl came over to wait on us. To our surprise they had a menu that had some very interesting items on it. Wanting to try something different I ordered a reuben omelet! Yup, an omelet with corn beef, sauerkraut, cheese and a little salad dressing. IT WAS AWESOME! Let us just say that all of us had juice and or coffee and a big breakfast and the total bill was around $45 for ALL of us to eat a huge meal. The service was great also which was surprising since our waitress was all of maybe 16-17. Our waitress also gave us directions to the grocery store...yeah! The grocery store was actually very nice for the size of the town. We loaded up and headed out and found a gravel road (dau road) that we ventured down. The road had a tree canopy and was really pretty. Once back at the cabin Dawn and Kono (Nanci) started making chili for supper. We thought this sounded good since it was in the 50s. They stuck it in the oven to bake through the afternoon and then we just sat around sampling a few of our beer purchase sitting in the screen porch.

Hanging on out in the screened in porch (Ronnie and Kono)


Redneck glass koozies (socks)

Mixing the Leines and hanging on to a chilled beer mug was kind of

COLD so Mackie and I put on golf gloves to hold our beer mugs.

Hanging in the screen porch (me and Dawn)

It was fun and lots of laughter was had. Dawn and Christi got Kris some gag gifts for her birthday. OH MY GOD! They were all gifts to use as you get older like, magnifying glass, sunglasses that go over your regular glasses. Then there was a box of some hair coloring stuff. Not for the top of you head but for what they say....."The hair down there!" It is made by Fun Betty and they had heard about it from their hair dresser. She had found it and thought it would be a great gag gift. It is a very funny gift and I can not believe they sell this stuff. We opened it up and looked at it. Again...OMG! The applicator looked like a mascara applicator. Way to funny! And no, no one sampled enough beers to try Fun Betty out! What color did they buy you ask? HOT PINK!




We had our great chili supper, watched baseball and then played Mexican Train dominoes. This is a game that can take hours if you play the whole sets. It is a LOT of fun to play.

Everyone hit their beds shortly there after...

Days 1-2 of vacation

We, me, Kris, Dawn and Christi, hit the road around 3:00pm Friday to head to Cheesehead land. The drive was uneventful but a stop had to be made at Blue Max Liquor in Burnsville, MN. We had to have some beverages for the night and some fun ones for our vacation. After a bite to eat we headed to Hudson, WI for our sleep stop for the night. We also met up with Ronnie and Nanci our other two vacationeers. They had crashed for the night but we needed a night cap before the heads hit the pillows so we broke open a few bottles of beer to enjoy.

Saturday morning we headed to Chippewa Falls, WI to tour the Leinenkugel Brewery. If you ever get a chance to take the tour do so. It is better to do this during the weekday then weekend as you get to see the whole production of the bottling also. It was a fun time and of course you get two FREE 7 oz glasses of Leinies to sample. I of course did a mix. If you are not familiar with this, Leinie drinkers do some mixing of the different Lienie brews. It is a lot of fun and gives some of your favorite beers a different taste. I had a Red Oktober which is their red lager mixed with their Oktoberfest. Very good. I like the Oktoberfest and am not really a Red Lager fan but when you mix the two they are good. Lets see if I can remember what all we tried. Black Bear (Leinie's creamy dark and berry weiss) Honey Bear (Honey weiss and berry weiss) Red Sunset (red lager and sunset wheat)....and of course I can not remember them all...might have to take another trip there.

Ok, so we do the tour and our tour guide, Zach, escorted us back to the Leinie Lodge (gift shop) and what do we see but a whole bunch of bikers. I snapped a pic of a few of them as they took off on their tandems. We fell in LOVE with the Disney bike jersey the one couple had on. Might have to start looking for a couple of those. This seems to be a bit of a hot bed for bikers. I do know that the Leinenkugel have a bike ride the end of May which might be a fun time for a future ride. Anyway when we were there a lot of bikers were coming and going which was neat to see. Why is it the biking and good beer go together? I have yet to figure this out.

