Motorcycling with Saire
Yesterday evening I went for a pleasant evening ride with my fellow kickball teammate, Saire, along the Mississippi.
I bought a new Arai helmet on Thursday and second speaker/microphone setup for my Autocom bike audio system, cleaned my old helmet (the cheek-pad liners are washable and I sprayed Fabreeze inside) and got the bike ready.
I picked her up at her apartment at about 4:30pm and we decided to see the replica of the Nina, that was docked in Hudson and then head down the St. Croix river until it meets up with the Mississippi.
It was a bit warmer than I would have liked (about 90 with 50-60% humidity), especially for wearing a black jacket. At least my jacket was vented, though initially her hands holding onto me were, you guessed it, covering the vents. Once we were moving the heat wasn't too bad, which always makes me wonder why people refuse to wear proper protective gear. The intercom system on the bike worked well, though Saire didn't always talk loud enough to turn on the VOX (but I can adjust that).
Standing in line at the Nina was a killer and we were dehydrated by wait. That is a damn small boat. It's hard to believe that it could sail across the Atlantic Ocean. Since it was completely empty it was riding high above the water, but apparently fully loaded for a trip across the ocean it would have been so low in the water that its decks would be almost constantly awash. Scary.
Before we left on our long trip, I bought us some water and a map of Wisconsin and plotted our route south.
We drove along Highway 35 in Wisconsin, taking a 15 mile detour in Pepin to visit the original log cabin home of Laura Ingalls Wilder (or more likely, a replica), until we crossed over to Minnesota in Wabasha and headed north on 61, into the setting sun. This appeared to be a common motorcycle route as we saw probably a hundred other motorcycles on the trip. The scenery was fabulous in parts, especially with the sun setting on the river, and I wished that I had a camera (better than my cell phone's) with me.
In Hastings I had to pull over and switch from my sunglasses to my regular glasses as with the sun mostly down, it was getting pretty hard to see. Saire took the opportunity to stretch her legs, which I was afraid of doing for fear of cramping up. We had been on the bike for about 4 hours at that point and let's face it, the bike's not that comfortable (but it's certainly better than any bike I've had before).
It seems that most of Minnesota, even that in the tourist section along the river, was closed for Sunday evening. We had to ride back to Cottage Grove before we found someplace that wasn't a fast food restaurant for dinner. A nice dinner of decent burgers and some speciality lemonade and we were back on the bike, finishing a trip of nearly 200 miles.
I got her back to her apartment at about 10:30pm safe and sound (without even any close calls). We did that whole awkward "did you have fun?" thing, decided that we did and that we wanted to do it again. We made tentative plans for doing dinner or another ride at some time in the future, but didn't actually set a date. She's busy with family in town so it's not likely that we'll be able to meet up again until Friday at the end-of-kickball-season party, but that's OK. We don't want to rush into anything, do we?
I bought a new Arai helmet on Thursday and second speaker/microphone setup for my Autocom bike audio system, cleaned my old helmet (the cheek-pad liners are washable and I sprayed Fabreeze inside) and got the bike ready.
I picked her up at her apartment at about 4:30pm and we decided to see the replica of the Nina, that was docked in Hudson and then head down the St. Croix river until it meets up with the Mississippi.
It was a bit warmer than I would have liked (about 90 with 50-60% humidity), especially for wearing a black jacket. At least my jacket was vented, though initially her hands holding onto me were, you guessed it, covering the vents. Once we were moving the heat wasn't too bad, which always makes me wonder why people refuse to wear proper protective gear. The intercom system on the bike worked well, though Saire didn't always talk loud enough to turn on the VOX (but I can adjust that).
Standing in line at the Nina was a killer and we were dehydrated by wait. That is a damn small boat. It's hard to believe that it could sail across the Atlantic Ocean. Since it was completely empty it was riding high above the water, but apparently fully loaded for a trip across the ocean it would have been so low in the water that its decks would be almost constantly awash. Scary.
Before we left on our long trip, I bought us some water and a map of Wisconsin and plotted our route south.
We drove along Highway 35 in Wisconsin, taking a 15 mile detour in Pepin to visit the original log cabin home of Laura Ingalls Wilder (or more likely, a replica), until we crossed over to Minnesota in Wabasha and headed north on 61, into the setting sun. This appeared to be a common motorcycle route as we saw probably a hundred other motorcycles on the trip. The scenery was fabulous in parts, especially with the sun setting on the river, and I wished that I had a camera (better than my cell phone's) with me.
In Hastings I had to pull over and switch from my sunglasses to my regular glasses as with the sun mostly down, it was getting pretty hard to see. Saire took the opportunity to stretch her legs, which I was afraid of doing for fear of cramping up. We had been on the bike for about 4 hours at that point and let's face it, the bike's not that comfortable (but it's certainly better than any bike I've had before).
It seems that most of Minnesota, even that in the tourist section along the river, was closed for Sunday evening. We had to ride back to Cottage Grove before we found someplace that wasn't a fast food restaurant for dinner. A nice dinner of decent burgers and some speciality lemonade and we were back on the bike, finishing a trip of nearly 200 miles.
I got her back to her apartment at about 10:30pm safe and sound (without even any close calls). We did that whole awkward "did you have fun?" thing, decided that we did and that we wanted to do it again. We made tentative plans for doing dinner or another ride at some time in the future, but didn't actually set a date. She's busy with family in town so it's not likely that we'll be able to meet up again until Friday at the end-of-kickball-season party, but that's OK. We don't want to rush into anything, do we?
posted by Mark at 8:00 PM
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