I just got back from a short tour with my daughter. The resturant she works at, Alinea, was closed down for the week so we took the opportunity to hit the road. She lives in Chicago, so my trip began when I shot down to Chi Town last Sunday. I met up with her on Monday and spent some time around town. I was looking to get her some proper gear for riding but was surprised by the seeming lack of bike shops. I stopped at Chicago Cycle, and an HD and BMW shop on Western. Chicago Cycle is huge, but the Harley shop and BMW shop were surprisingly small given the demographics. I also wasn't able to find any non-dealer bike shops. We did stop at a cool little shop on the near west side, also on Western. It was mostly scooter-oriented, but they had some cool, vintage bikes for sale as well. I ended up finding her a jacket in a small Honda store in Elmhurst. We had dinner Monday night with my wife, who happened to be in town for business.
Tuesday, we took off westward on our nation's oldest coast-to-coast road, the Lincoln Highway and kept going until we hit the Mississippi. We decided to stop there for the evening (we got a late start) in Clinton, Iowa. Heading north, the scenery improved within a half mile of city limits. The weather was beautiful as we wound through river valley. We never got more than 20 miles from the river and we stopped in Galena and had one of the best cappacino's I ever had. We wound through southwestern Wisconsin and ended up in LaCrosse for the evening,
The motel owner was a biker and he had to drag out his R100 and let us give it the once over. THere were two couples from Iowa that I chatted with. One had a 98 Harley and the other had a Goldwing trike. They had spent a week in Lacrosse, and toured the entire area. THe C of C put out a really nice, plastic-coated map with half a dozen different touring loops for motorcycles and auto enthusiests.
The scenery was awesome and the roads were largely untraveled. For anyone who has never been there, this part of Wisconsin was missed by the last glacier, so it is reminiscent of the Appalachians or Ozarks in that the roads wind around hills and through valleys with creeks running here and there. We arrived in Minneapolis on THursday after a brief shower dampened the last 50 miles or so. My girl took off for Chicago yesterday and her plucky little 250 cc Rebel got her there on a more direct freeway shot.
One1bmwnut said:
