Saturday, May 14, 2016

A Minor Problem Solved

After some very enticing, early Spring warm and wonderful days, these last couple of weeks have been cooler than average.  Frost warnings both last night and for the coming one.  With the weather and so many other things going on around here, plus the fact that next weekend will be a full one for me at the GR3 event, riding hasn't been a priority this mid-May weekend.

Waiting this afternoon for at least a slight drop in wind speeds and some high 40's, I did get out.  Not very far from home, it was a relatively small loop.

Red Wing's Colvill Park, this tug putting together a larger tow with multiple barges.


Just upstream I saw a tug pushing one barge, that small load soon to be part of this large array.  I'm guessing these will soon be downstream-bound on the Mississippi River.


Leaving this city park right down on the river, I swung up the steep hill to Memorial Park, this one overlooking downtown Red Wing as well as up the Mississippi River Valley.


The  steam is rising from the cooling towers at our nearby power plant.  This is NOT the one that Homer works at.  Looking over the rear of the Yamaha, you can see the west end of Barn Bluff, the East End of Red Wing lies between the hill that I'm on and Barn Bluff.  The Mississippi is immediately and very steeply beyond the Bluff.

Swinging my view slightly eastward, the east end of Barn Bluff.  A popular place for hikers and view-seekers and there were quite a few of them out there this afternoon.  You can just get a tiny glimpse of the river at the far right, relatively narrow at this point.  In less than a mile, the river opens up into the much broader Lake Pepin.


Almost forgot......that minor problem I mentioned above??

The Morphous is going to Road America in a few short weeks.

It's almost but not quite been a dilemma, many of this season's rallies have been bike-planned and until today (late this afternoon), the machine that would be making the trip to the SE Wisconsin race track was still TBD.

Problem now solved.

7 comments:

  1. What a lush green scenery. It's hard to imagine that the land was held in the cold grip of winter not too long ago.

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    1. Sonja, it greens up so quickly every year...a few blinks and it seems easy to miss the brown to full green. The changes here from hot muggy summer to bitter cold can be very extreme.

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  2. The Morphous is a bold choice. I am sure you'll have fun.

    It is nice to see the blue sky and all that lush greenery in your pics.

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    1. Brandy, it's been to a BMW Rally before so we're not breaking new ground. This will be a new location however.

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  3. Stunning pictures! Its hard to think a few short weeks ago that winter still had a cold grip, but it now seems so long ago. You can't beat the travelling comfort of a large scooter.

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    1. Dar, we had frost over the weekend and local crops/gardens have paid a huge price. A local vineyard's owner was on the radio this morning, entire crop lost for the season. I know that our farmer's tiny corn plants look terrible, hopefully can recover and will as long as the plant's growing point was still under ground. Hopefully these plants are young enough for that to be true. Stunted regardless.

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  4. Thanks for the photos! Love reading your blog!

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