Leaf Ride

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Illinois Route 64 runs east-west across the state from Lake Michigan in Chicago to the Mississippi River in Union Township near Savanna. In Chicago, it's named North Avenue, but pronounced Nort-Av-nu. West of Oregon, it's a fairly straight run through Illinois farmland. After it starts overlaying US52 at Lanark, undulating terrain signaled I was riding deeper into the Mississippi River valley.

My Fujifilm XP 'lanyard' camera had been misbehaving since breakfast. As might be expected, I couldn't see exactly what the error messages were while riding along at speed, but I could see that screen icons that were usually white were showing as red and that it would shut itself off after just a few seconds of operation. I found that if I turned it off after each photo rather than letting it shut itself off, I could snap a few pictures. Unfortunately, this issue limited the number of photos I could take. I never did figure out the problem; when I returned home, the battery showed as half-charged and the icons were white. I still recommend this camera for the quality of the photos and for its waterproofing.


I chose 64/52 because it would deliver me directly and quickly to a couple of really great motorcycling roads. I was surprised, then, by the beauty of the fields of cornstalks blanketing the land as far as the eye could see. There was magnificence in this landscape that is diminished in photos taken from a motorcycle moving at 65mph. I will not soon forget being there, virtually alone, riding on a black ribbon rolling through these sculpted fields of brown.










My mind wanders on these longer, uncomplicated, stretches of road and it was at about this point that first began to wonder if I should turn back home. I continued to wonder about this even as a continued to ride further and further from home. My unwillingness to make a decision was, of course, a decision in and of itself and turned out to be the second mistake I made that day.

The first overnight motorcycle trip I ever took was to Galena, IL, an historic one-time mining town and home of President U.S. Grant which now draws tourists to its nineteenth century buildings housing a variety of shops, inns, and restaurants. The town sits above and a couple of miles from the Mississippi River and is roughly bisected by the Galena river which helps feed The Old Man. It's a delightful town set in hills untouched by the glacial drift that flattened most of the rest of northern Illinois.

On that first trip, I was just learning about riding and doing so on a Honda CBR250r. The three days we spent on the twisted and hilly roads in the area probably taught me more about how to control my motorcycle than in any other similar time frame before or since. I've been on much more technical roads in the Smoky Mountains, Arkansas, Kentucky and West Virginia and managed to navigate those successfully, if not artistically, in large part due to the lessons learned on my tiny little thumper on the roads of Jo Daviess County.

Scenic Ridge Road and Blackjack Road were two of those roads. When I'm in the area, I make sure to ride them and I was in the area Saturday. I would hit Scenic Ridge first which would take me north from IL64 (via a couple of local roads that were quite nice on their own). Scenic Ridge changes its name to something or another before intersecting with Hanover Road. Hanover Rd. is lovely as well, but for me it's just a connecting road to Blackjack. Blackjack Road, to my mind, is the coolest named road in my state. It's also a pretty cool ride. It takes you from the tiny town of Hanover into Galena with a number of turns, hills, and glimpses of the Mississippi tossed in to make it worthy of its cool name.



Dean Road. Pretty little farm road that takes you to Scenic Ridge


Scenic Ridge Road lives up to its name




Blackjack (I think).


I guess I could call this a "BlackJack-o-lantern". He pulled off to let us pass, which was nice.


Crossing the Galena River

Saturdays bring a lot of people into Galena and the traffic through town was a bit tight. I recall someone in this forum talking about rural postal vehicles and the unique danger they pose to riders. I was within about a foot and a half of validating that observation. Luckily, I was riding in the stop and go traffic coming into Galena and he was able to recognize my proximity to him before the big rubber front bumper of his little mail truck bounced off of my right ankle.

No harm, no foul. He gave me a sheepish gesture once behind me and I gave him a thumbs up followed by a dramatic grasping of my chest to let him know just how close he came. I think he was a shook up about this encounter as I was. We all make errors when we drive or ride and the look on his face told me that he knew he screwed up and that he was not likely to make this mistake again anytime soon.

From Galena it was north into Wisconsin. I knew at this point that I would have to turn around and head home soon, but I needed to get further north of the storm line anyway so I'd head to Potosi, Wisconsin for gas and a reassessment of the remainder of the day. My camera was acting up again, or still, so there are only a few pictures from this leg and only one worth posting. Weather, darkness, and my desire to focus on getting home would eliminate any picture taking after Potosi.

Just south of Potosi sits the farm town of Dickeyville, WI. Some readers will recall that I've been in Dickeyville and Balltown (Iowa) on the same day during a couple of other riding adventures. This is mentioned for no other reason than to see who giggles.

Dickeyville is significant to me because it was there that our riding group found shelter from a terrible rainstorm on our first trip to Eureka Springs (written about here someplace). We were huddled on the porch of a closed-for-the-day restaurant called Katina's Kitchen when Katina showed up and let us wait out the rain inside. That selfless act has brought us back to her place at least 3 other times when she was open. The irony that I was riding past our previous rain shelter as I was heading into a similar downpour was not lost on me. I briefly thought about stopping and asking her if I could spend the night on her porch.


Katina's Kitchen then


Katina's Kitchen now