12/2/24 1325
We lost a Wild Turkey
brother yesterday. Johnny O passed.
Here's to Johnny O.
Tonite, or right now,
raise a glass, spare a thought....
8/15/24
Duluth, MN
WILD
TURKEY RIDE REPORT
Yesterday I took a ride. Left here, across
the bridge to Wisco. Eventually to US 2, heading East. US 2. They named the
even ones from N to S back in the day. This one must start near to the E coast
(John any US 2 sightings back east?) and it goes all the way to Seattle, I
think. MN has no #4 or 6 to my knowledge. Probably petered out before here. #8
struggled through our previous hometown before calling it quits, as far as I
know, in MPLS. But #10,12 and 14 still shoot
across this state. Maybe 16 too – or just S of the border.
As many of you have, I suppose, rode on this
highway 2 across N Dakota. I did across most of Montana.
Turned Right, S, at Iron River, on a nice
county road, not bad, and right after it squeezes between two lakes watched for
a road Jack showed me once. A true gift. Scenic Road it is called. Once we
explored an offshoot which was rewarding too. At any rate this road is a
challenge but offers. It creases through hills and under a canopy of hardwoods
with each tiny break in those trees revealing lakes. Little roads lead to
cabins and resorts that invite for a beer. And it is billiard table smooth like
all Wisco backroads. In MN this and the rest, would all be gravel. Some of it
was freshly surfaced even. The road comes out just shy of the Delta Diner. Down
SE from there on the Delta Drummond Road. Marvelous. Smooth with sweepers,
elevations changes and inviting straights. I opened her up.
About 2 years ago Jack and Our Most Perfect
Leader, Al (Not A.I.) took this same ride. That was a good day. I think it was
the time a big bird flew up and almost hit Jack in the head near Moquah. He did
a super quick reflex Ninja Turtle head retraction telescoping. That was funny.
From Drummond SE on Owen Lake Road which is
wonderful. Hills and valleys and blind curves of changing radii. It is a
challenge. It is dense, acorns at the apex sometimes. There are no views except
the winding road ahead. Sometimes just a blank wall of trees with no hint of
which direction it will demand. A road like that is, without doubt is fully the
most “in the moment” experiences I ever have.
Owen Lake is long and well hidden. And meant
to stay that way. From what I have heard it is exclusive. My buddy Steve used
to have a place on it and his neighbors across the bay were Johnson Wax Heirs.
I think there is some Frank Loyd Wright going on back in there too. Johnson Wax
had him design their headquarters. I have never seen the lake.
Steve told me once he rented some snowmobiles
in Cable and his son and he came up for a weekend. It was 5 below inside the
cabin. It was 15 outside. They opened the windows etc. and fired the furnace.
Capturing the free 20 degrees.
The Owen Lake Road passes through a
mysterious golf course. In the middle of nowhere. Beautiful. I have never seen
anyone, anyone, on the course. Strange
First time I rode out in these wilds I was
lost on a Sportster cutting across from Clam Lake. Getting low on fuel. I knew
I was lost when I rode by, heading west, the same tavern in the woods. Twice.
Lunched at Garmisch USA, there’s one in
Germany too, my biker buddy Bob had been to that one in Germany. Sat eating a
Rueben at the same corner table as the 3 of us that day and watching the lake.
Wisco has “Flowages”. Huge lakes or chains of them. A result, I think, of dams.
Most likely WPA? This is the Namekagen Flowage. The view is beautiful. The
lodge is spectacular, huge logs, 1925 or so. Where did the $ come from? Where
the guests so far out there in the sticks? Similarly, blasting N from there toward
Grandview one rides the lakeshores and across the spine of Anderson Island, the
fabulous lake homes surely are not Duluth money. Must be Twin Cities or,
Chicago? Crossed the N Wisco great divide thereafter. Hit a stretch of nasty
tar snakes, still damp. Wildly slippery, (Can’t Wisco ever stop improving their
roads?)
