Our Last Ride of The Trip

---

I'm sure everyone is tired of the cold by now since it has really clobbered all of the Midwest. But, again it was -25 last night in Land O' Lakes. Have to pass on what the owner of Bauer's Dam, Donna, said yesterday; "Polar Vortex my butt. This is what we used to call winter." This is very true of the weather way up here. Sub zero temperatures are kind of the norm over the years here. It was going to be a little warmer today with a high of -5 forecast.



We saddled up and headed down the trail around 10:30 with the temperature still -18. At least there was very little wind. We were dressed for it with thermal underwear, warm pants, 3 layers on top, super warm boots, very good snowmobile bib pants and jackets. And, of course a balaclava and snowmobile helmet which keeps your head perfectly warm. Since we weren't cold riding yesterday, I decided we would ride up to Hoppy' s Bar in Kenton, MI, another tiny town. It's a 40 mile ride through the Ottawa National Forest with nowhere to stop until you get to Hoppy's. I've surely written about it before, but there is a trail that winds for 26 miles through the National Forest from north to south called Trail 107. It is in my top 5 favorite trails anywhere. It's wide with sweeping turns and some nice fast straightaways. It was perfectly smooth, which is almost always the condition on it. We had lunch and coffee there before heading back to the Gateway. We rode 81 miles today. When we got back, Michael returned the rental sled and I loaded up my snowmobile on my trailer. Tomorrow we make the drive home, 400 miles. We met Pat & Dawn at a restaurant none of us has tried in a few years, the Wild Turkey in Conover. It's specialty is smoked meat and it was very good. We then went back to the Gateway for a farewell night cap.



Other than the extreme cold, it was an excellent trip. We rode a little over 400 miles and almost all of the trails were in very good condition, nice and smooth, with half of the riding in Wisconsin and half in Michigan. That's what makes Land O' Lakes so great for snowmobiling. You have lots and lots of destinations and types of trails to ride. Normally we would get some outdoor riding and scenery photos, but it was just too cold to stop and expose your hands to take them. Michael did take some video with a Go-pro camera mounted to his helmet, though. I hope he posts the video to YouTube so I can add them to this blog.



Michael's planning on coming back in early March with a friend to get some more riding in. It should be a lot warmer then.

---

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Polar vortex my butt
Well said-- its winter.