Coop's Corner: Wildcat Mountain Riding 2020

Saturday, September 12, 2020

Wildcat Mountain Riding 2020

Now that the Wildcat Overview has been previously posted, we're down to the meat and potatoes ....the Real Story!

I left right after work on the Thursday before, arriving in Westby at 7PM and was checked in to the motel minutes after.

Brother Kevin arrived a bit before 8PM, neither of us in the mood to go anywhere for dinner so we visited the convenience store across the parking lot and enjoyed dinner on the picnic table.

Looking out the motel's lobby Friday morning while we enjoyed our donuts and coffee.....

Eric and Cindy arrived and we headed to Borgen's for breakfast before the day's planned ride.

Stopped for a break...

Pa's bakery....I came out with some Strawberry/Rhubarb Jam and a small Peach Pie.

Laundry day....

The school looked very quiet...

I pulled in to the Sales Barn to confirm that the Labor Day Auction would be happening.

We saw lots of corn being harvested, this wagon load headed for the silo to ferment into silage.

Multiple loads already cut...

I believe that I saw 2 horses pulling the wagon and 4 pulling the harvester/bundle-maker.

Another Rest Stop....

Lunch at the Village Inn, Bangor....

I'm always fascinated by the role that railroads played in the commerce of these farm communities.

Friday evening back in Westby, Eric and Cindy ready to check in at the motel.

Friday evening, dinner at the Old Towne Supper Club and a birthday cake (pumpkin) for Cindy's 39th.

Saturday morning's lineup at the motel...

Another breakfast at Borgen's...Custom harvesting equipment was on the move, the big tractor the Silage Packer.

Saturday's ride....

Grandad Bluff above LaCrosse...it had been years since I'd been there and it was great to see all of the enhancements to the park.

Late Saturday afternoon, Eric and Cindy headed for home. Kevin and I went out for another 50 mile loop, initially an easterly direction from Viroqua but then northwest towards Coon Valley.

A plethora of political signs everywhere we rode.

Viroqua.....

We stopped in the Esofea/Rentz Memorial Park...I was curious about which campsites had fire pits and how strong cell service was. Eric had camped here a couple of weeks before and I'm hoping to camp there again soon.

I'm looking back towards the (now and in its proper banks) small North Fork Bad Axe River ....

But in early June, 2007 I was camping in that spot with the red Italian bike. Two weeks later, the same storm that decimated the National Moto Guzzi Rally over in Money Creek, Minnesota dumped many inches of the same rain in this park, tearing out the bridge, sections of the road...this entire area was under multiple feet of water.

This photo from October 2007....it took many months for the bridge, road and park to be repaired. The same ballfield back stop in the photo above, my would-have-been-flooded campsite off to the right. It was over a year later that the bridge was replaced....I did that bypass water crossing with multiple bikes during multiple visits.

We left the County Park and headed north.

New owners at this farmstead and they're doing a bang up job of tuning the place up.

The switchback...

The back side of the lovely barn...

Sunday morning Eric returned on his Honda, Tony accompanied him on a DR650. It looked like a morning of wet riding but we got away with it...never rode in any rain!

Every Sunday the cooker is in front of Borgen's working on ribs, first for Borgen's noon time crowd, later for the Old Towne Supperclub on the south end of town. It was our intention to enjoy them later for dinner...and we did!

Sunday's gravel ride....I couldn't have done it without the Wisconsin Bicycle Federation maps.

Wet, gooey gravel was the back road game that day.

Tainter Road, always worth a visit and now, the road repaired.

Back in May of 2018, it looked like this.

The Himalayn not even broken in yet, its first ride. Paul scouting out the water crossing here...

Videos of us each crossing the stream that day back here

We stopped for lunch in DeSoto at Pork's Hilltop Tavern....for chicken.

Eric, experienced and wise enough to take a break...as required.

We relaxed while Eric did....

Sunday evening, a very busy supper club and a late, al fresco dinner of some very tasty barbecued baby back ribs almost in the moonlight. Eric and Tony headed north for home as Sunday evening came to an end.

Monday morning in Westby, my tally so far.

Kevin and I followed Mike and Colleen to Viroqua for breakfast. When we finished, Kev followed them back to the Twin Cities and I went back towards the sales barn and auction.

Another very fun weekend of some Very Fine riding, all mixed together with great friends. Weather as good as it can possibly be in September and that's saying a lot. A different Wildcat Mountain Rally from the usual and there's nothing wrong with that!!

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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)