At Highway 92 we jogged left a quarter-mile to county road R45 which takes us to New Virginia. It was my intention to take this road all the way to the point where it junctions with US 69 just outside of Osceola, and although it’s a very straight shot to New Virginia we haven’t had the normal intense heat of an Iowa summer yet so everything is still very green and lovely to look at even if there aren’t many curves.

Coming into New Virginia, we noticed that they were having their annual “old settler days” and that the main street was closed off for the festivities. Not wanting to inadvertently get mixed up in a parade (or otherwise make a spectacle of ourselves in front of the townfolk), I took us on a detour just to the east of Main Street. I think that R45 actually picks up again on the far side of town and heads straight down to Osceola, but I wasn’t sure how much of the road was closed off so instead I thought, well we can just head over to 69 from here. I was thinking it was only a couple of miles.

Turns out it’s actually EIGHT miles, so I admit that after a few of them I felt kind of silly – I was only doing this because I wasn’t familiar with the streets of New Virginia and didn’t know exactly how I could pick up R45 on the south end of town (when in reality it was probably a matter of just cutting back over to the west at the other end of the barricaded area), and here we were going 20 miles out of our way just to avoid a few old settlers.

Ah well, I thought, this is the way we roll – east when we want to go south, 20 extra miles to avoid even the possibility of hitting a short stretch of gravel. We finally caught 69 at the tiny town of Medora and headed back to the southwest. This was a very pretty stretch of road, and eases straight into the northeast end of Osceola. We stopped for a quick potty break, where to my relief everyone confirmed that the detour had made for a nice ride. We then continued a few more blocks south past the square to pick up Highway 34 going west, and arrived at Chipp’s Harley Davidson on the west end of town.

We shopped for do-rags (you’ll recognize Steve on the road now because he new ‘rag has smiley faces all over it!) and I picked up a few copies of the new Throttler magazine, which has one of my articles in it. I was so excited to see my name in print in a biker magazine that I hustled over to the rest of my group and pointed it out; a salesman for the dealership overheard me and asked me to autograph a copy for him – that was a first for me, and it gave me a huge chuckle.

Finally we were ready for lunch and as we were getting ready to leave out in the parking lot, a very nice guy named Larry came up and asked me if I was “Biker Chick.” I laughed and said yes, and he mentioned to me that he reads and enjoys the blog. I’m always surprised when this happens, and I’m delighted any time someone takes a moment to introduce themselves as a reader. Thanks, Larry – it was great to meet you and very nice of you to say hello!

We back-tracked up the road a half-mile to have a leisurely lunch at the Family Table restaurant – another of those locally owned Iowa diners that brings you more food than you can possibly eat for a very reasonable price – and then headed home the same way we had come in.

Stopped long enough to snap a couple photos of the Osceola statue on this end of town – a large carved totem by artist Jesse Kuhs, honoring the Seminole Indian leader for whom the town is named.

We traveled home northward along Highway 69, stopped again for a final break at Route 65 HD in Indianola, and took R63 back into Des Moines.

I am enjoying these shorter rides, but I think I am going to have to actually get off my duff and plan ahead a little bit – I’d still love to get around to visiting the Grotto of the Redemption and the Villisca Murder House this year, but that’s not going to happen if we don’t get out the driveway before 10:30 a.m.!

The arboretum is a park-like facility northwest of Des Moines that showcases hundreds of native and non-native trees and plants. There are perennial beds, landscaped viewing areas, trees and shrubs – and since one of my other interests in life is gardening, I’ve always wanted to go there and simply have never taken time.

One of the rides we’ve taken occasionally when we want to go but don’t have all day to travel is a loop that takes us past Saylorville Lake, past Big Creek State Park, and up to Madrid and back again. The arboretum is just a bit farther north than Madrid, so adding it to the loop was a snap: heading west on Highway 210 out of Madrid, just past the “alien structures” (which don’t look so alien anymore, now that there seems to be a walking path up on top of them), is a turn-off onto a county road that takes you to the Boy Scouts’ Camp Mitigwa.

