Nice new short route

What a great weekend! Weather was beautiful both days, and Mother’s Day was sweet as always with my daughter and husband indulging my weakness for garden statuary.

Steve and I took a really nice ride on Saturday afternoon – our neighbors, Kristin & Hollie, both ride now (Kristin just bought a new Sportster 1200 and Hollie wasn’t content to ride pillion for long – she bought an ’83 Yamaha 750 Virago “Midnight Special”), but Hollie’s a new rider so just experiencing all her “firsts.” She decided she was ready for the highway on Saturday, so I planned a short (-ish) route that took the four of us south out of Des Moines and down to Carlisle, where our friends Garry & Shirley live. Stopped by their place to see if Shirley was back from the tattoo parlor yet (she wasn’t), then we headed down to Indianola to see if we could catch up with her still at the shop. We took a pretty county road (the one we always take to Bike Night) down to Hiway 92, then west to Indianola, where we found Shirley still at the tattoo shop with her sister. She had just finished getting a really cool mystical dragon on the back of her shoulder, so we hung around and admired it for awhile. Then stopped at the A&W for a snack and headed west out of Indianola on 92. This is a very pretty hiway in and of itself, but then we picked up 28 going north back toward Des Moines, and boy was that nice too! Very picturesque. We rode about 63 miles total, but took almost four hours to do it! LOL – Guess we are good at moseying!!

It was a trouble-free ride but it should be noted that Hollie had had a mishap earlier in the day where she actually took a spill – she was trying to maneuver the bike on a stretch of pavement where there was a “seam” in the road with the two parts of the road at different heights, and the tire caught on that “groove”, and the bike was pretty much yanked right out of her hands. She has a nasty bit of road rash on her arm and a few bumps here and there but thankfully is otherwise okay with only minor quick repairs (courtesy of my dear hubby Steve!) to the bike. I don’t think anyone would’ve blamed her if she’d decided to opt out of the planned afternoon ride with us, but she decided to get right back on and rode great the rest of the day. So glad she is okay, and so thankful for the beautiful weekend!

Nice weekend on the bikes

Had a nice weekend on the bikes… Friday night we rode down to Indianola for their first bike night of the season. This just continues to be one of the best summertime events in our area – great weather, live music, hundreds of awesome bikes to oggle and drool over. On Saturday, we rode up to our HD dealership for the annual “blessing of the bikes.” This is a season kick-off event where bikers gather for a non-denominational group blessing, followed by individual prayers for those who want them. We spent a couple hours enjoying the beautiful day, the live music (you gotta love a Christian band that plays “Family Tradition” by Hank Williams, Jr.!) and the fellowship, as well as the all-you-can-eat chili served in the HOG club-house afterward. Later that afternoon we took a two-hour ride with the neighbors – Kristin has a new Sportster 1200 Custom – before calling it a day. It was windy (again) but probably will be until June so we can’t really avoid it.

First ride of 2007: ‘up around the lake’

The problem with coming off a long winter is that one becomes really anxious to ride. And that means that one tends to venture out on the first warm day, no matter what the conditions other than temperature might be. Today was a day like that – nearly 80 degrees and sunny, but the “other conditions” were that there was a steady 30 mph wind. This didn’t deter us from taking a ride “up around the lake.” Only about 30 miles total but hey, it counts! Saylorville Lake & Dam is an Army Corps of Engineers project just north of Des Moines. The lake and dam are used to control the levels of the Des Moines River as it passes through the city. (Interesting to note that in 1993, all these efforts failed: steady, heavy rain over a period of weeks in northern Iowa resulted in extremely high water levels in both the Lake and the River, and in early July the River overlflowed not only its banks but also its levees, causing more than $150 million in damage within the contiguous cities of Des Moines and West Des Moines. I think about this every time we ride up around the lake because our house was almost completely destroyed in this flood.)

Our ride took us first to a Casey’s General Store for gas and bottled water, where we got our first taste of the 30 mph crosswind. This was actually worse than what we had experienced on our way home from Sturgis last August, and I decided at Casey’s not to lead us over the Mile Long Bridge that spans the Lake. We rode instead up to one of our favorite campgrounds, Cherry Glen, where we discovered that the lower parking lot and boat launch was closed off and indeed, completely under water. We then rode back toward the dam, and took the road that goes over the it, to get down to the Spillway. (The wind was just as awful going over the dam; I think the only consolation we got from not taking the Mile Bridge was that we were not being thrown around in our lane with a hundred-foot drop into the Lake on either side of us. The dam road contained earthen embankments, steep and rocky though they were, down to the lake on one side and another camp ground on the other.)

