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After my trip the year before to SW Wisconsin, I had to make sure this became a yearly deal. This time, I brought my friend Jim along.
We started off at his camper in the Dells, heading east on 12 to start off the morning on 60. What a way to start the day! The trip west on 60 is every midwest riders' dream. It follows the Wisconsin River all the way to the Mississippi. The road twists and turns all the way to 35, where we headed north from Prairie Du Chien to La Crosse. About 15 minutes into our ride on 35, a Bald Eagle appeared from across the river and flew right over our heads! Here's a pic about an hour south of La Crosse:
That's the Great Mississippi behind us, with the bluffs of SE Minnesota peeking across this majestic river.
We made it to La Crosse just after 2pm and checked into the hotel. We had already ridden a few hours, and stopped in Prairie Du Chien for lunch. We shot some handlebar footage, and I hope to get it edited and posted here soon. Once at the hotel, instant boredom set in. We figured it was time to do some riding again! So we hopped back on the bikes and rode over to the Minnesota side, entering La Crescent, MN. The great thing about these types of trips is there's really no set destination, just ride! So we just sorta figured a way over the river, and continued north once we got there. We rode up route 1 through a small neighborhood. Once through the neighborhood we continued up an incline heading north. It twisted a bit, and then we were atop the bluffs on this side of the river. Luscious green farmland to the west, and an absolutely beautiful view of the Mississippi Valley! This was a view we did not get from the Wisconsin side. Here's a few pictures:
The pictures above were taken the very next morning, since Jim and I decided it was a good idea to head back over to enjoy it again! Some of the best riding happened over here, and the day before we spent a good couple hours roaming little county and state roads through little hillside communities.
We headed back to the Wisconsin Side of the river, on the hunt for route 33, which was going to take us all the way to the Dells. Somehow we missed it, and wound up on US Route 14. We stopped for a second, and got out the trusty Blackberry to check Google Maps. We found a little shortcut to 33 from where we were, and I have to reiterate: THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS GETTING LOST ON A MOTORCYCLE RIDE. Here's the terrain map of county road M:
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This short trip only lasted about 15 minutes, but as I pulled up at the stop sign on 33, Jim pulled aside me and had just one thing to say: "AWESOME."
Another highlight of this trip was through Wildcat State Park. As we entered the park, the speed limit dropped to 25 MPH. Here's the map of that route, and you can see that we had a nice, twisty time!
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As we pulled out of the park, there were a group on horseback. Needless to say, we received very friendly waves from all of them!
We continued on 33 through very, very rural areas, sometimes pulling into gas stations that acted as the city hub. In Cashton, the gas station was also the hardware AND feed store!
We arrived in the Dells around 2pm, and just in time to head into a restaurant to eat and watch the Bears game. We got back to Jim's place, and loaded the bikes onto our trucks. I left about 15 minutes earlier than Jim. As I approached Madison, there was a bit of traffic. I decided to give him a call so he could get a heads up. He answered his phone, and the first words out of his mouth were "I need to get back here, I'm planning another trip right now!"
It made me feel great to be the person to introduce the driftless area of Wisconsin to a guy I could ride with every time. The 3rd Annual trip is already planned for 9/30/2011-10/03/2011, and there may be more than just the 2 of us this time!
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