Coop's Corner: Hiawatha BMW Rally, June 2010

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Hiawatha BMW Rally, June 2010

Yes, you read it right...a BMW rally that I showed up at 2 1/2 years before I owned a BMW, on a beat up old TW200 Yamaha. Knowing the president of the local club, I asked at the Registration Desk where the dirt bikes were tenting. Really, how much difference can there be between a GSxxxx and a Yamaha with fat tires? So far, they keep letting me stay.......

Most likely my 2nd rally attended this coming ride season will be the closest to home, namely the MN BMW club's rally just outside of Money Creek, MN. Only a 75 mile ride, this is one that I don't take a Friday off to attend, able to ride there easily after work but before dark in June's long daylight hours.

Never present with a BMW in the past, I'm not even sure I'll take mine this year but that is yet TBD. Most every other machine I license has been there and which one carries me this year might just depend on how much gravel I intend to visit.

The 2010 version found me on the TW200, a year in which I did take the day off. No, now that I think of it, that was back when Friday's were mine every week (those were the days....) Only a few miles from home, I came upon a season-long rebuilding of a County Road, some of which was adequately signed "Road Closed". We've all seen the signs and know what they mean and how we're to respond. I chose to ignore the sign and rode on, confident in my machine and abilities to proceed and if that became cumbersome, to turn around. Stubbornness can be a positive and a negative force.

The soft gooey mud that, in my defense, started out meekly enough, soon became deeper and more greasy. Before very long, the front low-fendered wheel soon turned into a round ski that was on the verge of refusing to roll. Just before that threshold was reached, I headed for the very grassy edge of the road and proceeded on, the front wheel very reluctantly deciding to begin rolling again.

This, a few miles further on once most of the mud had been 'burned' away.

I didn't fully inspect each and every BMW parked in front of the Registration Booth, but it's safe to say they were all cleaner than my machine was. I don't always leave a good first impression but we manage to get past that most of the time.

Taking the long way down still got me to Money Creek early, leaving plenty of time for Friday afternoon exploring while the rest of the folks rode in from locations much further away. As far as I know, Twin Headlight Ernie is the only regular attendee that lives closer.

That year we seemed to find many turtles practicing the chicken art of road-crossing. You can't see the smile I have on my face right now remembering the big Snapper that friend Dave stopped to help and his very reluctant rescuee snapping back. Just imagine the old woman with a cane swatting at the Boy Scout who's only trying to help...

Why I do what I do.....Crazy Corner's Road to the left, Pleasant Valley Road on the right, just outside of Freeburg.

Sunrise on Saturday morning, mostly BMW's, Money Creek Haven Campground.

After breakfast with friends down at the pavilion, I was off to find new gravel to explore. Gravelly switchbacks....does it get better than this??

One of many Minimum Maintenance Roads, always treasures....

A stream crossing/spillway....there's a very good chance trout are nearby.

My favorite road of the weekend, just east of Amherst. It may or may not have had anything to do with the fact that I'd not done this one before. This is where it leaves 'up top' and descends steeply into a quiet valley that no one any longer has a need to visit.....except for me.

Looking forward to being in the neighborhood again....in 3 and 1/2 months.

13 comments:

SonjaMFebruary 17, 2013 at 8:56 PM
Thanks for throwing in such a nice treat in the midst of winter. Love the green!

Your little bike looks like it is just the right size and weight to handle the dirt roads.
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TrobairitzFebruary 18, 2013 at 8:36 AM
Some of those back roads look like someone's driveway. It is making me want a dual sport..... I've been eying the TW200 too, but they are expensive used around here though. Any used Yamaha dual sport is.....

Thanks for the tour around the countryside.
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Martha February 18, 2013 at 8:40 AM
Here I have to use the overused OMG. In my next lifetime I want to be big enough to take this motorcycle and this ride forever. And be much better with manual transmissions... :#^ I

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VStar LadyFebruary 18, 2013 at 9:20 AM
Loved the pictures though I'm not really (not at all, actually)an off road/dirt/gravel kind of rider. I especially liked the abandoned house in the valley ... I hope you helped the turtle in the direction she was headed, otherwise she'll just try it again, and be really P.O'd about it.
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UnknownFebruary 18, 2013 at 12:13 PM
Coop:

I like your TW200 but I can't think of any roads around here we could ride to. You are lucky to have country roads like that so close to home. Ours are far from the City

bob
Riding the Wet Coast
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Keith - Circle BlueFebruary 19, 2013 at 9:40 PM
I loved the turtles. And, I'm a sucker for old "homesteads".

The W is a wonderful little bike.
~Keith
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2013 at 12:22 PM
... I stopped once to help a turtle... he copped an attitude .. I left him for the Goodyears and Firestones... :o)
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)