That road becomes R26, which is one of those Iowa gems: easy, sweeping curves, a hillcrest (clearly marked with a yellow sign reading “HILL,” just in case you weren’t sure) offering a really pretty view of the valley at the bottom, lush green Iowa meadows and hard-working homesteads on both sides of the road. R26 comes to a T at E57, and the arboretum is at the end of a turn-off just back to the east of the T.

This is the type of place where I could easily spend an entire afternoon – it’s just over 375 acres, and I didn’t even scratch the surface of exploration since I only stayed about 30 minutes. I did manage to take some neat pictures of the small portion I walked through.

Back on the bike, I continued east on E57. Looking for Highway 17, I discovered that it’s poorly marked: I came to a two-way stop and since this was approximately where I was expecting to find 17, I took a chance and turned to the south. A few hundred yards down the road, there was my “State 17” sign. Would’ve been helpful to have a “Junction” sign back on E57, but at least I was on the right road.

This took me back through Madrid, where I stopped for a potty break and then headed home on the same roads I had taken on my way up: past Big Creek, through Polk City, and past Saylorville.

Notable things I passed:

• A woman riding alone – she had a red touring bike and was wearing a bright red leather jacket with fringed sleeves. She waved enthusiastically as we passed each other, and I did likewise.
• Several areas where recent heavy rains have gully-washed gravel and debris onto the road.
• Extremely high water levels of the Des Moines River: I’ll be really surprised if it doesn’t flood this year.

And one thing I managed to avoid: I was riding at one point about a hundred yards behind an SUV towing a boat, and the fabric cover on the boat suddenly ballooned up and blew off. I slowed way down, but it floated like a giant purple parachute off to the side of the road. Since the driver kept going, I’m not sure he even knew what had happened!

In all a really nice ride, and a little outside the norm since I don’t ride alone all that often. There are a few more photos over on Webshots.

In the scavenger hunt, the idea is to ride to a list of towns and take pictures of yourself and your bike next to something that identifies the town – a welcome sign, post office, etc. – and turn in your photos to compete for prizes. Janet had mapped out a loop that would take us to three of the towns: Swan, Columbia, and Derby, and back up to Indianola for a visit to Route 65 Harley Davidson.

We couldn’t have had a more perfect day for a ride – sunny and hot, but not too humid. Steve had decided he wanted to reminisce about “the old days” and try riding without his windshield, which he had removed the day before while cleaning his bike. “I’ll just try it ‘au naturale,‘” he said.

We took off from Big Barn HD around 9:30 a.m. and headed south through Des Moines, past the state fairgrounds and then along Vandalia Road – which, once you get past the industrial “arm pit” portion, is a very pretty ride to the southeast.

We turned south on Highway 316 and took that to Swan, a tiny town of about 120 and at least one very friendly old, fat yellow lab who greeted us as we parked in front of the town hall. We snapped our photos and remarked on all the water we’d seen – the Des Moines River is out of its banks again, and it looks like we could easily be in for another “hundred-year flood.”

We left Swan and picked up Highway 5 heading southeast, then turned south at Highway 14. Our next stop was supposed to be Columbia. We soon came upon a nice junction-type intersection that I was sure would be our turn – only it wasn’t. Kept going, and shortly came up over a hillcrest and suddenly our turn was on the left – not marked with a regular green highway directional sign, but the only indication being a white sign on the left bearing some sort of commercial message along with the name of the town and an arrow.

I managed to get slowed enough (down from 55) to safely make the left-hand turn, as did Gerry and Steve – but Janet, who was directly behind me, did not. She was forced to make a nasty U-turn in the middle of the highway, with that stupid hillcrest preventing a really safe judgment as to oncoming traffic. She safely made the turn-around and joined us on the road into Columbia – a town so small its population is not even noted on my state map.

