X-cellent Ride

Janice and I took the road tandem for a nice ride this evening.  I can not say enough about how enjoyable this ride was.  We rode the what I call the County M ride...36 miles of excellent riding.  Tonight we easily saw more wildlife than autos, and that is sure sign of a good ride IMO...and I think The Old fool will agree.  Get Well Soon.  The picture above is of a Muskrat.  I was not near fast enough with the camera to get the picture when it was crossing the road.  Saw another Black Bear tonight, no picture there either...And of course lots of Whitetails.

This cabin has been around for years.  It is called the Broken Canoe Camp.  I do not know how it came about its name, but I can tell you that less than a mile from this camp is what is called Scott's Rapids on the St. Croix River.  I know for a fact Scott's Rapids has broken a few canoes and some completely in half.

For those that don't know, this is a Snapping Turtle.  There are a lot of these around our area.  They are good to eat and we now have a harvest season on them.  I have eaten a lot of them.  We joke around and call them Texas Wood ticks, as everything is bigger in Texas.

An ATV trail we rode by.  In the early days of the ATV, I used to ride this trail from one bar to another bar.  For those that do not know, I did a lot of that a few years ago...from one bar to another that is.

There is geese in this here picture I tell you, although they did not show up well on the camera.

We call these painted turtles...I don't know the official name.

This is why, the painted bottom.  This one has been injured.  Don't worry, I flipped him back over after the picture, plus, since he was so nice to let us photograph him, I moved him from the road.

We have spent the last few days at our family cabin 15 miles northwest of Spooner, WI.  When we are at the cabin, we are Internet challenged...we have none and that's OK.  My parents were there and we spent some quality time together...EATING, golfing, fishing and visiting.

On one day we caught and fried up a mess of pan fish.  I do like freshly caught fish.  Putting fish in the freezer is something we do not do.  Not only do they taste better not being froze, IMO it is being a better conservationist.  I have witnessed first hand the glutenous ways of some of these so called sportsman.  They find the fish are biting, and they will fish, fish and fish to fill their freezer, only to complain later about not catching any or catching just little ones.  Same goes with hunting, as common sense and civility goes out the window for many.  Some of the biggest glutton's, pigs, hogs or whatever you wish to call them are these "sportsmen." 

Well, enough on the soapbox.  I have gotten three enjoyable rides in recently.  All three were good efforts with the mileage being not too long, but like I said, they were strong rides of 38, 28 and 34 miles.  I would rather blog with pictures, but I failed to take any...my bad

S24O in The Books

Like a perfect game of bowling, this is our 300th post.  Doesn't seem like it either.  Sometimes I wonder why we do it at all, but there are a couple people that read it and I do enjoy the poeple that blog...more so than this one.  I enjoy reading and communicating with people from other regions of the country...so I think I throw it up just to part of this.  I know I am not good at the writing, probably make many errors, sometimes don't make a lot of sense and am a bore at times...but so be it.  That being said...We wish to THANK anyone who reads and an especially those who take the time to comment. 

Continued from Sunday evening.  Back to the S24O...A sub 24 hour bicycle camping trip.  This is a sign at Wisconsin's Pattison State Park.

About 165 down from here the water will fall at Big Manitou Falls.

There is a lot of noise going on here.

This one and the next one are just random pictures of the middle part of the falls.

Not all the water from the river takes the same path.  Some of it floats in the air.

Packed and ready for the return trip.  It was an easy 75 miles with great weather and even better company.  I am very lucky that Janice is willing to do these whims with me.

Thank  You ! ! !

 

Weekend S24O

I had read about an S24O somewhere on here and had decided it was something I wanted to do with the bicycle.  It consist of a sub 24 hour overnight camping trip. Janice and I chose to ride to Pattison State Park near Superior Wisconsin for our first bicycle S24O.  It is about a 75 mile round trip.  We left home at 2:00 PM Saturday and pulled back in at home at 1:00 PM Sunday.  

We had an all around good trip as the temperature was warm with a slight winds.  The only downfall of the whole trip was while riding on State Highway 35, someone through a tennis ball at Janice while driving by.  I have a "b a d" temperament at times...but I do my best, I swear.  I waved at them from the middle of the road using just one finger, but they chose not to stop.  That was good thinking on their part...for all parties involved.  The adrenaline was flowing.  Other than that one incident, all was good.

Our daughter Lisa took this picture of us as we were leaving Saturday afternoon...still fresh.

The park we camped at has the Black River as its main attraction, although it looks much different at Pattison Park.

That was nice of him.  It was the start of a 1436 acre state park. 

Our own little rented space for the night.  There were not many people here, but a few gnats.  They were not unbearable and when it cooled down in the evening, they were gone.

After a tuna wrap supper and pressed coffee, it was popcorn for dessert.

This is a pond just between the Manitou Falls on the Black River.  The Little Manitou Falls are just past the end of the lake you can see in this picture and The big Manitou Falls are just after.  The Little Falls drop 31 feet, which by the way isn't little.  There is a lot of water going over that 31 feet.  The Big Falls is the largest water fall in Wisconsin at 165 feet.