The spillway is of course where the water from the lake churns through the opening of the dam and settles back into the flow of the Des Moines River. I wish we had thought to take our camera – we go to the Spillway frequently when we are in the mood for a short ride, but I have never seen the water as high or as turbulent as it was today. The water rushes downward from the opening of the dam into a giant pool, where underneath there is a cement buttress that forces it to splash back, creating the effect of ocean water crashing against shore rocks. This serves to slow the rushing water down so it doesn’t wash away the river banks. The water splashes often some 40 or more feet into the air, and frequently rains down (or washes over) the people standing on the overlook high above. It’s frightening, but mesmerizing, to look over the fence and watch the water rushing down the spillway and being flung back and forth.

After watching the water for some time, we left the dam area and headed back home. I commented on the wind, and our friend Garry said, “The wind must be a ‘woman thing,’ I don’t even think about it.” So now I’m curious – is the wind a ‘woman thing’? Is it a ‘woman thing’ because women tend to right lighter-weight bikes? DO women tend to ride lighter-weight bikes, or is it just a ‘Janet Thing’ because I ride the Sportster? Anyway, doesn’t matter, I’ve got a little bit of windburn on my cheeks that almost looks like a sunburn, so at least it’s obvious I spent the day outdoors. Not bad for March 25 in Iowa.

Another Quick Link

Women riders in the news at the Daytona Beach News Journal Online. Oh! And guess what: I GOT TO RIDE TODAY!! That’s March 11, first ride of the year! It was upper 50′s here today and I had intended to just get the bike out of the garage and clean ‘er up/inspect, because we still have a patch of frozen gunk at the end of our driveway. Then my neighbor came out, got on her bike and rode away, and I thought, hell’s bells, I’m goin’ ridin’! I just took a ride around town on the main streets (too much sand still on the side streets), ran out of gas and had to switch to reserve and then fill up… but hey, I was so freakin’ HAPPY to be out on the road. I feel SO much better!

Toy Run 2006

Participated in the 2006 ABATE of Iowa District 4 Toys for Tots Toy Run on October 8 – it was a nice event with, I’m guessing, over 2,000 bikes. We gathered at the State Capitol building here in Des Moines, left there right at Noon and rode to Plaza Lanes which is a popular “bike night” spot during the summer, where we donated our toys and socialized for a bit before heading home. This event is always an impressive one… a lot of people don’t like the challenge of getting out of the parking lot at the Capitol because it’s not organized. You just *go*, along with 2,000 others, and hope you don’t crash into anyone. I’ve found that the secret is to be just aggressive enough that you can hold your spot (or claim a spot) without actually competing for it: meaning, I will creep forward and get my nose in there (into the column of moving bikes), but I will also let someone else in if it looks like they aren’t paying attention or for they *really* want my spot. (In other words, the secret is to never occupy the same physical space as another rider! LOL) It IS a challenge, but it can be done – I’ve done it without incident for four years in a row now, and many others have done it much more than me.

I posted some pictures over on WEBSHOTS, because the trial version of my gallery-making software ran out and I’m too broke to pay for it at the moment.

Ride to LeMars & Blue Bunny Visitors Center

It was a beautiful weekend here in Iowa and here are two biker chicks who took full advantage of it!  After our successful trip to Albert Lea last summer, my friend Susan and I decided we needed to plan another overnight trip for this year. We had originally planned to visit Galena, IL, but the day before the trip we checked the weather and learned that “they” (whoever “they” are) were predicting rain for that time period in that locale so we switched gears and decided that it looked like it was going to be warmest over in northwest Iowa. So we decided we’d ride the Loess Hills Scenic Byway from about the middle of the western border of the state up to Sioux City, and then spend  the night in Le Mars.

We had both taken Friday off from work so we met at my house and left about 9:30 a.m. We went west out of Des Moines on Highway 6 then picked up Highway 44 at Panora. From here, 44 is designated in Iowa as the Western Skies Scenic Byway. Now Susan and I are not “let’s get there” kind of people. We are more “let’s take our time getting there” people. So to say that we stopped frequently would probably be an understatement, but generally speaking, we stopped frequently. We passed through several lovely small towns, including Adel, Redfield, Guthrie Center, and Harlan, and finally picked up the Loess Hills road in Logan.

The Loess Hills region of Iowa is beautiful, and fall colors have not quite peaked here so everything is just barely turning red and gold. I was a little disappointed that we didn’t see anything terrain-wise that really surprised me… but, I think if we had explored the State Park or the western side of the hills, we would have been better able to appreciate what makes this region so unique. 

We rode north keeping to the designated scenic highway, which zig zags its way through the hills. We stopped for lunch at the Old Home Fill’er Up and Keep On Truckin’ Cafe in Pisgah (immortalized by C.W. McCall in the Old Home Bread commercials) and then went on to Sioux City. We took Highway 75 north through Sioux City to the Harley dealership, where we stopped to shop and make phone calls home, then continued on up 75 to Le Mars at about 6 p.m.

