Coop's Corner: Great River Road Rally (GR3)

Monday, May 20, 2019

Great River Road Rally (GR3) - 2019

The predicted weather outlook was Dismal, yes that with an uppercase "D". Dismal enough to be a major excuse in keeping many of our long time ralliers home. It was easy for me at least to cut them some slack....I considered both coming home early, Saturday evening and/or putting the bike on the trailer. There was no way I was not going to go but how I went and how long I stayed were open to conditions. In the end, none of the predictions held true although the front moving through on Sunday from the northwest did cause some discomfort.

Home at 11am, our thermometer and AccuWeather's were in sync, the last hour north of solid rain was getting miserable. "Rain" was all that we'd been hearing for the weekend. I noticed rain after dark both Friday and Saturday nights, we rode in no more than 30 minutes of rain mid-Saturday and then 2/3 of my ride home was wet, the last 1/3 wetter and colder. We all slept warm and well, the riding conditions actually almost ideal....no dust, no bugs, the gravel in nice shape for powered 2 wheel travel.

Eric and I did the green loop on Friday, Paul and Kevin joined us for Saturday's red one. Speaking for myself, 280 mile round trip to get there and home, roughly 300 miles of some of my favorite accessible gravel roads with the paved ones required to connect them.

The Lion's Park in Soldiers Grove suffered greatly from last fall's major flood, the damage there as well as in every other village in the Kickapoo River valley was extensive. Abandoned homes and businesses, roadways and other structures not to mention the eroded ditches and field roads will be dealt with for years to come. The proverbial 100 year flood seems to be happening almost yearly if not more often.

We could tell that lots of cleanup had been done only recently in the park and it was very much appreciated, certainly by the 90 rally attendees, a number roughly half of what had been typical in the recent past. Our hosts, the Madison BMW Club once more did a great job, they and the rest of us adapting to changes we weren't used to or necessarily expecting. It would have been great had our numbers been doubled.

As mentioned, the last half of the trip home was wetter and colder. Once again this year, our rally weekend coincides with the Lake Pepin 3 Speed Tour. As I was getting wetter and colder, I came upon bicycle after bicycle (their turnout must have been huge!) riding with ponchos or less along the busy Hiway 61 on the shoulder. Some hearty souls indeed!!

Thanks again Paul for making the trip; our small group had the most KTM's of any at the rally I'm sure. I'm glad that we talked about plans for August, really looking forward to that one. Please feel free to do some planning! Eric and little brother Kevin, thanks so much for sharing the trip.

Hiawatha BMW Rally in less than 2 weeks. Planning, packing and preparation underway and as always, refinement of The System.

2 comments:

Paul HMay 24, 2019 at 9:43 AM
Coop is the Grand Pooba of the Driftless area, route planner
extraordinaire. 7 hours of wandering over hill and dale,
I had no idea where we were at... Fantastic!

You reach grand pooba level when at any point in riding you can quickly find the best fried Walleye, or pie and ice cream.
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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)