Tourists

Today is pretending to be tourists day.  Decided we'd take a nice walk through the woods at the nearby Frink Natural Area.  Boardwalks, bogs, turtles what could possibly go wrong.
we are now in search of Hydrocortisone and other anti-itch creams as the bugs, especially the mosquitoes, were awful.   Really wish we could have enjoyed it, but the bugs were just intolerable.  Took my hat over the concern for ticks; didnt even consider the need of DEET.
Saw a couple of frogs, turtles, water bugs and some fishies.

Decided not to try another woodland adventure and opted for some mini-golf where the course was artificial turf over packed sand and gravel, without the traditional bumpers or edge blocks.  all the grass was 'in play' and there were actual sand traps.

lunch to be had at the Boathouse along the harbor in downtown Belleville.   There were small painted turtles and fishes swimming around the edge of the outside decking.  Pretty cool.

We arrived at Rally HQ, the Fairfield Inn just off the 401 in Belleville.   Please note, do not block the door open.

First attempt at hanging the rally banner.

Wolfe getting set up for riders.

Tomorrow is Day One, 12 hours.  Airplanes.

LL: Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Part II- Getting There

Wolfe and company run a series of rallies out of southern Ontario; this would be their first at a Day Light only, multi-day rally.  As far as I can remember, this is the first rally of this type.  Starting Friday, the three days are 12, 10 and 8 hours respectively, all starting at 6am.
here's my satellite tracker if you want to follow along.
https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=1f8fe5d4ad58f5ad6b&hoursPast=0&showAll=yes


sounds like fun!!!  but first, the ride there.  Jean is bringing the car separately, dropping the dogs a camp for a week and joining me in Cicero, NY.  Today, brings us a 1000 Islands lunch cruise before checking into rally HQ in Belleville, ON.

there's a captain bear in the ticket office

 Coastal defenses built by the British to defend the original capitol.  They were never needed.

 Fort Henry.  Not to be confused with Fort McHenry.

 Chez Piggy?

Hammy's Gourmet Rally

Some say, he doesn't know how to use a clutch on a motorcycle.  And that he knows how to put on a fun rally.  All we know, is he's not the Stig, he's the Stig's gastronomic cousin Hammy Stig.  Don't get too far ahead here; none of these places are going to earn Michelin stars but the food is usually very good and a little bit funky.

Hammy rallies are generally not a serious event; it's more about the visits and the camaraderie than where you happened to finish up among the riders.  So in some respects, it's just like a regular rally.  Anyway, Hammy put together a list of mostly his favorite local restaurants and made a rally out of it.  Here's what they look like in a Google Map [those two starred places are some of my 'saved locations' from another map].

Hammy, being Hammy says you cant get them all even with this short of a list.  Well, in theory you can.  But I didn't feel like trying to tackle that task; I was still working on getting caught up from going to Minnesota the previous weekend and the loss of next week to the upcoming multi-day Loco Lobo Rally.  So I settled on doing a 10 hour or so rally, ignoring my starting receipt near the house and the double bonus in Remington about 15 minutes away.   Properly securing my starting receipt as well as my pre-flight bonus, off to Remington.

Paper Moon- both inside and out.  Kind of funky; shame they didnt offer any takeaway service.

 

Up an at-em at 10:15 pm, a quick shower and i'm on the road about an hour ahead of schedule- all this does impact when I get to Bethany Beach for my daylight only photo of Chief of Little Owl.  

First stop, the Boat House in downtown Annapolis on a Saturday night.  

I snuck into downtown via Allen Boulevard and departed via the harbor.  The area was awash with large quantities of drunken young people.  Back out onto US-50, there is construction on the westbound span forcing two way traffic on the 2 lane eastbound span.  ugh.  Just before the 50/301 split, there is a car hanging out in that "spot" just off my left shoulder where they are completely invisible ignoring the headlights on the road.  So I do the glance over the shoulder at the car- no action.  A moment later, I try it again and the car launches to well over 100 mph like that; Maryland staye trooper.  Garmin says there is rain in the area, with spotty showers on the map.  I was concerned the Choptank lighthouse would be hard to photograph in the dark; fortunately, it was well lit and fairly easy to snag, although I did have to walk out to the harbor wall.

 Back out onto 50 I finally get a chance to try out my new driving lights; I mounted one of each type to see which did a better job.  But before making any final decisions, I had to aim them better as the left one was pointed towards the tree tops and the right one was lighting up the median.  Not bad for eyeballing them up on sidestand in the back yard.  The DE-MD stateline runs right behind the crab house.

Now back onto the big roads again of US-13 and into Virginia for a quick stop at Mr Whippy's.  Coffee, donuts, latte.

I arrived at Bethany Beach over an hour before sunrise [6:08am] so I locate the nearby Wawa for a bite of food, a cup of coffee and a short nap.  Finally light enough for a "daylight" picture of Chief Little Owl.

 Now I have just over 5 hours of riding in front of me.  The traditional trudge from Bethany to Lewes wasnt terrible as normal, but there was an awful lot of traffic for 6:30 on a Sunday morning.

