Coop's Corner: 2nd Day

Sunday, October 6, 2013

2nd Day - Slimey Crud

Today's featured attraction was to be attendance at the Slimey Crud Run, the reason that Mike and I built our trip around this weekend, this first Sunday in October. Our last visit to Pine Bluff and Leland was back in the spring version (first Sunday of May) of 2012; Jeff joined us for that one. It was wet, today's was not, unless you count the fog that was so thick this morning that I couldn't keep my glasses or my visor clean.

Last night, just after dark, while Mike and I were out admiring the evening weather.a couple of bikes showed up in our Richland Center motel parking lot. We both could tell by the sound of the motor (and the dry rattley clutch) that one of them was a Ducati; both of them were twins. As the stands went down and helmets came off, in the pale light both Mike and I knew one of the bikes....and its rider. Eric Tretbar was on the green Moto Guzzi. His bike is featured in the Indie film "Girl Meets Bike", a film we saw premiered last winter. Eric's bike was in the film he wrote and directed.

Breakfast was planned, as last time, at the Lone Rock airport. Here's the Piccadilly Lilly restaurant, this time without standing water in the parking lot.

After breakfast, we crossed the Wisconsin River at Lone Rock, rode past the Frank Lloyd Wright Museum and the American Players Theater. Our roads? High Point, Amacher Hollow, Sweeny Road, Zwettler Road, etc. on to Pine Bluff. As we pulled in the parking lot of the Red Mouse (Crun Run Central), friend Bob was just getting out of some of his cold weather gear. The sun was out, the winds calm and it was actually getting warm. Quite a feat since Mike and I had left the motel at 7:30 in 40 degree heavy fog.

We were just west of Madison....

Crowds getting larger, bikes arriving by the minute....

An unfortunate scene in the viewfinder?

Another Honda Police bike, much like Mike's....

Leather on the 'other' American-made machine.....

The Cubs were handing out kickstand pads to prevent parking lot sink.

A sleek Norton.......

Two Ducati-powered machines, one for short runs, the other for maximum top speed.

A Victory from above.....

The middle guy of 5 has one too, but slightly different.

Wildcat Rally friends Tom and Brian showed up, posing here for a group photo.

All of the above photos were at the 'south end' of the Crud run in Pine Bluff. Mike and I left around 11 to head towards Leland, via Spring Green.

In the large parking area in Leland.

The pond is back; it had gone dry for a few years and we missed it.

Still arriving from Pine Bluff...

Chad was there with his DR650.

Old style....

A better view of the pond.....the clouds getting cool, dark and thick.

Mike explaining, once more, the origins of his '70 Police bike.

Mike and I left around 2PM, our goal to wind our way back to Richland Center by 3PM so that he could get back to Mpls. His bike in the truck, mine shuttled to motel #2 for the weekend and he was off. I got checked in to the Starlite and headed out for another afternoon loop ride.

I've been paying extra special attention to large, lush Weeping Willows lately, not sure why, quite possibly because ours has barely managed to survive.....deer, dogs, goats and who knows what else.

This is a beautiful specimen....three giant trunks in there. I had seen two trees, a matched pair, earlier today and not sure what it would take to top those.

Late afternoon clouds, County B along the Wisconsin River sand flats.

Looking forward to good rest tonight and more good riding tomorrow.

8 comments:

TrobairitzOctober 7, 2013 at 8:47 AM
I empathize with the fog and mist of the visor. Rode to coffee saturday morning and it was 35˚ and foggy. Visor misted up so I raised it and by the time I pulled into coffee my sunglasses were misted up too.

Looks like fun so far. I am glad things stayed dry even if it wasn't warm and balmy out.

I like the skeleton by the meat raffle sign. Makes you wonder what meat they were raffling. :-)
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UnknownOctober 7, 2013 at 10:20 AM
Coop:

such a large gathering. I saw two other beautiful Weeping Willows but parking would have been a challenge so I passed.

I am strangely drawn to that flat road wishing I was riding to infinity.

Looks like you had a great weekend of riding and being dry was a bonus

bob
Riding the Wet Coast
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RichardMOctober 7, 2013 at 11:22 AM
That's quite a gathering of bikes. And the fall scenery with the rolling hills suggests that this is a really nice area to be in.
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SonjaMOctober 7, 2013 at 12:29 PM
All those bikes, as characterful as their owners.

Nice to have the pond back, it makes for a nice picture with the clouds reflecting in the water.
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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)