Bestie Cruising Day! A rare October gem of a day 10/20/2017

After the Simply Street Bikes mileage competition was over, riding was still in full force. The bestie and I got a couple of super nice riding days where we put on over 300 miles, easy. The last hoorah was a Friday which was 80 degrees out. That seems like SO long ago now, but it was a mere 1.5 weeks ago. I got out of work early and we took off riding all over the place - southern MN, down the river, thru a bunch of twisty roads, on some new roads,  and round and round.

Who cares about fancy schmancy cars when you have a BIKE?

We took off towards Hastings and mosied towards Welch Village road - lots of fun corners and no traffic! Though, typical fall roads, there were plenty of corners with field debris on the road. The sky was a cool combo of blue and white and what color was left on the trees was 'kind of' still pretty!

Pretty fall road somewhere in Southern MN or WI 

  Stopped to take in some scenery and soak up as much of the sunshine of the day as possible!

Daylight is such a beloved sight, yet short supply this time of year

Gotta love the MN WI bluff country

Just look at those beauties!

BESTIES!

We cruised Hastings to Welch to Wabasha, over to Wisconsin, on some fun roads soaking up every minute of daylight we could and wound up at the Monkey Bar after 300+ miles of pure bliss in the sunshine and heat. The Monkey Bar is a little biker bar in Prescott WI. That and the Nauti Hawg are kind of THE 'be seen' biker hangouts. If you want to see bikers, meet bikers, and be with your own kind of people, which means any person, any bike, any miles, etc. That is where you head to in WI. Anyways, the Monkey Bar in Prescott has seen our faces a time or five this summer, usually at the tail end of a fun day of riding. There's a little gravel parking lot to the side of the bar and ample street parking, usually taken over by bikes. This summer was a weird one though - the weather was total hit or total miss. I never once saw the gravel lot next to the bar filled. Until today - the ONE last hoorah day of riding in the metro! It was PACKED. The gravel lot was packed... I'd guess 50+ bikes, and mind you this is at 7pm. The street parking was mostly bikes, it was great! People watching and bike watching and storytelling is the best thing ever in the biker culture/biker world. Its like the one thing that truly brings the most random variety of people together, from all walks of life, and you share this amazing experience that so many people never get to dream of. So the Monkey Bar has an outdoor patio, a new patio area along the street and parking lot, and the middle bar, which has monkey swings, and then an indoor bar. There were people in every corner of the place. We lucked out and got monkey swings... which is always hilarious because we look in awe at others on the swings..NOT moving. How can you sit on a swing and NOT move?? I guess its easy to pick out the two girls with raging ADHD,... swinging away, chatting up a storm, and la-dee-daa'ing about our day.  I still shake my head at the idea of sitting on a swing... STILL. Who does that, for real?? Those people are weird, no offense. I can't sit still for 20 minutes let alone 2 minutes on something that was meant to move! We each had a beer and moseyed on our way.


We decided we needed to eat something, and naturally, since its still in the 70's.. in. October, we head clear across the other side of the metro to the NW corner where one of our fave hangouts is. Its one where we walk in any time of the day, any day, and we will know someone there. Kind of like our own version of Cheers, if you will. We walk in, say hi to a few people and find stools on the other side of the bar by our buddies. We had leathers on at this point as once the sun goes down, it got chilly quickly, even for MN girls. The looks on peoples faces who dont know us (I dont say that as a bragging thing, just a fact) as two girls wearing leather strut in and sit down on almost the only two stools open and are chatting up yet another storm, is pretty funny. I wish I could read people's minds in general, but sometimes more than others. Oh yeah, and its now nearing the midnight hour so... there's that. Anyways, we eat, BS, and roll towards home. I only have a short hop and jump home, bestie has a 20 min ride back. We end the day with over 350 miles, a big smile on each of our faces, thinking life is absolutely the best thing ever. Its funny how two wheels can do that to a person!