The Black River passes under the highway and shortly after drops

  

This is at the top of Big Manitou Falls.  The river takes a drop in elevation just past this point.   

This a view looking from near the top of the falls.  I will post up some pics of the falls later.

Half and Half

For 22 miles it was a little blacktop and a little gravel for nice time on the cross bike.  For this ride the temp was about 60 degrees with a strong helping wind on the way out...and the fight was on for the way back.

This particular road is a dead end that goes in about six miles along the St.Croix river.  There are no structures of any kind along this road...just six miles to nowhere.

Two miles in is an abandon gravel pit along with an active one.  The picture of the bike has the abandon pit in the background.  On another note, we are hoping to hook the Bob trailer to back of the crossbike this weekend for a S240 trip. I sure hope this works out, as it will be our first bike/camp trip of the year.

This is a rock they decided not to crush to gravel.  I can't tell you what the lines mean, but I think they must have had some climate change back then too.

 

When a person gets to the end of this gravel road, a walking trail continues on.  From here on it was alternating between riding and hike-a-bike.

There are three streams this little trail crosses with this one being the smallest.

I had finished exploring the little trail and was back out on the gravel portion climbing a hill out of the saddle, when I noticed three of these climbing on my leg...Dermacentor variabilis...or as we common folks call, a Wood Tick.  I stopped and picked off nine of the little critters. 

We have seen a lot of Black Bear this spring...Lots.  The Black Bear is one of the biggest animals we have around here.  Some of their diet consists of some of the smallest things we have...Ants.  This is where a bear has dug the top from an ant hill looking for gourmet food...Ants.

Just an old White Pine that had the top damaged when it was much, much younger.  Cool looking tree.  Picture does it no justice.

Happy Mothers Day

We want to wish all the mom's out there a Happy Mother's Day.  My Mother has done so much for me that there is no way I could begin to list or put into words these things.  She continues to this day to treat everyone around her special.  It is a special person that has that quality.  We Love You Mom ! ! !

  We have been out riding some, but not as much as we would like.  We had the road tandem out today and I have had the fixie out and as usual...it has been good.  It was a very nice 20 miler today with very little wind and temps in the low 60's.

The one thing that has stuck out lately is the amount of wild flowers that are in bloom.  One of them is the Blueberry, which may have taken a hit with last nights heavy frost in some areas.

G R A V E L ! ! !...and sand

I took the Kona Jake out for a near 70 mile adventure.  I knew it would be an adventure before I left the house and it did not disappoint.  It was nearly all on unpaved roads and trails.

I started on the trail behind the house that leads to a multiple use trail. 

One of many small lakes I rode by on this day.

Fresh gravel is not easy to ride on...fortunately they had one side leveled out.  I am guessing about 2 to 3 miles of this.

I had 1400 ft of climb on this ride...which is nothing for many out there.  This was the biggest climb of the day...maybe 3\4 to 1 mile long.

Another little pond

I saw this bear about 25 miles into the ride.  It was walking away from me, so when it crested the hill in the picture, I hammered it up the hill to see if it would still be there.

It was! !  This is a little guy.  My guess would be that it is a little over two years old.  It had my attention to see if there were any others around.  It saw me here and just turned around kept walking down the road, so I kept riding towards it.

When I had to hit the brakes a little, it heard me and decided it was time to get back in the woods.  Anybody who has ever saw a bear up close running knows what it encounters.  It is noisy and fun to watch.

Forty miles in...time for peanut butter and jelly on wheat.

The John Waggoner Road...was  r o u g h.  Near 6 miles...Clumbs of sod, rocks and hard packed, but still easier than what was to come.

W A Y off in the distance, at the top of that hill, stands a Grey Wolf, aka Timber Wolf.  I saw a lot of wild life on this ride, but this one suprised me the most.  I did not get close to this one.  I snapped the picture and it was gone.

When I said earlier the worst was to come...here it is.  Several miles of soft sand.  On a cross bike, with 700 x 35 tires, made this stretch an adventure!?.  We had driven this road a couple days earlier and it was good.  They graded it which resulted in the soft sand.  I spent some time in the granny gear on this road...testing the fortitude one might say.

All said...It was a fun ride, a tough one, close to 70 miles of gravel and sand with an average of 12.6 mph including the hike's I did.  There were a few suprises, which is expected.  One of the roads that used to connect one road to another was closed part way through, so I elected to try a rut road that headed in the direction I needed to go.  That resulted in either back tracking a few miles, or a half mile hike-a-bike around a swamp. I chose the hike a bike.  I saw a lot of wild life on the ride...Whitetail deer, Black Bear, Red fox...way too fast for a picture, Porcupine...should have stopped, but I kept moving, Grey Wolf, Red Tail Hawk, Geese...lots of em, Ducks, Eagles, an Owl of some kind, Pileated Wood Pecker, Wild Turkey and many other critters.

I am in the process of routing out another gravel ramble.