So, we head to a little place for lunch. Nothing fancy, but was recommended by Leinenkugel staff. The place was not much on atmosphere but the food was great. We also hit the local grocery store for more beverages. We were given $2.00 off coupons on 12-packs of Leinies for taking the Leinies tour. I did question Zach, our tour guide, about the new nut brown ale Leinenkugels coming out this fall. He said it is not ready but asked if I had tried New Glarus Brewery's nut brown ale. Hmmmm....this is the second time I had heard about New Glarus (thanks Mr Bite) so we decided to purchase some at Gordy's grocery store but to our surprise we looked at the Leinenkugel sample and low and behold their was a featured beer call Fireside Nut Brown Ale! Of course we bought the sample pack and also the New Glarus Spotted Cow, Fat Squirrel (nut brown ale) and a few other beers to sample.

We were finally on the road again and headed to our destination up by Luck, WI.

We got all unloaded and kind of settled in to the log cabin that Kris's aunt and uncle own. Little did Kris know is that I sent all sorts of items to her aunt and uncle to decorate the cabin for her 50th birthday. It was kind of a belated surprise but lots of fun. She of course thought her aunt and uncle did all of it and you know me, I played right along with it until she called and talked with them. I had to come clean. It is a very nice place and is not ruffing it by any means. Food was needed so we headed down to the local drinking hole the Blacksmith's shop. All of us had chicken is some sort of way but not Kris. She bucked the group and opted for liver and onions. I have to tell you that four of the six of us like liver and onions and so samples were had. The liver and onions were awesome!

We headed back to the cabin and all of us were so tired we were all in bed by around 9:00pm...wow!

We are back

We are back home from vacation. It went VERY fast but was a lot of fun even though the weather was cool.

I will give a full report in the up coming days.

Cheeseheads here we come.......

Not much going on except, packing and doing a few more errands. I am on vacation and just waiting for the other five friends to get off work at some point during the day. We plan on heading out sometime to Cheesehead land sometime today so I will be off grid for a while!

Think of us riding the country roads in WI with the leaves turning, spending a lot of time sitting by the lake and the fire pit. We can't wait! Of course there will be the stop, shop and tour at the Leinenkugel Brewery and maybe a day of golf but those are the only things we have planned. WoooHooo!

Ya'all stay safe out there and I will give a full report when we get back from recharging our batteries!

Where do these people come from?

So, I was driving to work this morning, yup sorry folks, lots of errands to run and was running late this morning. I know that is not a good excuse but it is truthful. Anyway, I came to one of the many 4-way stops on Prairie Ave in our fair city. I did my part and came to a complete stop. I looked to make sure no one was pulling out even though it was my turn. All of a sudden a dude on a mtn bike comes riding up to the intersection as I started through. He had the kahunas to wave me through the intersections as he kept biking and swerving toward the back end of my vehicle so he did not have to stop.

Ok, so this dumb #$%!, who was also not wearing a helmet, did not stop and then was telling me, who was in a 4 wheel drive SUV, even though it is a small SUV, but still telling me what to do when he was TOTALLY in the wrong for not obeying the traffic laws. Made me crabby. People like that give the rest of us bikers a bad rap. The worst part is how many vehicle drivers get aggravate by these type of riders and they proceed to take their aggravation out by yelling at other bikers just because it is guilt by association, you know we are both on a bikes. That is were the similarities end for MOST of us...VERY FRUSTRATING!

So, then I get down to the Prairie and Russell intersection which can be kind of a mess in the morning but anyway there is a pedestrian just walking out in the middle of the intersection on the service road. He was not watching for traffic. He just decided he was made of whatever alloy or maybe he was super human that nothing could damage him I guess.

WOW.....WHERE DO THESE PEOPLE COME FROM?

The straw boss.....

I got home after work and decided to mow the backyard. Abe decided he needed to be in the backyard also. I decided to put him on the chain to keep him out of the flower bed, grass clippings, and trouble. Of course I had to open the back gate so he could supervise me otherwise he barked at me. Anyway this is a picture of the straw boss!

