13 July 2007

Kathy, Jake and Jaxon came over last night, Kathy made pizza and strawberry amaretto pastries, and they brought a cake and sang happy birthday! Sweet! After they left, I did laundry and got to bed fairly early.

Got up and dawdled; I wasn't in any real hurry to leave. So after I got everything packed and ready to go, I decided to visit my sister Roberta and her husband Roger, just down the road. We had about a half hour of exchanging pleasantries, and I hit the road; got gas in Mosinee and headed south.

Got to the rally site around 1130, registered, etc, and started wandering around looking for 1) a helmet, and 2) people. Found Turk first (or I guess he found me); he said he'd seen Dick & Priscilla, and Stoner, but that was all. We talked for a while, then I went through the vendor areas, seeing what was available in flip-up helmets, et al. When I came out of one of the vendor buildings, there were Dick and Priscilla, so we talked a while. We decided to put up a sign-up list for BMWOCSD on the message board; we all put our names on it, then I took it and found Turk again, and got his name on it also, then posted it. (Somebody said Carl Langston was there, but I didn't see him, or Stoner).

Time to buy a helmet... Shoei has a new model, but the chin bar on the one I tried on (which was a bit too big) hit my chin. (Actually, that's not quite true; it's just that when I stick my jaw out even a little, my chin hits the bar.) I find that disconcerting. So I went to the big Nolan importer's display, where they were pushing the bluetooth modules. Once I got a salesman, he was quite helpful, and agreed with me about the chin bar being too close--I tried an XL, which was too loose (but my chin still hit the bar); then a Large, which fit fine, but my chin hit the bar even worse. What to do, what to do? Since both the Shoei and Nolan had similar chin-interference problems, I went with the Nolan, at $110 cheaper. Guess I'll get used to it.

Bought lunch for Turk, wandered around a bit more, said goodbye and left just before 1500. Headed south on surface roads, skirting Milwaukee, and stopped in East Troy to visit the old seminary grounds, where I'd gone to high school.

It's still a beautiful place, although you can't even see where the main buildings used to be. Tien Hall, the convent, the garage and the rebuilt boathouse are all that are left. Where the football field used to be is planted in soybeans. I talked for a few minutes with an older retiree, who said when that field is plowed, you can still see traces of the (cinders, I'm guessing) running track. (And if you zoom in in Google Earth, it's quite visible.) The Joseph and Marian grottoes are still there, but the Passion one was torn down, as it tended to be vandalized, (and used as a drug house, I heard elsewhere).

I decided not to stay in East Troy, but continued south; and when I saw there were a variety of motels in Elkhorn, stopped there. I vacillated somewhat; I was going to stay at the Americinn, then decided on a mom 'n' pop. Turned out to be a Patel, and he didn't seem to want me to stay, then charged me (an outrageous) $71. No Wi-Fi, either. But there's a Country Market down the road ($13).

State: Wisconsin
227 GPS miles (3721 total), 53.5 moving average, 269 max (I don't think so!)
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