Was thinking about Jack and how on rides like
this how we’d stop and crack open the side bags and have a sandwich. Or two.
Sometimes shave. Maybe shave twice. And then we would hear it and on the far
horizon see a speck and in many minutes Al (OMPL) would catch up and we would
strike out again.
N to Mason and a left there. Proceed on a
recently paved County Rd with long sweepers and terrific views, now in
agriculture country. Keg Bales Marching in place across the fields.
At Ino, Hwy 2 West towards Duluth again.
That last ride, though, we carried on to
Cornucopia, the most northern town in the state on Forest Road 236. A guy on a
stool next to me (Barstool that is.) once told me about that one and 131 in far
S Wisco which is terrific too.
That day we took 236 to that same bar in
Corni and had a beer there. It was then Jack told us he had something wrong in
his abdomen. Some pain. More tests scheduled in the next week. Vague, but
sounded ominous.
(We would take one more ride, I think, after
that to Kettle Falls where no sooner had we got off our bikes then a fellow
across the street, in a thunderous percussion, pulled over a building with a
big truck. Got out brushed off his hands and went into the house. For lunch I
suppose.)
We stopped along Wisco #13 where we split the
trail that day. We had some good laughs there on the shoulder.
I wonder how much Jack already knew then.
Here’s to Jack.
192 miles yesterday.
She purred like a cat.
FCTTG
Official Wild Turkey
6/13/26 Ride Report
Decided to ride Friday
but it was too windy, and in the usual N MN fashion the clear sky surrendered
to low clouds with rare gaps and popcorn showers which would blast down huge
drops and then decide to quit.
Yesterday was the same
without the showers.
Hit the road about 1100.
My old buddy Milt
Boisvin had told me about a place S of here where his dad would take him when
he was a kid. A bridge in the woods over a gorge.
I tried to get there on
my cycle a few yrs back but floods had washed out the bridges.
I have been looking at
them on Google Maps and recently they looked fixed. So I went.
I worked with Milt RN
years ago in downtown Mpls. He said he had changed his name after moving away.
His last name was Drinkwine and back in the days of phone directories they
would have to suffer all kinds of prank calls: “Do you drink wine?” What wine do
you drink? Are you drunk right now? Etc.
So he changed it to The
French.
He told me once that he
spent his childhood in a little Wisco town called Foxboro. I remember looking
it up on the map then…it was the deep sticks.
Must’ve been a lonely
childhood out there.
Milt was turbo gay.
I would go back to his
cubicle to talk with him about a patient and he would have all these cosmetics
spread about in front of him and he’d be doing his nails etc.
After moving to Duluth I
drove to Foxboro and took some photos and sent them to him.
A bonafide ghost town.
Crumpled church. Broken empty store. The RR siding that gives the town its name
was, and is, still active.
So I rode across that
singular Minnesota/Oliver Wisconsin bridge where the vehicle roadway is
suspended below the train tracks. Took a left in Oliver and went south on a
very nice road that has whoop Dedoo hills. Went west to within inches of the
Minnesota line and then south again. I tried to do this last year, but the road
was closed for construction of those bridges I suppose. A beautiful road. Well,
the bridges were done. But there was inexplicable stretches of gravel. Maybe a
mile or so at a time when I got down there. Found the gorge and it was over the
Nemadji River. Nemadji is Ojibwa for “River. that looks like diarrhea.”
It is full of clay.
Which was handy for a company upstream that made pottery under that same name
and I think it is valuable as vintage.
Anyway, I grit my teeth
on those gravel stretches. Dumbfounded to find that on a Wisconsin County Road.
The roads are much better than the secondary roads here in this state. I
thought maybe it was just going to be one, then it was gonna be two and it turned
out to be more, I don’t know how many. In good shape, but a lot of loose gravel
and the bike is kind of squirrelly on it. And a lot of washboards. My bike does
not dig on that stuff. But I found if I kind of let her have it, she would
float along in a kind of dreamy, suspended sort of way. As expected instantly
oncoming, traffic materialized, the raging Westwind helped a little bit, but
cars gaining on me pushed me faster because I didn’t want them to pass.