Weekend recap........

Friday after work I headed to an estate auction in the historical district (yes, I rode my bike there). They were selling a house and its contents. I really went to be able to see in the house. The house is a craftsman house but kind of a little oriental on the outside. What a neat place. It would need some work but had a BIG kitchen with subway tile and the dining and living room had the wood beams on the ceiling. I later learned the owner had died in February, his family lived out of state and obviously didn't want anything to do with the house and some of his possessions. HOW SAD it was to walk through there and then to see people rummaging through things in boxes. I just watched how careless some people were being. I could not be as disrespectful as some of those individual were to this guys property. UGH......made me sad. There were things he valued and people just did not care. Kris met me at the house so she could see the inside also. Not sure how much the house went for but someone will have a house with a lot of character!


I passed the CPR/AED test and skills test! They have changed a few things, which drives me crazy but I guess they want us to keep spending the money to take the classes. Other good news was that we were to have five in the class and only three of us showed up so the class zipped by VERY fast. We were done at 1:00pm instead of 5:00pm. I was glad for that.


I had ridden my bike down to the Red Cross building and of course the way back was the way I used to ride back home from work. It has a little uphill that I used to get a little winded on. Well, on Saturday this did not happen...PROGRESS HAS BEEN MADE!


Saturday afternoon was spend doing laundry and few things around the house. Then it was off to Avera to meet Kris after her class. I decided to ride my bike there also. I took a route that I had thought about Kris riding to commute to work. It worked pretty well except for the road being closed on 9th street. Of course they had just blocked this off Friday so I decided to walk through the mess...I know breaking the law! Anyway the route was good. I hooked up with Kris at said meeting up point and then it was off to Puerto Vallarta to meet friends for the best Mexican food in town. YUM-O. The other fun thing is that we go there enough they know what we like to drink and eat and then we tease each other with is always fun. They always try to teach us some Spanish which is always funny. So I did a little over four miles of riding my bike for errands. Last year I would not have thought twice about taking my SUV. Makes me feel good and even though gas is less now than it has been in a while (Casey's on Burnside $3.17/ gallon), I feel great riding the bike as it is helping the environment and also my health.

Sunday, I took Kris to her last day of class (physical therapist 2 1/2 day class) on geriatric exercises, seems fitting since she just turned 50.....haha, anyway me and the Abester headed to a retail chain store so I could pick up a few things then home to tackle the cleaning of the Bravada. WOW, I shampooooo-ed the carpet, did conditioning of the leather seats, vacuumed it out, washed the outside and of course it rained last night but no big deal. It was very dirty. Sunday night we dropped it off at the mechanics for a new ball joint and other repairs. Last week it was a new fuel pump. Anyway things that needed done before we hit the road on vacation. I am sure our mechanic is going to look at the Bravada and think it is not the same vehicle as he worked on last week since it is SO CLEAN! I only have to do the Rain-x on the windows yet so that is good. Lots of money spent on a vehicle with 158,000 miles but we decided we would start looking next fall so we needed to limp along with the Bravada for another year....I only hope it is nice to us from now until then!

Last night was spent downloading CDs from our collection to the ipod for vacation. I have a lot more to do but we got a good start. Kris got an itunes card from my sister and brother-in-law for her birthday so she is going to download some of her favorite tunes that we do not have. The ipod thing is very fun that is for sure. Amazing technology! We also started laying out things for vacation. Kris's aunt is so excited for us to use the cabin. She also told us to take the pontoon boat out and make sure we have some bonfires......ok, twist my arm! They are so generous!

Well, happy Monday everyone! Hope you all have a good productive week!

Cubs WIN, Cubs WIN!

Biking, CEUs and Abey..........