 Delaware has some humorous variable message boards reminding drivers that DE-1 is not the Autobahn, as cars go zooming by me at near triple digit speeds.  The address of Helen's Sausage House confuses the Google, but if you put in Helen's Sausage House it will put it the correct place, about 3 miles from the Wawa store it tries to send you.  This was also an outside/inside bonus but only available Saturday until "lunchtime" whatever that means.

 And off to New Jersey to arrive at Mr Bills in time for a classic car show.... oh goodie.

 Into PA for the last couple of stops; one of the bonuses was a generic 'any Primanti Brothers" en at.  This one is in Lancaster.

 Then finally Yoders for another twofer.  Any sign outside and a picture of the RallyHammy super duper bonus.

   

And then comes lunch.  here's the whole trip plus the Spotwalla link which has the photos imbedded in the map.

https://spotwalla.com/tripViewer.php?id=1f8fd5d4ad5502a922&hoursPast=0&showAll=yes

2019 Minnesota 1000- it's all about the markers

Every other year or so, I ride in the Minnesota 1000 based in the greater Twin Cities area, hosted by Team Strange.  This was the 25th one including the two that were 2000 mile events.  I took a couple of days to get there visiting some friends in Columbus while trying out my new rally camera.

Eddie's farm in Luray                     Antique Archaeology

 

I spent Thursday night in Dubuque, IA riding around many still rain swollen rivers and fields with way too much water in them as planting season closes quickly.  There is a mexican restaurant adjacent to the motel with a pretty decent tacos selection and cold Modelos.  I was up and on the road early trying to get to Primo motorsports, rally HQ, around 11 so they could mount me a new front tire.  I probably had enough tread for the rally, but not enough to get home on.

Tire mounted, motel checked into and back to Primo around 4 to help Rick unload as John would have the final say as to logistics; it is his 'thing'.

Friday's barbecue is followed by rally packs, Packet B as noted at the top of the page.  Themed around spooky and haunted places, almost every bonus is in Wisconsin or Michigan.  Figuring something was afoot since we didnt get Packet A, I mapped out a couple of potential routes, made full note cards for my most basic version [900 miles and 26000 points] before getting to be around 930.   As far as I know, no one took the trip to Hyder bonus. 

Still on east coast time and used to getting woken up by our little dog at 415 or so, i was up and wide awake at 5 local, packed up, fueled up, coffeed up and at Primo at 645.  There was some light chit chat as we awaited the 730 riders' meeting where Packet A was handed out.  Historical Markers- official Wisconsin or Michigan only, as many as you want, 500 pts each.   there are over 1000 between the two states, nearly 600 in Wisconsin alone, according to the state's website, which also included a handy electronic map [an ERSI Arcmap actually] with all of them on it; damn, if i would have had my work computer i could have exported the Arcmap layer to a gpx file.  As it was, there were more than enough for me to scrap my entire route and start collecting markers with the plans to re construct my route as i went.  My second original stop was the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum in Pepin for a question and answer bonus but if you bought a bonnet and wore it to scoring you got an additional 1000 points.  Going directly there meant arriving nearly 40 minutes before the museum opened- turns out there were a shitpot of markers on the Great River Road and I started collecting them early and often as Bart and I chased each other down the Mississippi to the museum.

 I has about 10 minutes to kill so i figured out an outline of some regular bonuses from here to Madison [home of over a dozen markers] via LaCrosse and more River Road markers.

 Edsel bonus question

 now heading inland towards Madison, this grave was described to be back a path about 200 yards from the road.  well, there might have been a path at one time, but the utility access road made it longer but easier to get to the cemetery.

 Had to list one of the beers shown in the windows.

 Allen Ludden of password fame.

 no fishing from the bridge.   then to find a motel for the long rest bonus option, some planning and figuring out how best to attack the Madison issue.  After some rough sleep, i was on the road before 11 with the hopes of clearing all the Madison markers before 1am leaving 7 hours to ride the 4.5 hour return trip which would allow for both regular bonuses and more markers.  must have more markers.

 this was the last of the Madison area markers just about 00:30-  one i didnt visit was inside a cemetery that was closed after dark and one i just couldnt find in the dark.

 the following four shared the block with Deke Slayton who was off his normal perch and in the bed of a pickup directly adjacent to the police station.

 i had the option to add one more regular bonus that would have required a 4 mile gravel excursion each way; Garmin said it added 20 minutes to my route which had me arriving after 7am already, which was too close since it was an 8am drop dead cut off. at 080001  you were time barred.

I knew this was an all or nothing gamble; in total, i bagged 51 markers but due to poor numbering on my part only claimed 50.  I lost another 800 points for putting in the wrong value for a bonus on my scoresheet.  Total ridden just over 700 miles; i was still on my second tank of fuel.  in total, i made over 70 stops in a 24 hour rally; if i would have figured out how to get the markers into a dataset off the website, i probably could have bagged maybe another dozen as i know i rode right by some i just couldn't locate on the map

Apparently only three of us did the complete Laura Ingalls Wilder experience.

 and the gamble paid off; third place.  looking quite fashionable in my Total World Domination shirt

The ride home was mostly uneventful other than all the rain across the width of Ohio and my low tire pressure warning with 15 miles to the barn.  I'll deal with that later.

thanks again to Rick and all the Strangers that make this event so special.