We checked into a motel and walked next door to Uncle Albert’s Pub & Grille, where we had a very good dinner and a couple drinks. We got a good laugh out of the fact that it had taken us 8 hours to travel 250 miles!

Slept in Saturday morning and after getting the bikes packed we went to see the Wells Blue Bunny Visitors Center. Le Mars bills itself as “The Ice Cream Capital of the World,” because the Wells Blue Bunny company produces more ice cream in their Le Mars dairy than any other company in any other location in the world. They’ve built a very nice museum which tells the history of the company and the history of ice cream, and includes a 3/4-scale model of part of their production line so you can see how the products move around on the line. The facility also includes a full-service ice cream parlor, where we learned that ice cream tastes even better when it’s fresh – meaning, you’re eating it right next door to where it was made and it hasn’t been frozen, thawed, re-frozen/etc. at the whim of your freezer’s defrost cycle.

We spent about an hour at the museum and then took off to the east on Highway 3, where we passed through more lovely small towns like Cherokee, Ida Grove, and Carroll. (Note to self: need to return to Ida Grove with the family to visit the COOL Pizza Hut with outdoor patio that overlooks a lake!) We picked up Highway 44 again at Panora, which took us straight back into the Des Moines area in our northern suburb of Johnston. In all, we traveled 460 trouble-free miles with beautiful weather – we are going to have to come up with a name for these little overnighters!

Sturgis 2006: We’re back!

We are back from a nine-day trip to Sturgis and the Black Hills! I’ll be adding day-by-day ride reports and lots of photos over the next couple of weeks, so stay tuned! Here’s the quickie recap, though, in case you’re curious how we allotted our time:

 Days 1 & 2: Leisurely ride to Sturgis (actually Belle Fourche) from Des Moines, with overnight stop in Mitchell, SD
    Ride Report     Photo Gallery
Day 3: Spent in Sturgis, walking around and gawking
    Ride Report     Photo Gallery
Day 4: Scenic Trip to Mt. Rushmore, Iron Mtn. Road and Needles Highway
    Ride Report     Photo Gallery
Day 5: Scenic trip to Devil’s Tower
    Ride Report     Photo Gallery
Day 6: Scenic trip to Deadwood via Spearfish Canyon & Roughlock Falls
    Ride Report     Photo Gallery
Day 7: Back to Sturgis for the Rat’s Hole Custom Bike Show
    Ride Report     Photo Gallery
Days 8 & 9: Leisurely ride home
    Ride ReportWhat a totally awesome and beautiful trip! And I rode it – 2,075 miles – on a frick’n SPORTSTER!!

Albert the Bull: Giant Bull with Big Nuts!

We are trying to put on some miles in preparation for the two-day ride to Sturgis, so today we took off to the west with the added goal of taking some pictures of Albert the Bull. Albert is a 30-foot-tall, 45-ton sculpture of a Hereford bull, erected in Audobon, Iowa in 1964 to acknowledge the impact of the beef/cattle industry on the local economy. He’s something of an Iowa landmark and an excellent biker destination. The weather was outstanding for late July – it was 80 degrees and sunny, with bright blue sky and scattered clouds. (The whole week prior, it had been in the upper 90’s and humid – so this was a welcome break!)

We took off from home heading west out of Des Moines on old Highway 6, which we took all the way through Adel and Redfield, picking up Highway 44 (the Western Skies Scenic Byway) at Panora. We hit some road construction  between Redfield and Panora, but I have to say, Redfield has got to be one of Iowa’s prettiest small towns and the landscape along 44 is just impossibly lovely – lush green fields, immaculate farmyards, century-plus-old homesteads, all perfectly green from recent rains.

We stopped for a water break in Guthrie Center along Highway 44, and a very friendly gal at the gas pumps asked us where we were headed. When we said we were going to take pictures with Albert the Bull, she told us that her dad had been one of the men who had done the original plaster work (actually concrete troweling) on the sculpture – so Albert was a special point of pride for her, and she still lived in Audobon.

We finished up with Highway 44 at Hamlin, then turned North where we found Albert just four miles up the road in the middle of Audobon City Park. You can’t help but smile when he comes into view from the road, and of course there’s a little information kiosk where you can learn all about how and when he was made. (Here is more info about Albert online!) The park is lovely, and includes a well-maintained campground and playground.

After snapping several pictures, including one of Albert’s rather impressive testicles, we headed on into Audobon proper where we had a late lunch at the Chatterbox Café. This little spot on the west side of Division Street was just what we were looking for – a mom ‘n pop place to eat and visit. The food was very good, the service was especially friendly, and we had a leisurely meal before heading back for home.