This week I biked to work a lot. Good thing the weather has cooperated...well, it is windy today. The Bravada seemed to make it's fuel pump quit working. Seems ironic since it has had that expensive gas to pump through it, nonetheless, it had to be towed from the luge, as we lovingly call our driveway, Monday night. Darn cars, always something when they get old. I guess kind of like us. Anyway we were glad this happened now instead of in Vermillion or Yankton last weekend or for that matter our up coming trek to the Cheesehead state.

So, Kris has been driving the Sidekick and I have been biking all week. Here is the DOWN SIDE. Abe our dog that goes to work with me in the afternoons has been home all week with Wrigley the parakeet. Abe has been giving me the BIG SAD eyes when I head out on my bike after lunch. So tomorrow I will be driving part of the day (afternoon) so Abey can be the afternoon office manager at work. He so loves his title! Someday I will get that bike trailer fixed up so he can ride to work in that on the cooler days.

(First pic Abe with sad eyes. Second pic Abe at work. He loves to sleep under my chair so this is a pretty normal spot for him, even when he was just a puppy he would curl up under my office chair. I do have him an a chain at work as not everyone likes dogs and he pretty much loves everyone!)

I got all my CEUs done for the first responders class...WHEW! Now all I have left is the CPR / AED class on Saturday! This will be a HUGE relief to have done!

Have a great evening! I am heading out to brave the wind that I will be biking directly into!

Commuting milestone for me.....

I hit a milestone today kind of. Well, it is for me at least. I know some of you out there either do not keep track of your miles or have LOTS of miles under your helmet already, so this is nothing compared to what you all do but I decided in May to keep track of my miles. I thought it would be fun to do and it would be a so called bar set for my riding next year. ...drum roll please...

With the commute today I went over 100 mile of commuting and errands done on my bike. This is a lot for me since last year I commuted by bike not once! My commute to work is only 3.54 miles round trip. The rest of the miles come from newsletter meetings at Michelle's and Monks, MS150 first spoke sign up at Spoke N sport, and breakfast at 334. I plan on doing more commuting by bike next year.

I do need to get some cool weather gear for this fall... any suggestions?

Back to commuting......

So, since it was so nice yesterday, I decided to bike back to work after lunch. The normal areas were a bit sore on the body after a ride but they will be fine. The only issue was my ankle was a bit sore. Some of you maybe know I have a terrible right ankle and it seems that biking has not really bothered it. It was strange pain yesterday. It was fine for a bit then a burning ache would set in. Not sure if it is just from the weekend ride, or riding my bike without my bike shoes. Last night I took some good meds before going to bed and this morning it was fine. So, today on the commute I wore my bike shoes just to make sure that it wasn't from biking with my regular shoes, but guess what?....yup, I forgot my regular shoes, so I am looking real sporty today with my bike shoes on! At least most of the office is carpet so I am not clicking around!

This will be a busy week....like all of them have been lately! Lots of works stuff to do but I also have my continuing education to do for being a certified first responder. I have my CPR/ AED for professional rescuer all day Saturday at the Red Cross office. Hand over the $70.00 and take the class...UGH...it is the only place I can get it done before my certification expires. I also have 12 hours of education to get in before the end of the month. I am able to do this online but it all takes time and of course I would rather be doing other things. I had intended on doing this Saturday but the CPR class came up so that takes priority at this point and the internet classes will be done in the evenings. There are a few of the C.E.R.T. (community emergency response team) group that took additional classes through Sioux Falls Fire Rescue and then took the NREMT (national registry of emergency medical technicians) test to become certified first responders. I really do not want to take those classes and test again so it is in my best interest to pay the money to take the classes and get it done, ASAP....by the end of the month! Procrastination, you just have to love it!

My co-worker is going to start coming back tomorrow after her lengthy illness. This will be nice but not sure how long she will be able to work and what she will be able to do at this point. We are backed up on a few things so we will see.

Vacation is right around the corner! YEAH! We can hardly wait. We are going to WI for a relaxing time. There are six of us making the trek to Kris's aunt and uncles log cabin. Lots of recharging will happen I hope! We are taking the bikes to ride around and see the different colors autumn has to offer! We are also going to tour the Leinenkugel Brewery in Chippewa Falls which will also be a great time!