Well, I got to Foxboro
but there was nothing there. Nothing left at all. In fact, I knew I had gone
through Foxboro when the road turned to gravel again at the Minnesota state
line. It was right up against the state line back in the day. There was one house.
Stately old house with a turret. I knew I would have to go a mile or two of
inexplicable gravel to where Minnesota decided to stop paving. I navigated that
and it as well was kind of entertaining. From there I blasted up through
Holyoke. Jennifer Lange lives nearby that town, but I have promised not to
divulge her exact address.
Glad to be on payment
again, but the wind was still insufferable. Went up towards our most perfect
leader’s stomping grounds, and went around some lakes there and was going to
have lunch in Carlton, but I said fuck it and got on the interstate. Now that’s
where my bike shines. Opened her up and went with the flow. I was beat by the
time I got home.
Mel passed away a few
years ago. Him and his partner both had cancers, aggressive shit. They lived in
southern Edina on Nine Mile Creek, which flows, too,about a mile from where my
grandkids live. When they were homebound there, K used to make foods and sweets,
etc., and I would drop them off there when we go visit the grandkids and
they had a great place.
Milt was a Vietnam war
veteran.
One time I called him
from up here and told him I had walked our dog through the Rose Garden and he
said something like this:
“I used to love the rose
garden! But then one night some guys chased me in there and beat me up for
being, you know. They got me down on the ground and were kicking and stomping
on me until one guy noticed my rosary in my hand and he said, “come on. Let’s
let this guy be.”
He sold Mary K cosmetics
and treated K very well. She would order from him right up until the end.
I remember having come
to work sunburn from the boat or something and he lectured me on taking care of
my skin and he said your skin is not going to be soft if you keep doing that.
Well I thought my skin was pretty fucking soft. But he said feel my skin.
I touched his cheek and it was like dipping my fingers into a bottle of
Noxzema.
He was quite a guy.
Here’s to Milt from
Foxboro.
93 miles.
FCTTG
Wed, Jul 8 at 10:56 AM
Wild Turkey ride report.
Rode down the hill to
the harbor and looked at the cruise ship that arrived yesterday morning. The
city has rebuilt the port there so they can pull right up and discharge the
passengers and go through customs, etc.
Also went and looked at
the preparations being made for the big race tomorrow.
Tomorrow's grandma's
marathon. Brings thousands of people to our town. Maybe even 1000 run in the
race. From all over the world. The Africans usually kick everybody's butt. They
were erecting grand stands at the finish line. All kinds of gantries and tents.
Preparing. Tonight there will be a big spaghetti feed down there for the
participants and maybe the public I don't know. Might go check that out for a
change. Tomorrow there will be music, well starting today, at bayfront. Some
really good bands, even soul asylum which is nationally recognized I guess and
maybe some others. We try to go to that. You have to walk through the marathon
runners to get there. One year I left mid afternoon to just go home and walk
the dog and come back. A straggler runner was coming by. I tried to give him
some kind of word of encouragement that he was almost there, etc. and he looked
at me and puked all over the place. I'm a nurse, that's nothing new to me. But
there is a lot of puking and other bodily fluids running down their legs at
that point. They are a few blocks from the finish line. It is wild during the
day with cow bells ringing everywhere, and people handing up bottles of water
which are to discarded with aplomb by the runners along the streets. Last night
we went to the Smokehouse to see the jazz there and the huge parking lot by
grandma's saloon was now full of tents so it must be kind of fun. We made the
mistake of leaving the Jazz early to see Wayne The train Hancock, a country
guy, Honky Tonk a little bit of country swing and a lot of rockabilly. It was a
lot of fun at first. He was singing songs about alcohol and making a lot of
jokes, etc. After the break, he came back and was shitfaced. It was pathetic.
There was an exodus from the theater.