We paused for more pictures in front of the Columbia Community Center and I think that between the guy running the tire shop, the guy driving back and forth (why?) hauling a long horse trailer, and the older man sitting on his porch next to the park, we saw all the permanent residents of the town.

We headed back out toward the highway and watched Janet almost get skewered by a guy driving a large industrial forklift – for some reason (maybe because I was in the lead and displaying too much blindingly pale cleavage, but I can’t be sure) he wasn’t paying full attention, and turned VERY wide out onto the road into our lane – I zipped past him okay but Janet had to scoot wayyy over to the right, all the while staring down the barrel of one of two giant “tines” on his forklift.

Needless to say, we were glad to leave Columbia behind and continued south down Highway 14. (This is as good a time as any to caution you: if you are a motorcyclist in Iowa, Highway 14 hates you and wants to kill you by rubbing you painfully over its washboard road surface.)

South of Chariton, we picked up H50 and headed west over to Derby, our third stop. Once there, we pulled in front of the Post Office (“US Vehicle parking only” – hey, we are from the US so we parked there – plus, the postmaster had clearly marked the front door “out to lunch.”), and immediately noticed that the PO was the only building in the short little strip that was presently occupied by anything other than possibly animals – everything else, though in the past they must have been businesses, appeared to be empty.

I think it was here that Steve made the off-hand statement that he’d be putting his windshield back on when he got home. I’d thought about him back there, every time a large bug would hit my windshield, and knew he had to be taking at least as many direct hits. He had had enough of ‘au naturale.’

We picked up Highway 65 to the north just outside of Derby – a section of highway obviously in cahoots with Highway 14 – and rode north into Indianola. A visit to Route 65 HD and lunch at the One Stop completed our trip – from there it was a straight shot along Highway 65/69 into Des Moines, where we waved good-byes to Janet & Gerry as they continued north.

It was a beautiful day, and the good news is my cleavage is now getting tan so I won’t be blinding any forklift drivers for the rest of the summer. And, bonus for Steve: without the windshield he was afraid he would lose his favorite hat so he rode without that, too, and later found that his, um, thinning hair… had caused his scalp to be vulnerable to the sun’s rays. Needless to say, a top-of-the-head sunburn makes hair brushing a little painful.
]]> http://www.bikerchicknews.com/2010/07/01/swan-columbia-derby/feed/ 4 http://www.bikerchicknews.com/2010/06/04/pie-at-millerton/ http://www.bikerchicknews.com/2010/06/04/pie-at-millerton/#comments Fri, 04 Jun 2010 13:00:18 +0000 Corn Dog http://www.bikerchicknews.com/?p=1044 “I wonder if this is the right place?”

In my defense, it wasn’t entirely a silly question. I was expecting (for whatever reason) to see a diner called “Rose’s” or “Rosie’s.” Instead I had located the Millerton Café. So going strictly by signage, I wasn’t sure at all that this was our intended destination.

By all other accounts, it was the right place simply because there was no other place. You could stand in the parking lot and see the outskirts of town in all four directions. There clearly wasn’t another place to eat unless perhaps you were family stopping by to check on Aunt Ellie, in which case she might rustle you up a sandwich.

Besides, the spot we were looking for was supposed to be “the best place to eat in Southern Iowa,“ and the parking lot of the Millerton Café was packed when we arrived. (I daresay this town of 48 people probably triples in size every day between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.) A good sign, even if it was the wrong place.

We first learned about Millerton on the 10 o’clock news one night; a local reporter was exploring Iowa towns looking for “the best (blank) in Iowa” (because that’s something those big-city TV reporters are always looking for) and happened upon homemade pie at the Millerton Café.  This was back in the very late winter or early Spring, at which time Steve and I looked at each other and said, “Let’s take a day-ride there!”

So on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, we left around 10 a.m. and headed south, collecting Garry & Shirley in Carlisle. A quick jump down Highway 5 took us to the Palmyra Road (S23), which is a lovely piece that gets you down to Highway 92 in about 20 scenic minutes.