I need to look at cool weather cycling gear also at some point....soon!...

Get on your bike this week and treat yourself to the wonders that South Dakota (or insert your own state) has to offer in the fall! It is a great time of the year to bike!

Play and Marg ride

Friday we hit Yankton and the play, The Women. It is really a good comedy about women and their relationships. The all women cast was pretty good. Yes, this is the play that is out in movie form so now I want to see the movie! The bummer is that we were kind of rushed on Friday night and then the play didn't get over until almost 10:30pm. We had to hit the groc story for bananas and kiwi for the Margarita ride on Saturday. So once back at the Clubhouse we both crashed!

Saturday we were up early to get ready for the ride and drive to Vermillion. I fixed breakfast, scrambled eggs, brown rice, little butter and Parmesan cheese on top. We loaded up and headed out to rain / fog crap. We all decided we would rather have rain than wind. Arrived at Pros Bar in Vermillion the launching pad for the Marg ride a little after 7:30am for registration packets. Of course the usual Lane Hogs were there helping get things going. Not sure what time we rolled out for sure but it was after 8:00am. Some riders optioned to wait out the rain a bit before starting but we didn't. Our group consisted of three people, me, Kris, and Kono. I had the ipod speaker going playing tunes, by the way it worked great and we absolutely LOVE IT! I will have to post pictures of the contraption on the bike later. We took off from Vermillion and headed west, one down hill and then all flat to begin with. We were singing along to the tunes and going at a nice easy pace. I had told Kris that I would ride with her since this was her first EVER BIG ride so whatever pace she felt good at going is what we rode. Kono hung with us for the first five miles and then took off which was fine and in fact we told her our intentions and if she wanted to hang with us or go her own pace that was all fine. So we make it to Meckling after crossing the roughest railroad tracks ever! They were bad. A couple people crossed after us and pinch flatted. Anyway Ron was helping support our little group so she was there with Daniel and the dogs. We stopped and had a banana. YUP, I had a WHOLE banana there...UGH! If you read this blog you know I have such LOVE for bananas......

Anyway, we headed out again and made the water stop half way into the ride. We were greeted by Biking Brady honking Fordzilla or the great almighty Steve (whatever name wins the name the van pole), Mrs CDV and kids. We had not met Mrs CDV before so we had to chat about Disney! We took off again for the last half of the ride and of course the next half hour was spent talking Disney! Both of us were doing fine and singing to music as the miles clicked away. Couple more stops for us to refuel with Gu, Kiwi, and change the batteries in the speaker. We had the speaker volume pretty high the first half of the ride so we burned through 4 AA batteries in about 1 h 45m of ride time which with our stops I am guessing it was more like 2-2 1/4 hours. So not bad. As we turned the corner to head to HWY19 Kris could see the hill we had to climb to get back into Vermillion. I had told her about this hill before and I have walked up the hill in my youth as I was not able to bike up it. I told her to do what she could and if she needed to walk don't worry about it. You see this was her first ever 30 mile ride. The furthest she had ridden was 20 miles and since that time we really didn't have the time to get back out on the bikes to put in a lot more miles. Plus this was the first ride since she turned 50! Anyway I took the lead and headed up the hill. As I am almost to the top a rider passed me and it was Cycling Cathy, you go girl! I made it to the crest and pulled off to cheer another group of riders chugging up the hill. And to my surprise Kris was still pumping up the hill and not walking. She was getting tired but the hill was not going to beat her! She did a really great job! She was so sure she was going to have to walk up the hill and I really think she surprised herself! She later told me she just put her head down, kept pedaling and didn't look up the hill.

