Today was a travel day for us. There wasn’t much sightseeing. We hit the road early and didn’t do very many miles. I did want to tell you about a few things that I feel are worth mentioning. First: Today is Flag Day in the USA. Mason and I both did our best to display Old Glory as per tradition.

The picture was taken from behind the bikes so you could appreciate the flags waving in the morning breeze. Also so you wouldn’t see the 8,261,453 bugs that were smashed on the front of my motorcycle. If Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes, it must be the home of 11 zillion flying insects. Mason and I have done our share to eliminate some of them. I even broke down and cleaned my windshield this morning.

I’ve mentioned a couple of times about running multiple GPS units. I have 2 and Mason has 1 plus his phone. Any sane person would say that we should never get lost. Those people totally underestimate my ability to filter out any useful information from these as I travel. I am glad Mason has a great sense of direction because I probably would still be circling the Red Rooster where we ate yesterday. Thanks Mason. I wanted to share my “view from the cockpit”. My pilot friends share those pics all the time and I guess that’s important if you’re the one flying. Same with motorcycles. All of the gadgets you see on my bike are important for ………. well, I forget why but trust me they are important.

While I’m at it, I wanted to include a picture of the infamous intercom set up on my helmet. Someday I will read the instruction manual for this thing but until then, I’ll continue to believe it operates on magic. (OK – I made that up about reading the instruction manual – fat chance that will ever happen.) Our friends give us a lot of razzing based on the brand we chose. I need some new friends.

The morning started out refreshingly cool. I really enjoy riding in these mild temperatures.

We had asked at the hotel about a good place for breakfast and were told that the Colonel had a good breakfast. Hmmm. We looked out the front door and were staring at a KFC. I never heard of that Colonel having breakfast. It turns out the restaurant was the Kernel which was about a mile down the street. We did our usual lap around the place since I missed the driveway the first time we passed. Food was good but don’t order your bacon “crispy”.

I mentioned that we rode only a short distance today (about 163). I looked at the ETA on one of my most reliable devices (Magic 8 Ball) and it said we were going to arrive at the hotel about noon Yikes! I didn’t think they would let us check in that early and I didn’t feel like driving in circles to kill the 3 hours before official check in time. We stopped for gas and decided to go across the street to Applebee’s and develop an alternative plan. We asked our server / bartender, Kayla, where we could go to find something to while away the hours. She told us where to go. We REALLY didn’t want to go there. She also mentioned that there was a nice lake in Spicer, MN. There just wasn’t much else that looked promising so we charged on to our destination – Owatonna, MN.

I couldn’t remember which hotel we had reserved for the night. It’s a good thing I put the address in the GPS. Problem is that 2 different hotels share the same address (or at least the parking lot at that address). OK, with only 2 choices what are the odds that we would walk into the lobby of one of them and it be the right hotel. Odds should be about 50-50 but ……… Yep, I was wrong. The first hotel never heard of us (that in itself is shocking) . So we walked across the parking lot to hotel #2 and pleaded our case for early check-in. SCORE! We checked in around 1:30 and boy, did I luck out. Look at this room that I was given while Mason slept in the bottom of the elevator shaft.

We agreed to meet up later for dinner and picked out The Boulder Tap House. It was pretty busy but we were able to talk while we watched the Cubs on TV. I enjoy the chats with Mason and having dinner together is just an excuse to solve more of the problems of the world.

I warned you up-front that it was a slow news day. Things should pick up tomorrow as we go see where Old Man River gets its start and maybe even get our picture taken with a blue cow. Now you’re anxious to see what we have planned for tomorrow. It’s always a surprise for me too because it usually turns out nothing like the plan.

Total mileage for the trip: 890. Mileage today 163.

Thanks for reading my ramblings.