Because of the rather iffy stretch of road construction we’d encountered between Redfield and Panora, we decided to take an alternate route home so we headed south out of Audobon on Highway 71, down to 83 and then east to Anita. Stopped to top off gas, and headed up to I-80 east back to Des Moines. This was about a 70-mile stretch of one of the nation’s busiest Interstates, but all went well. (We will be taking this same Interstate out of Des Moines as we head to Sturgis.)

We had left Des Moines around 11:30 a.m., and got home just about 5:45 p.m. It was a perfect day riding – good weather, good friends, no mishaps – and a photo op with a giant concrete bull!

All Women’s Ride July 15

I had a truly awesome day riding, Saturday July 15 – possibly the best day ever for me on the bike.

Last Wednesday night at our local HOG chapter meeting, I noticed a flyer on the bulletin board that just said, “All Women’s Ride” – gave a starting time and place, and a couple phone numbers to call for info. This was just the kind of thing I had wanted to do last year, but never got around to doing it – organizing a women’s ride. So I decided I would participate, although I was a little nervous about joining a group I‘d never met before.

I called two of my girlfriends, Susan (Coyote) and Shirley, to let them know about it and that I was going, and they both expressed interest. We rode in separately to the starting point and we were all warmly greeted by the gals who had already gathered. I was afraid it was going to be a group of women who already knew each other, and that I would feel like an outsider… but I’m glad to report that wasn’t the case. The two organizers knew each other, and maybe two of the other women thre, but the rest were like me – just checking it out because they’d read the flyer.

My first notion that it was going to be a “sisterhood” kind of day was when our organizer, Theresa, said she wanted to take a group picture so we need to pull the bikes in closer together in front of the building. Most of us had given ourselves a plenty-wide berth to get turned around in the parking lot, so there was lots of room between bikes, and they were spread out too wide to get them allinto the picture. So, each person would in turn get on her bike and move it closer to the center of the group, and a couple other gals would step in andhelp push it backwards up the little incline. Once parked, she’d get off her bike and go help someone else get situated – it took only about five minutes to organize 20 bikes into a nice group photo.

The plan was to just ride a hundred-mile loop, making a few bar stops along the way. It was extremely hot, upper 90’s, with clear blue skies but semi-hazy with the heat. Our first leg was about 50 miles. I’ll admit it was pretty damn cool to be riding in that column – we got into staggered formation like it was a given, used hand signals when needed to keep the group apprised of road hazards and upcoming turns, and generally just rode together like we’d been doing it for years.

The firststop was a small-town bar where a few locals were spending their Saturday afternoon… the bartender was good to us, understanding when we just ordered water (and happily accepting our generous tips!) and letting us take over the place for a half-hour or so. Another sign of instant sisterhood occurred here. My friend Shirley, who debated not coming because she is sometimes prone to heat exhaustion, was overcome by the heat shortly after we got insidethe bar. She kind of collapsed onto the cool cement floor, where I and a few of the other riders provided damp towels and encouragement. Theresa, who had been riding two-up with a girlfriend from Florida, told me that her friend was a licensed rider and would be happy to ride Shirley’s bike for her ifneed be, meaning Shirley could have her spot on the back of T’s bike. I just thought this – and all the concern theyshowed for her – was incredibly kind, given that we’d all just met an hour ago! After fifteen minutes or so she was feeling (and looking) much better, and in another fifteen she insisted she wasready to go on. In all the stop lasted about 40 minutes.

Refreshed with water and sport-drinks, we were then off again to the next stop, and then the next and finally the last. Short stops just long enough to drink a bottled water then back on the bikes. At the last stop, T had arranged for her mother and sister to bring homemade enchiladas which we all enjoyed tremendously.

It was truly a day of the sort of “instant bonding” one could only hope for – a group of very different women from all walks of life, who all shared a passion to ride, just out enjoying the Iowa byways and riding as a group like we‘d been doing it forever. I know we were quite the sight to see, a column of bikes all ridden by women – had I been passing our group in a car I would have certainly been astounded… “Hey lookit all the bikes – hey, they’re ALL WOMEN!” And frankly, that made me feel just a little bit special!

New Year’s Day Ride 2006

Just a short jaunt today to try out the new Mustang solo seat… have you ever noticed that when you ride or drive on a brand new street in your hometown that it just feels really weird, like you aren’t even in the same city? There has been so much development and expansion here in Des Moines these past few years, and there’s a new road that runs along the south end of our downtown area – not just a resurfaced road, but an entirely new road that never existed until just this past year. It’s 3 lanes wide in each direction, with lots of attractive landscaping on both sides – built BIG for anticipated traffic, although today (a Sunday AND a holiday) there was no one else – and it just feels really strange! Anyway, awesome short ride, love my new seat! Hoping to rack up many more miles this year!

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