We got back to Pro's Bar and loaded up on the Mexican food. Both of use made taco salads and then had our margarita. Kris had a couple drinks out of hers before she spilled in on the table. No harm. We ended up drinking beer after that or I guess I had motor oil (Guinness) as they called it. We sat with some FAB members, Mr Mayor, Tammy and Jody, then they all took off for Sioux Falls. Then our table filled up with the biking bloggers. CDV, Biking Brady and Mrs Biking Brady, Hammer, Cycling Cathy, myself and Kris. What a great and fun group of people. Lots of bike chatting and laughing. We were invited over to CDVs house for a gathering of FAB, MS150, Lane Hog, riders. Unfortunately we could not stay long. We had to be back in Yankton to pick up Kris's moms TV stand she had finished down there. We did get one beer in, saw their Disney pics and family pics from their busy summer before we headed out. Of course we had to have some food to go with us on the road (Mrs CDV, I need the recipe for the tortilla wrap thingies!)

Once in Yankton the TV stand was picked up, we got back to the Clubhouse and cleaned the place up and tried to fix the toilet that had been running and singing to Ronnie and Kono when they got there Friday night (good thing we turn the water off to the place when we leave!) The toilet had different guts in it then I have seen before and also the shut off valve by the toilet had dripped some water so I decided that it would be good to call a plumber next week to have him replace the guts and valve. We are also in need of a new kitchen faucet so Kris suggested that since he was going to be there to fix those items to get a new faucet and have that installed also. Calls were made and all owner parties agreed. We packed up and headed to Sioux Falls. Our intentions were to hit the German fest but you might have guessed it....toooooo tired! We also stopped at two places to look for a new faucet. One of our friends is in Brandon taking care of her grand kids and she said she would take the faucet back to Yankton with her on Sunday for the plumber to install. No new faucet yet so have one more place to look this morning!

All in all it was a great weekend. Get this, Kris had a great time on the bike and started talking about riding this next year and maybe getting a different bike to ride. I think she might be hooked!

BIG THANKS to the Lane Hogs and all the Vermillion area bloggers to make this a fun event! You sure do meet some great people in the biking community!

Anticipation.......

Last night we started packing up for the trip to Bridge City tonight. We have plans/tickets to go to the play tonight, The Women, not sure if it is the one that is just coming out in movie form or not but it should be fun. We love community theater and of course seeing plays in the old Dakota Theater is a lot of fun.


Hard to pack for the weekend since we will be doing the Margarita ride tomorrow. The weather could be a bit cool in the AM but will warm up nicely in the upper 70s by noon-ish and guess what?...when I looked at the weather last night they are talking 3-6 mph winds....WoooHooo! Anyway we are doing shorts with two layers of shirts so if we get hot we can shed off a layer. This time of year is hard figuring out clothes but layering is good so that is where we will start.


This will be Kris's first ever 30 mile ride and will be her first bike ride since she turned 50! We plan to take it slow and enjoy the scenery and chat along the way. I also have to rig up my ipod to my ihome bike speaker. It is pretty cool. We will be rolling and jamming that is for sure!

I am thinking we are going to head back home Saturday night. I have lots of work to do so I plan on sleeping in Sunday and then heading to work for a good chunk of the day. Depending on how tired we are we might try and hit the German Fest in Sioux Falls Saturday night instead of staying for the Ribfest in Yankton. Nothing says recovery after a ride like beer and brats!
We will see...plans are still up in the air on that one!

Have a great weekend and maybe we will see you at the Margarita Ride!

Kris' b-day party!

I forgot to blog about Kris's 50th birthday party from Monday night....SORRY FOLKS.

The birthday girl, Kris! (she is actually talking to my sister when I took this picture as it was her birthday also!)

After Kris was humiliated at work by some funny pictures I copied for one of her co-workers (I was forced at gun-point to hand the pics over..haha) we hit Spezia's for supper with a bunch of friends. What a fun night. Lots of laughs, good food, good beverages and time spent with family and friends. Doesn't get much better than that!

L to R: Jackie, Pam, Luther, Joan, Rose

L to R: Christi (Gilly), Mary, Cheri (Traup), Nanci (Kono), Ronnie

L to R: Joan (Kris's mom) and Jackie