My husband is big, and I mean BIG into his motorcycle. If he could we would take it everywhere during the nice, sunny weather…maybe even when it’s a tad cold. Just about six months into our relationship and we were off on the motorcycle for a long weekend on the Mississippi River. My previous motorcycle experiences consisted of on the back of my dad’s as a kid on the yard, and once around the block when I was in my twenties! And here I was going for a long weekend ride in June. Crazy right?! Besides being on the back of a motorcycle you are looking at packing light, yeah seriously, I didn’t even know how to do this with a suitcase.
We live on the east side of Wisconsin, so we worked on making the 5 or so hour drive towards the west side of the state. Since my husband is a volunteer firefighter we our first stop at the Wisconsin State Firefighters Memorial located on the Wisconsin River in Wisconsin Rapids. (That’s a lot of Wisconsin in that sentence!) This memorial was free to walk through and honored all the Wisconsin firefighter that passed in the line of duty.
From there we had decided to make a stopover night in Elk Mound where Chuck’s aunt lived. We enjoyed the evening looking through his cousins’ drawings, FFA projects, and playing family games. The next morning we were off heading down the Mississippi. The view was gorgeous! The difference between being in a car and on the bike, is really being up close to everything. We had Bald Eagles circling above us, the river towards our right, and the WI rolling hills all around us.
We also came across the Villa Bellezza winery, Yay a winery, but no we didn’t stop…we hadn’t eaten lunch yet….so maybe next time. We found a place a little ways down called the Garden Pub & Grill in Pepin, it looked cute with the frog on the sign and the outside dining. After some time we came across Nelson Cheese Factory for their ice cream that Chuck’s aunt told us we needed to stop for. It was hot out and the ice cream hit the spot. We also had a nice view of the bluffs, which is really nothing compared to the mountains in KY / NC but that’s a trip for another time.
We continued our ride down along the river to Alma to check out a lookout point, in the Buena Vista Park. The view was quite breathtaking. I was a little concerned about the rattlesnakes that Chuck’s uncle had warned us about. They apparently like to come out and sun themselves in the area there…lucky for us didn’t see any. I’ve don’t know what I would do if I would have seen one, I’m not one really scared of snakes but all I’ve ever seen in the wild is a little garden snake which is fun to try and catch! But I don’t think I’d enjoy seeing a rattle snake much, at all!
Lucky for me right around the corner from the lookout point we found another winery! It was a bit of a curvy twisty trip up the bluff to Danzinger Vineyard…and what a view!! Being up in the bluff and looking out at the Mississippi was so pretty, I would have just loved to see it at night right at sunset would be perfect. Something to plan for the next time around. We did buy a bottle of wine that they wrapped up bubble wrap for us since we were on the bike. Of course this bottle did not make it back home with us as we enjoyed it later that night in the hotel.
After we continued on to our second planned destination, the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe located in La Crosse. We made it just before closing time but were able to make the mile walk on the Meditation Trail to view the devotional areas and statues. After leaving the Shrine we made our way Prairie du Chien to spend the night. The hotel we were staying at had entered our name into the system wrong…”Wineus”, I loved it and after we were engaged suggested both changing our last name to it! It didn’t fly with my husband. I said if we ever have a winery or a bar in our home I was going to call it the “Wineus Winery”. So when I decided to start this blog I felt “The Wineus Life” as a name would be perfect.
After spending the night in Prairie du Chien we started heading home stopping through the dells to pick up our WI shot glass. It was our first shot glass but our hope is to collect them on our travels, especially having at least one glass for each state. Need fun goals in this crazy life😊
This little Mississippi ride was just a test, and I had passed and was now ready for a week long bike trip through various states. But that’s a story for another time.
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