Coop's Corner: Wildcat Mountain Motorcycle Rally

Friday, September 9, 2022

Wildcat Mountain Motorcycle Rally - 2022/09

People.

The weather, the scenery, the machines.....all of it, was nigh perfect. With that, I came away from the weekend appreciating the attendees and time spent with them the over-arching best component of my rally experience this time. It's been a week already, the photos and video taken are still being sorted, a compiled, more inclusive video is being worked on and some of my favorite photos will be shared in this blog Post. But what I've been living with and appreciating most all-week long are conversations with friends, treasured conversations and time spent. The photos will carry me back to much of what went on over the weekend and it's my hope that they'll provide just enough of a spark to keep those remembered conversations glowing, glowing for a long while.

I've attempted to start my own Wildcat Rally weekend on Thursday's after work and so it was this year, even though things don't really start 'rolling' until mid-Friday. My reservation for 4 nights at the Norske Inn at the north end of Westby was made months ago. Thursday's afternoon ride down was lovely in every way.

Here's what the GPS recorded....

Once I was back home and in the garage....

Steve had come down to Westby earlier on Thursday, joined me for dinner in Viroqua. The rest of our crew began arriving Friday morning.

Jim and Rob had come up during the week to ride but were going back to IL to be home over the LD weekend. Nice to meet you Rob and great to see you again Jim!

Greg, Steve and Eric went out on their loop, I did my own. Heading east from town, one of my very first stops was the Sunrise Bakery on Pa's Road. Not seen in this photo are the two pies and jar of Rhubarb Blueberry Jam that were no longer on the shelf soon thereafter.

The Auction Sales Barn that I would be returning to on Labor Day morning.

The area SE of Cashton is primarily an Amish neighborhood but not completely. These folks milk a lot of cows!

My make-do Scarabeo Parking Brake....necessary almost every time that I stopped.

Maple syrup facility.....

If you haven't ridden Schlicht Road, you are really missing out!

Gloria and Bob....leaving Westby for the long way home. Lucky for me, their long way home resulted in a chance meeting again, not an hour later in Stoddard. We didn't finish what we'd missed but did get closer.

A (mostly) remarkable coincidence...2 of these 3 guys up from the Chicago area were up in the area last year over the holiday. Then our meeting out along Hwy 33 a chance meeting and so was this one while I stopped for a sandwich in Coon Valley. 2 Triumphs and a Sportster at that time, 3 Triumphs and a Sportster this year.

Last year I met them while waiting for Kolton doing his trip north on the Trans Wisconsin Adventure Trail....this pulled from last year's Post.

Here's Kolton....we finally met in Ontario. THIS Labor Day, he texted me after having returned home from an Adventure trip through CO, KS and OK.

I tried to convince her to get off the roadway.....we made some progress and I was only able to get her over to the green. The head and neck are able to protrude far and fast!!

Picture on the wall.....downtown Westby from exactly 111 years ago.

It was time for Saturday evening's Rally Banquet. Greg and Steve followed me from the north end of Westby down to the Old Town Inn on the south side of town......those guys swapped bikes.

Sunday morning Eric was pre-6am early!

Now we go down to the tunnel on the Elroy-Sparta Bicycle Trail.

We stopped for lunch in Wilton....

In year's past, our rally banquet was on Sunday. These days it happens on Saturday evening, Sunday evenings we fend for ourselves. Steve and I fended out on the sidewalk...gourmet choices!

Sunday night in the back lot of the Old Town Inn.....

Thanks Tom

Labor Day morning we enjoyed our coffee (and free roll) in the former Express Inn's dining room. We were extremely cautious about taking any of the Old Boys' spots around their tables.

A bright, foggy (depending on where you were) Labor Day morning! Steve taking the long way back to Mpls.

I headed east on a very foggy County P.

Didn't take long before my camera lens looked like it had been smeared with tapioca. You'll have to take my word for it....this is County D, just southeast of Cashton and in 'daylight', one of my favorite little sections of road ANYwhere.

I believe that it was just after 7:30 am when I arrived at the Auction Barn, there was already a lot going on.

It was a busy place....

There's nothing like an 8am bratwurst....

Everyone and I mean everyone, absolutely had to touch....and feel....this table as they walked by. Three men stood and spoke German, right there in this field of view. They couldn't stop rubbing the top.

Again, a Mega Dairy right next to many Amish neighbors.

Very typical in Wisconsin....

That 2nd yellow arrow almost perfectly marks the mark I left on the Armco.

Turning on to County S from County M

County S up on the ridge, just east of Holmen, Wisconsin.

That's it......and I'll bet that you're happy about that. I'm planning on some summer riding videos that I'll put together when it's cold and nasty outside. Not next week but maybe the next, who knows??

It was a great weekend, I have every intention of doing it again next year. I highly doubt that we'll have another perfect weather Labor Day weekend any time soon.

Soon, another weekend riding adventure in far north Wisconsin. You will be among the first to know.

5 comments:

AnonymousSeptember 10, 2022 at 11:24 AM
An 8AM brat means you're somewhere special; an auction...a racetrack...etc
Left your mark on the armco?! What's that story?
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwaySeptember 16, 2022 at 6:57 AM
I escaped this year with nary an injury or calamity. I can ill afford any further mishaps!
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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)