Thursday, February 18, 2010

Y West

The recent ride has been just short of the The Y West ride.


I have been riding the road we live on, County Highway Y west of Gordon, the last couple times out.  I used to ride this road a lot when we first moved out here.  For quite some time it was the only option we had if we wanted to ride on blacktop.  Although hwy Y is scenic with what many would consider low traffic, it has some...ok, a lot of rough spots.  They say because it is a dead-end highway with few residents it doesn't warrant fixing.  Personally, I think Douglas County must have that opinion of most of their roads...because most Douglas County Highway roads SUCK!!!  The township roads are for the most part, much nicer to bicycle.  A few years after we moved here, the town of Wascott laid blacktop to a road that borders our property.  When that was done, it opened miles and miles of nice township roads featuring smooth riding right out the end of our driveway.  We do feel fortunate to have such good roads to ride. 
The locals call highway Y, The River Road because it follows the along the St. Croix River.  It ends 7 miles out of Gordon where a dam forms Lake Gordon, or as many refer to as The Gordon Flowage.
I have been riding Y because the town roads have a layer of slush at the present time.  Y is a mix of blacktop showing and ice.
A lot of years Trumpeter Swans stay on the river.  They were not close to the road on this ride, so they may be hard to see in the picture.  
If you would like to buy a house or a cabin, there a few for sale out this way.
This is the river just before coming into the townsite of Gordon.

4 comments:

  1. There must not be many dairies in Douglas County. A little farther south it seems the roads with dairies are fairly decent.

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  2. You are right about there not be many dairies in Douglas county and there are none in our area of the county. Our township roads are fine here, it just the county roads that are bad. We have made trips in excess of 3500 miles and commented to each other as we near home..."These are the worst roads we have been on the entire trip."

    Have you been having trouble viewing The Old Fool? or is just me.

    Thanks for the comment.

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  3. ... sigh ... those pics are making me miss home! I have some amazing summer pics from the dam if you're interested in using them for your blog. Just let me know. Also, I'm seriously considering starting to bike again ... I think it'll be an awesome rehab for my knee ... any thoughts??

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  4. Amy...A little story about Janices's cousin from IL. He is a big, big man. The last time we talked to him, I had just gotten done with a nice long ride. When he saw me come in on the bicycle, he was right over to talk. He begun to tell me about how he has had both knees replaced and at therapy they had him riding a stationary bike. He then had a bicycle beefed up to withstand his size. He was telling us that he was bicycle commutting to work and adding more miles in the evening. It was working for him...the whole motion is lotion theory. I think you would have to run that by your doctor.

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