Final day and almost stranded

Leaving Sioux Falls was difficult, not just because of the great hospitality we received, but because the prior day's 96F/100% humidity was 80F/200% humidity in the morning. Better than hail, I guess...

There's not much to write about here, and we didn't even get any photos. Sorry.

Oh yes there is!

Instead of interstating it all the way home, we hit Hwy 60 north through Mankato (where Rob and I got our bachelor degrees, at different times). Paul and Amanda continued east to Rochester, on I-90, with a stop at the Spam museum (highly recommended, BTW) in Austin, MN. The next day, in Rochester, Paul's VFR would not start: the rectumfryer quit. Talk about good luck! ... making it all the way there, where he could leave it and pick it up later. These VFR's are notorious for burning out rectifiers, in fact Thor's VFR burned one last year (at 97,000 miles).


Just west of Mankato we stopped at what used to be  BMW dealership in Clear Lake, MN, Judson Cycles. We get there and it appears closed ... all the bikes are in the shop, none outside. We enter through the mechanic shop, and learn that the little storm we rode through was predicted to create hail and they put all the bikes into the showroom ... which means no room to go anywhere.

Rob buys oil for his new R1200GS (I guess they're supposed to burn oil for the first 20k miles) and we get free wife-beater shirts. But what is interesting about this shop, is that it used to be an official BMW dealership. However, according to the sales person we talked to, BMW required them to purchase a $15k diagnostic machine in order to repair the new S1000RR. Since they don't sell those bikes in the middle of Harley-Davidson-Cruiser-Land, they decided to give up the BMW franchise. Instead they are converting inexpensive 250cc Chinese scooters to be trikes, and selling/repairing moto-guzzi's. There were also quite a few interesting old BMW's for sale there....

So ... after that we rode home.

Thanks to all for a great trip! We're already planning next year's Walt Ride ....

The End (for now)