We jogged back west on 92 and picked up S23 again heading south. This is a county road which happens to make judicious use of the “pavement ends” strategy of way-finding. By this I mean that a sign warns you that “pavement ends”  and you should therefore plan to take the sharp turn called “your only option” in about 10 feet. I think there were three or four of these along S23 and each time they’d leave me wondering if I was still on the right road.

We took S23 to State Highway 34, then with DETOUR and ROAD CLOSED signs blaring all around us, we turned toward Chariton anyway and got lucky: the road did close, but gave us one final turn-off at the edge of town that dropped us at Casey’s for a potty and beverage break. From there we took a short loop through town and picked up Highway 14 heading south. (This, by the way, is a HORRIBLE stretch of road that will shake your teeth loose.) The turn-off to Millerton was County Road J22 – a peach compared to 14.

Lunch was very good. The homemade hot beef sandwiches were excellent. I don’t think the chicken tenders were homemade, but they were still okay. But the real prize was dessert: Legend has it that Grandma comes in every morning to bake fresh pies. And not just apple and cherry. Every day there is fresh pecan, several types of berry, chocolate, sour cream raisin, banana cream, and much more – about 12 or 16 varieties, I think. The pie was amazing, and by itself worth the trip.

After lunch we took 14 back up to 34 east, which got us quickly to C&C Cycles. C&C is a multi-brand dealer selling Harley Davidson, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Polaris vehicles, parts and apparel. They also must sell a really versatile trike kit, because the entire front showroom was filled with about a dozen or more trikes made from a wide range of motorcycles. We shopped a bit, then it was time to head back toward Des Moines.

For the trip home we took 34 west to Highway 65, which eventually joins with Highway 69 and takes us into Indianola.

Other than a couple of impatient drivers (one of whom got to carefully study the middle finger of my left hand as he passed us on the two-lane), it was a gorgeous day of bright blue skies, summer temperatures and low humidity. Only thing that would have made it better was if Millerton had had a white-sand beach, clear azure water, and cabana boys selling umbrella drinks along with the pie.

This little community is just northwest of Des Moines and we cruise through whenever we take the “Madrid Loop” or visit Big Creek State Park. But we’ve never stopped at any of the local businesses.

So Thursday we opted to have lunch at the Reising Sun Café on the square, but could also have elected pizza or pub fare. The Reising Sun was a nice little place that looked out onto the iconic Polk City gazebo. Our window seat allowed us to enjoy the view as well as our pork sandwiches.

After lunch we slipped over to Big Creek for a view of the lake, then headed back down toward Des Moines and stopped at Big Barn HD. Garry & Shirley soon arrived, so we shopped the Barn for a brief time then headed home, with a stop at Sambetti’s just for good measure.

Just one of those days that was hardly worth a mention, except for the perfect weather and time spent on the bikes – which is never an insignificant combination!

As it turned out, the weather on Saturday was a bit iffy – Accuweather was saying it wasn’t going to rain, but the big dark clouds to the north said otherwise. Steve and I headed up to the Barn where we met up with Garry and Howard (the latter being accompanied by Einstein, the Wonder Biker Dog).

Plan A had been to hang out at the Barn for awhile, then head out for an afternoon ride to Gladbrook, Iowa, about 70 miles northeast of Des Moines. But, given the northerly direction of the moving storm clouds, I quickly conjured up a Plan B ride over to Freedom Rock near Greenfield, to the west and south.

Our route took us northwest from the Barn to Johnston, where we picked up Highway 44 heading west. Now I have tried very hard on this blog to get across the point that Iowa is not all flat and corny – it’s often curvy and corny, even HILLY and corny, and dotted with lovely small towns and even the occasional larger city. But folks, Highway 44 from Johnston to Panora is flat. Straight, and flat.

Now make no mistake, things are lush and green right now so it’s still beautiful – but it’s a stretch of highway that looks like what folks who’ve never been here think our whole state looks like. And of course, along with straight and flat comes what?

