A MilFing I will go...

I am about to depart on my steel steed to the Valleywood Golf Course in Apple Valley to participate in the 110th running of the Millard Filmore Golf Tourney, in which I will be preparing to do golf judo (yes, there will be many divots) with John the Night Writer against other members of the MOB.

I'll have my Palm Centro with me, so if all works well, I may be live blogging here and there.

Wish us luck!

...And I was right...

Burrito with beef tongue. About as authentic as South of the Border itself.

Something tells me I'm into something good..

I took my bike out on a quick jaunt to a new Mexican restaurant here in the St. Cloud area, Las Monargas. Not a word of English spoken here...

From "Superman" to "SuperPimp"?

As you remember, I posted stories regarding St. Cloud's very own superman here, and here (more here) Well, the other day I was tooling around town on my Virago and passed the intersection of 25th and Division street, right by the Dairy Queen. Instead of seeing the venerable St. Cloud Superman, I saw a new character, sitting on a Coleman folding chair, with a fishing pole, and dressed up kinda like this:

Well, I had to check this out. So I parked my motorcycle at the DQ, got a frozen hot chocolate, approached the guy, and asked him, "What gives with the new get-up?"

He assured me that he was doing it just to "keep people guessing." He related that to dress up like a pimp was the antithesis of Superman. He added that he was all about freedom and freedom of expression.

Of course, during the conversation John Filla was his old congenial self, and graciously accepted when I asked him to pose for the picture above.

I don't know--I gotta kinda hand it to a guy who's not afraid to be "out there" and to make a statement.

Carry on, Superman.

On Grad Parties and Motorcycle Rides...

I took a motorcycle ride to a graduation party from St. Cloud, to Chippewa Falls, WI (around 160 miles)...

It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky when I departed...

Even though there were some darker clouds as I moved through Wisconsin, not a drop of rain...(riding through Spring Valley & Dunn County was awesome--strikingly beautiful)...

Anyway, I stayed at the party for an hour and a half, and I began my trek back home.

At first, there were storm clouds to the left of me, and storm clouds to the right of me... (It felt like I was in the middle of the Charge of the Light Brigade)....I thought I was going to ride through the mess with nary a scrape.

Not so fast... When I drove back through Spring Valley, I stopped at a convenience store... I heard a few claps of distant thunder.. but I still held hope that my luck would hold.

I rode on through a winding country road, and finally, I heard little pitter patters hit my helmet...upon looking ahead of me about a mile or so, I saw what from that distance appeared to be a heavy fog, but I knew better that it was a downpour; then I looked above me and saw a greenish tinge to the clouds overhead, and knew the telltale sign of hail...

Just as it started to get heavy, I happened upon a small country store with an overhead canopy, and made it there just in time when a flurry of three-quarter inch hailstones began making their way to the ground. Another biker was there, who made a call ahead to his home in Ellsworth, about ten miles west, who said it had cleared up.

After the storm had let up quite a bit, and there was just a little bit more than a drizzle, I continued on my trek, thinking that Mother Nature just needed a good belch, and that would be that, and that my good fortune in keep out of challenging weather would continue.

Boy, was I wrong.

I rode through deluge after deluge of downpours and pea-sized hail. It felt like I was riding through Niagara Falls with a mixture of pebbles falling down with the water! After riding in and out of a series of six storm cells, I finally thought I was out of it when I crossed the border into Minnesota and stopped to fill up.

Wrong again.

I rode through another three episodes of torrents of rain, thunder and lightning through Anoka, MN on Hwy 10; by that time I didn't care. I was so wet, the only thing I was missing was a bar of soap (I thought about shampoo, but at least my full-face helmet kept my head relatively dry). When I was getting toward Elk River, I saw an awesome sight up ahead in the distance--a clearing sky! And I was riding right toward it. Halleluia!!! But then Highway 10 took a bend right there, and was leading me headlong--you guessed it--into another storm. At this point, I said, what the heck! I was a man on a mission to get home. I screamed defiance as I rode through yet another downpour, screaming, "Is this all you got?!? Come on!!" Finally, I rode through the last of the downpours as I headed into Big Lake, with another 40 miles to go, and I finally headed into the safe harbor of a clearing in the sky. By this time, the cold front had passed, and temps got down into the low 60s. I really thought I would dry out, I mean with driving 65-70 mph, you'd think it would have kind of a blow dryer effect.

Again, I was proven wrong.

By the time I got home, I was stiff, sore, and I couldn't be wetter and colder if I had plunged myself into Lake Superior. I took off my boots, and poured out over a cup of water from each.

All in all a good ride!

BTW--anyone have any suggestions on how to quickly dry out rain-soaked leather boots?