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Published: January 3rd 2010
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Mott's Lounge
Burlington, IL. I love old taverns and old tavern signs. We had a real nice Christmas and New Year holiday season with Brett & Megan coming up from St. Louis on Christmas Day, staying until the 27th. Heather had to work on Christmas, but she came in on 12/30 and will be here until the 7th. It sure is great to be able to spend this time with both of them and all the family.
We're having some real winter weather here in the midwest so far and the snow we received at Christmas has stayed for a week so far and the ten day forecast says it's going to stay at least that much longer. That gave us the rare opportunity to ride snowmobiles locally for a change.
Heather said she would like to ride snowmobiles while here, so I checked out the somewhat nearby trails to see which ones might be open. There's a cool 70 mile trail system in South Bend, IN, but that area is getting big time lake effect snow for 5 days straight and the drive there would be awful with forecasts of whiteouts and roads closing. The I&M Canal Trail isn't open, so that left the Kane County area trail system to
ride. That trail system is very extensive with numerous trails running from Dekalb to Elgin and north to McHenry County. So we drove to a parking area just east of Sycamore to start our ride.
With only Jan's new sled home-the other in the shop up in Houghton, MI, we had to come up with another machine. I mentioned to Pat that we were thinking of riding and he graciously offered the use of his '06 Crossfire 7. Thanks again, Pat.
Our next door neighbor, Ray started snowmobiling with me last year and near the end of last season he bought a sled and trailer which he hadn't been able to ride yet. He was anxious to get the first ride in so he joined us for our ride. We headed out about 8:30 in the morning for our 57 mile drive to Sycamore and the temperature was -1 when we got there. Not the warmest of days, but, what the hell, it's winter. One more thought about the fun of snowmobiling---it sure beats sitting at home with cabin fever. I've always felt if you live in a northern climate, you better figure out something to do to
Dad & Sis
At Mott's have fun in the winter.
We rode about 11 miles to the town of Burlington for a gas fillup and decided to go across the road to Mott's Lounge for an early (11:00) lunch and warm up. We had some outstanding cheeseburgers and a cold beer there. We perused the map and decided to ride to Union, IL, a ride of about 25 miles. After the 11 mile ride, Ray declared his shakedown cruise a success and said that he really liked his new machine. It's Skidoo Rev 600 and it only has about 400 miles on it.
The trails are a bit confusing for someone that hasn't ridden here a lot, so we had a couple map checking stops on the way to Union. But the riding was very good for these parts and we zipped though farm fields and road ditches to get there. When we arrived in Union, we found another delightful old time bar called Clasen's which opened in 1900. After a couple cold ones, we saddled up for the ride back to the trucks. We stopped at Burlington again to top off the sleds before the 11 mile ride back to the parking
Ready to Go
Heather with Mom's new sled. lot.
We rode 72 miles for the day. All of the riding was real nice and we had a wonderful time. It was so nice to be able to spend the day with Heather & Ray. Heather declared the new sled "perfect." She has quite a bit of riding experience, having started when she was about 10 years old, so she knows what she's talking about!
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Tot: 0.306s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 18; qc: 110; dbt: 0.1488s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
HeatherLauren
Heather Lauren
Thanks!!
I had a great time riding!! Thanks for taking me :) I loooove the new sled, too...it's perfect!!