That’s right, wind. And on this day, probably worse wind than any day we’ve spent crossing South Dakota. The kind that blows your bike around to the point of pushing you into oncoming lanes, and gets under your helmet to the point of sucking your do-rag out from under it.

After about 40 miles of straight, flat and windy, we stopped for gas and beverages at the Casey’s General Store in Panora, then pressed on a few more miles west to Guthrie Center. In Guthrie Center we picked up Highway 25 heading south, which took us through to The Freedom Rock just south of Interstate 80.

In 1999, a nineteen-year-old art and design student from Creston, Iowa named Ray Sorensen II saw the movie, “Saving Private Ryan.” It gave him an idea: there was a large boulder near his hometown, situated at the entrance to a former quarry, that local kids had been defacing for many years with graffiti. Ray decided to paint the rock with words and images to say “Thank you” to America’s veterans, past and present. The finished mural meant so much to those who saw it that Ray was asked to continue painting year after year.

Ray now paints The Freedom Rock each year with new words, new images, and an unwavering commitment to thanking and recognizing the gifts of liberty and freedom earned for each of us by our military. (Visit the Freedom Rock website for the full story and to see all the murals from years past.)

As we arrived at the Rock, I was delighted (and honored) to discover that we were there at a time when Ray was present, paint cans spread out at the foot of the boulder and working to complete this year’s mural in time for Memorial Day. He is a talented young man, and his decade-plus commitment to this project is inspiring.

We took several pictures (including one of a Pattonesque Einstein, looking down from his biker dog perch), then decided to head a few more miles south to pick up Highway 92 at Greenfield for the ride home.

The wind, of course, was just as bad heading east as it was going west, but we soon reached Winterset and stopped again for a break at a Casey’s. (I should start a new blog: “Casey’s to Casey’s Across Iowa.”) The final leg of the trip took us east on 92, north on 28 at Martensdale, through Norwalk and on into the south side of Des Moines.

The total trip was about 140 miles. As for the rain? Well we did catch a few drops, but an actual shower never materialized. In fact, the storm clouds broke up over the first half-hour or so of the ride, giving way to a clear, bright blue sky – just right for taking pictures of a patriotic rock out in the middle of flat, straight, corny, curvey, hilly, beautiful Iowa.

My local map showed that we could avoid the Interstate by simply riding west along Grand Avenue all the way to Van Meter, so we set out to do just that. A minor glitch occurred when we came upon a section of Grand that was closed with no marked detour. A slightly more major glitch occurred when Grand Avenue ended unexpectedly at a set of barricades several miles before reaching Van Meter, with a right-hand turn being the only option.

Not expecting this, but being pretty familiar overall with the concept of going one direction when I intended to go another, I knew we’d eventually end up in a spot I recognized. So we pressed on to the north and picked up Interstate 80, then headed west to Van Meter.

We arrived at the Iowa Veteran’s Cemetery around 3 p.m. The cemetery was dedicated in the summer of 2008 and will serve as interment grounds for any US veteran wishing to be buried there. Spouses of veterans may also choose burial there. Because the facility is so new, there are very few actually interred at this time. Still, you can see where several sections have been started, most with only 1-2 rows of stones so far. Several permanent buildings also dot the rolling hillsides (a cemetery office, a building where committal ceremonies are held), as well as a large memorial, and there is a section where stones can be erected in memory of veterans buried elsewhere. (More information is available on the cemetery’s website at https://www.iowava.org/vetcemetery/.)

We stayed for about 30 minutes and then rode down into Van Meter, where we stopped at the Casey’s General Store. I asked the clerk there about a way back to Des Moines that didn’t involve the Interstate. He immediately told us about “F90,” the county road that I had thought was the western stretch of Grand Avenue. Despite the fact that I reported Grand Avenue ending in a forced right turn, he insisted that F90 would take us straight into Des Moines.

We left Van Meter and picked up F90 at the south end of town, then headed east back toward Des Moines. Turns out the clerk was right – F90 ends at Grand Avenue not too far from those barricades, and if we’d turned left there on our way west we would have avoided the forced right turn to the north. Ah well, all in a day’s work – it was a nice ride, if a bit short in deference to the cool weather. Hoping to organize a return trip to this area next summer!

