"Life is the great adventure ride. Twist the throttle hard."

August 2^nd

We got up early to ride from Michigan’s UP down to my parents place in Appleton, WI. But had to wait an hour for a morning rain storm passed by. The ride along the shoreline all morning was nice, but I kept waiting for one of those elusive boogie deer to jump out. We’ve seen a few deer, a wild turkey, and assorted small critters, but all-in-all not a whole lot of wild life.  Happily, we have not had any close-encounters of the 4-legged kind.

We got into Appleton just after noon and dropped the bikes off at Appleton Harley Davidson for fresh tires and oil. Sam gave me a “Guardian Bell” for my bike and thanked me for the ride. I’s an old biker tradition to give someone a small bell to ward off the road gremlins. Legend says that by attaching a small motorcycle bell onto your bike, the Evil Road Spirits will become trapped inside the motorcycle bell where the constant ringing drives them insane, making them lose their grip until they fall to the ground. (Ever wonder where potholes come from?) And after 30 days on the road, I’m thrilled we are still having a good time and enjoying the miles.

We went over to Chaska golf course for 9 holes of golf with Grandpa. My dad taught us who still is the boss on the golf course, as he soundly out-shot us both.

Sam and I played in my old back yard, swung on the tree swing, and threw a football around. Mom and dad took us all out to a huge classic Wisconsin buffet, and we all ate too much.Â

August 3^rd

We picked the bikes up, washed 6000 miles of grit off them, and packed up for the next leg of the trip to Sturgis. We shipped a box of souvenirs for the family back home to Encinitas (and no we have never shipped any dirty laundry back, yet…)

In traditional Wisconsin style, Dad and I added another good-luck charm to the Harley – a Bret Farvre Packer head.

We rode from  Appleton down south-west to the highpoint of our America Ride. Ripon Wisconsin the birthplace of the Republican Party!

As the excitement of our stop in Ripon wore off, we continued on to the Wisconsin Dells, a big tourist destination for the Midwest. Sam whooped me at mini golf two games in a row. The stakes were high (winner chooses the restaurants for the rest of the trip). It looks like it will be McDonalds and SubWay for now on.

After the Dells, we rode on till sunset, and hit a small hotel too tired to do anything but sleep.

August 4^th

We had planned on making this our furthest ride-day yet, shooting for 500+ miles. Morning brought cool weather and pouring rain.  We had to institute a new riding rule.  We have very few rules, but this one became a necessity after a serious problem yesterday.  From now on, no one is allowed to hum an ABBA song at any time, at the risk it gets stuck in the other person’s head and he has to ride to the tune of “Dancing Queen” all day.

We rode for 6 hours covering only 250 miles before the rain finally broke. I figured today would be our first day with no photos, as we were passing through 500 miles of corn fields in southern Minnesota. But, as luck would have it, riding in the cold, Sam’s hands turned purple and made a cool picture opportunity.

Once the weather broke, we got on I90 with hundreds of other Harley riders heading for Sturgis SD, and easily knocked off almost 200 more miles coming very close to making our 500 mile goal.

We stayed tonight in Mitchell SD, the home of the corn palace. We took a quick tour of it after dinner, and then headed to the hotel to watch the X games.Â

Tomorrow, its 300 miles and we’re in Sturgis SD, with 50,000 other crazy Harley riders. The pictures will be epic, but I suspect you’ll have to have the children leave the room for some of them 🙂