Riding with Coopdway

Today, I had the absolute pleasure to go on a 100+ mile ride with Coop, aka Doug.  He's a fellow moto-blogger who lives in the country, perhaps 57 miles or so from his work in the city of Minneapolis.

We met up at 9AM as arranged and soon he was leading the way through some really nice winding roads, with many twist and turns at times, dips and climbs and all this while surrounded by the lush and verdant foliage that is this part of Wisconsin!

Temperatures were fine for most of the day, it did get a bit warm towards the end though.

 Did I mention how green everything is here in Wisconsin!

Funny thing is the locals were saying that more rain was needed.

 See the peaked top of the silos?  That's apparently how

you identify an Amish Farm, the ones with the round cupola

are just farms owned by "the English".  

 Coop in his natural habitat, cruising along with his

Moto Guzzi 750

Coop took me through Amish Country as part of the ride, I was quite fascinated at witnessing the contrasting transportation choices of this religion.  And, I can see why the government makes them put a "slow vehicle" sign in the back; it's very easy for them to become invisible in low light conditions.

 Coop pulled ahead so I could get in front of these two 

horse drawn rigs for photos.  I tried to be somewhat discrete

but I suspect they knew I was taking pictures.

 These young fellows did wave back at me when I waved 

at them while they passed my position.

 Old vs New

 More of a wagon than a buggy?

 Note how easy it is to miss seeing one of these carriages

when they're in the shadows ...

 Coop passing, slowly, a fancier buggy.

I shot many pics of Coop as he rode ahead of me, and sometimes I got lucky and it came out in focus!

 I think this is Carlson Ridge or perhaps Clinton Ridge

The last planned stop was the Mindoro Cut, where the third deepest cut through rock for a road by hand had been done.  Sadly, the road was closed for unknown reasons.

So Coop got me to County Road D and let me lead all the way to my FIL's home.  Unfortunately, my FIL was out doing errands I guess so I wasn't able to introduce him to Coop.

Coop and his Guzzi

My heartfelt thanks to Doug for his time and expert knowledge of the many back country roads in the area!  I know that without a GPS, I would have been completely lost.