Gather at the Days Inn in Mt. Vernon, Iowa – ride departs at 11 a.m. and concludes in Mechanicsville at the Dougout, where there will be food, entertainment and raffle prize drawings.

I took 69 north back up to Indianola, where I pulled into the parking lot of the closed-on-Sundays Route 65 Harley Davidson. I love the retro look of this huge building, so I parked in the empty lot and snapped a few pictures of the bike in front of the signage. Headed on up to Highway 92, west to R63, and north to home.

This was a neat little ride, and overall I enjoyed the alone time. But, it sure was different riding alone. A few times, I was aware of bikes traveling behind me. I always thought of my pink helmet as a kind of beacon for the friends riding with me so they can keep me in view, but on this ride I was aware that the pink lid (and my bright pink tank top) clearly identified me as a girl traveling alone. Not saying I don’t trust my fellow Iowans – I freely admit my imagination gets the better of me sometimes – but you just never really know who’s behind you or what they’re thinking. Didn’t prevent me from enjoying the ride, but it did make me think a little about what I’d do if I encountered harrassment on the road. So I’m curious, fellow lady riders: have YOU ever been accosted when traveling alone on your bike? What did you do about it?

What a beautiful day – calm, mostly sunny, warm – just perfect. We took off from the far south side of Des Moines and headed west to Highway 28, which took us South through Norwalk to Highway 92 at Martensdale, then west to Winterset. (Yes, we ride to Winterset fairly often – LOL – it’s a lovely small town, a sort of “gateway” to Madison County riding, and my mother’s whole family happens to be from there so it has a bit of a special place in my heart.) Thus far the 1200 and I were getting along great – she rides so smooth at highway speed, and the handlebars Steve had put on for me were SO much better than the drag bars she came with. We stopped at Casey’s at the junction of Highway 92 and 169 for a break – always lots of good conversation on these little breaks, sometimes bike-related and sometimes not. On this trip, Steve was testing out the video camera we’d given him for his birthday, and wanted to find a four-lane highway so he could up alongside each of us to shoot a little riding footage. The nearest choice was the Highway 5 bypass that runs east to west across the south side of Des Moines, so we decided that we’d take 169 north to a county road that would take us back up toward Norwalk and the bypass. 

We left the Casey’s behind and traveled north up 169 til we found a county road called G4R. Now Madison County is about as beautiful as Iowa gets with its rolling hills and lush valleys, and in that respect G4R did not disappoint with its lovely rural homesteads and pretty curves. Where this road completely failed was in the area of maintenance. It’s a prime example of my comment about “seams” – actual raised seams that remind me of welts – in Iowa road repairs. They don’t look like much – they raise up probably less than 12 inches. But on a bike, they’re jarring and, if tall enough, unsafe. Adding to the discomfort is that they’re always a surprise – you can never really tell when one’s coming up – and it can be downright painful to go over one. At one point, the whole right-hand portion of our lane was busted up and a few in our group had to swerve to miss it. Given the six-figure value of some of the beautiful new homes along this road, I’m surprised the County would let this road stand the way it is. I’m surprised the folks who live along here would put up with it.

G4R became G14 at Cumming, and took us back into Norwalk where we turned north to head back to Highway 5. Once on 5, Steve rolled up alongside each of us in turn in the left-hand lane and had Stephanie shoot some video of us riding along. A few miles later we exited Highway 5 onto Des Moines’ Army Post Road, and we ended the ride with a beverage break at the same Casey’s we’d departed from at 1:30. We recruited a random customer to snap a photo of our entire group, then headed home.

Later, Steve, Stephanie and I got to watch the videos that Steph had shot… only to see them get accidentally deleted from the camera before being saved to the computer. So, no video from this trip, but we did learn that the camera works pretty good and Steph knows how to get some great shots!