Mission: North Dakota

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Day 0 - The Amazing Challenge. Saturday, June 25, 2022.

Cheryl and I participated in our first "Amazing Challenge". It is a rally/scavenger hunt motorcycle event that a friend of mine has been running for the past several years. This year's meet up point was in Middleton, WI which is just outside the state capitol of Madison. We rode up on Friday for the pre-ride dinner and rider's meeting where we would be provided the points of interest scattered over 400 or so miles of southwest Wisconsin's "Driftless Area".

The rules state that riders must complete the challenge between 5:00am and 5:00pm on Saturday. Points are awarded for POI visited. There is no prize for finishing early. The forecast called for storms starting at about 8:00am so the competitive riders set out at 5:00 to get north of the trouble early. We took the "sleep in and see what happens later" technique knowing that this tactic would eliminate the possibility of covering the 300+ miles it would take to get to each check point before 5:00. We wound up covering 236 miles and acquiring 3 out of the 7 points of interests. BMWs to Harleys were represented and we enjoyed the opening and closing dinners with the 40 or so participants.


This is when we still thought we might have a chance at winning.


This is when we decided to have coffee while all the hardbutt riders were out getting soaked.


This is Cheryl in her rain gear crossing a bridge in search of some Challenge points.




These are examples of point-getting photos.


This is a screenshot of the route we took. We did not encounter very much rain; just a few sprinkles.





This was the awards ceremony and announcement that the 2023 Amazing Challenge will be in Spearfish, SD ... Cheryl loves riding out there so we may try our hand at this again.


This is my certificate of "completion". Note that we only visited 3 sites, but we also earned a few bonus points not shown on the certificate.


I've included this mini-report on the Amazing Challenge only because while Cheryl and I were avoiding raindrops, The Ferret and Offroadfx4 were driving right through them with their bikes in tow, heading for Baraboo, Wisconsin. The four of us were scheduled to rendezvous there on Sunday at our friends' house there. While we were at our banquet, they were having dinner with Glen and Laura, dear friends of ours who opened their home to all of us at each end of this journey.