Coop's Corner: Minnesota Hiawatha BMW Rally

Sunday, September 19, 2021

Minnesota Hiawatha BMW Rally - September 2021

The date changed due to Conditions but Money Creek Haven was still our host, giving possibly the very best weather that I can remember for the normally-held-in-June event. I heard that attendance was 141, a decent crowd and from a selfish point of view, nicely sized so that I could spend good time with friends, both new and old. It was great to see so many faces again that I manage to only see barely once a year. Some hoped for contacts weren't made....let's hope that's accomplished next year if not before.

I had every intention of taking the lithe Elite 250, it had been packed a few weeks ago in preparation but lately it's been giving me fits, stubbornly working only when it wants to. I gave it one last chance to prove itself Thursday evening and it let me down, hoping to spend the night in the Target parking lot but that was not about to happen. Looking back, maybe that's where I should have left it.

In hindsight, it was fortuitous.....I'd have been the only scooter rider in attendance and would have felt very out of place. The KLR a distance 2nd choice.

On my way....

Tapping their toes in waiting, I'm normally not last.

Walking down to register....

Not long after, Scott arrived and an early dinner was about to happen at Stumpy's.

My brother brought two, one for hard pavement and one for soft gravel though he mixes and matches, seldomly following any sort of rules.

Pat??

We checked out a few of the demo bikes, not really intending to take any for a ride....things changed by Saturday afternoon.

Saturday morning Curt arrived and a big breakfast ride was planned to Peterson. Roughly half of us on gravel, the others sticking to pavement. I was in the gravel group and the pavement crew had to wait for us at Berdy's.

Bright and clear up top, the valley's were filled to their brim with fog.

Dropping into Rushford....

Curt and his WR250....

Overlooking the Rushford airport runway....fog beyond.

Suburban Peterson...

There they were, waiting and hungry...

From Peterson, we 4 continued our quest for gravel on Eric's well-planned Route. He asked me, confident of my answer...."do we show the new guy the cliff??"

It had to be.

We could have met this guy a minute earlier....odds were in our favor for avoidance....but we did not.

Our BBQ Dinner cooks....

I thought the meal was especially tasty this year but it's always been great. Many door prizes were handed out, some very hefty gift certificates, free tire change, etc. I was kindly presented with 2 passes to the Iowa BMW Rally next weekend but we have other plans so the tickets were shared with someone that I knew would be attending.

New friends Curt, Mark and Christine, Karl, a 2nd meeting with Jim and connecting with Scott after too many years with no face-to-face time. Even though there is never enough space in a weekend, the treasured time with the rest of you folks means a great deal to me. I can't wait for our next gathering and for lots of mutually safe miles until then.

Check out that Moving Average.....I'm really upping my game. Do not be surprised in a future edition if you see me out West on white salt!!

I passed this guy(s) north of Winona.

That's 4-legged Fonzi in the trailer....

Late breakfast in Wabasha...

A big thanks to the Hiawatha BMW Club for their work and efforts. Just because they've now done 44 of these doesn't mean they happen at the drop of a hat.

2 comments:

DanSeptember 20, 2021 at 12:46 PM
Great post (as always) Doug!! I did the 4 letter word instead (work).
I saw a few photos from Mike Finn and it looked like it was an excellent weekend!
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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)