At any rate, I followed
the marathon course along the Lakeshore to it start near two harbors. Road
around two harbors, checked out the beach and there was a half dozen or so
people like always laying there looking for agates. I rolled north on that
county road from downtown there. It's a straight as an arrow but has big hills
and at least one slight corner. It goes all the way up to Highway one
which is the beautiful road that leads from Ely to the North Shore. Took a left
up there, I don't know maybe a dozen miles? And came to the t by Hugo's. That
is a nice stretch and you go through Wales. Lots of curves, good pavement,
occasional glimpses of lakes. Stopped at Hugo to take the picture. Many years
ago we went by there at night in the winter time and there had to be 50
snowmobiles and ATVs there. I say when you are at Hugo's and you take a step in
any direction you are going back towards civilization. In Minnesota there are
peculiar liquor license laws, depending on how much the proprietor
wants to spend. Hugo
gets by with "beer and set ups." Or in other words a 32 joint. The
bar can't serve beer with alcohol content above 3.2%. And the set ups are for
you to bring your own bottle and they will mix you cocktails. You can leave your
bottle there in a little locker so it is there for you in the next time. Also,
in that shed next-door, they have Off-sale. They can't have off sale liquor,
meaning a liquor store where you can grab a bottle and go, in the same
premises. But you can go and buy a bottle of gin in that little shed, and then
bring it back inside the bar and have yourself a martini served to you by the
bartender. We used to go there once in a while to Music and they would have
great country bands out there. Even old Hugo would get out on the dance floor
with the young ladies. He had the moves.
From there down the
Peyquan Lake Road. A beautiful road with curves and hills and good pavement. A
canopy of trees. The curves range from tight to sweepers. With an occasional
glimpse of P Q Lake.
A road construction sign
ahead. One lane road. Out there in the boondocks it was just me and the young
gal who was the flag person. We had quite a while to chat. She was from Esko.
She had brand new Redwing boots that she was quite proud of. They were nice.
Very comfortable, she says, for standing all day like she does. She has seen
foxes, wolves, raccoons, lots of deer, bears, but never a moose.
Which brings me to
another fascinating topic. We had dinner the other night at Mel George's resort
on elephant Lake. The owner has a collector of moose horns. Or sheds as he
calls them. If you find one, you will find the other one nearby. Interestingly,
it might be this way for a deer, too, each shed is the moose's own singular
fingerprint. No two moose have the same configuration. He showed us two pairs
that were exactly identical from the same moose.
So there you have it.
She got a call on the
walkie-talkie and answered, and I heard the other lady say, at the other end,
sorry I really had to go. Eventually, the chain of cars went by, and I
proceeded. I blushed for her when I rode by.
So I went from the young
lady into the abyss. 7 miles of crater of the moon. Dust from big side dumpers
flying by in the other direction, loose gravel and piles, ridges, the wind by
this time was excessive and blowing my way and cold. Trenches and rous, and of
course washboard. Another thing that is remotely interesting is that I heard a
podcast once and it was concluded that science has no explanation, as of yet,
for washboard roads. They happen at all kinds of roads, high speed, low speed,
gravel, asphalt, even old train tracks will eventually develop some washboard
type of contour.
I finally got on
pavement, but it was after all the beautiful curves and over arching trees.
Straight shot to duluth. My bike is a pig. I cleaned her up in the yard here,
but we'll take her to the car wash and go after it. It is only a mile away in a
good car wash. I can race home and take my weed blower, leaf blower,
contraption, and blower dry. Works good.
I meet a group of guys
every Wednesday and Thursday for happy hour at the Pickwick, which is a bar
restaurant here downtown. One of them told me years ago not to worry about a
mad influx of customers on grandma's weekend. He pointed out that they come to
town, eat the free spaghetti, run the race pack up and jump in their Subaru and
leave immediately after staying at grandma's, or a distant Cousin or someone
they barely know in the backyard in a tent. He was an old-time bar owner. One
time the Jehovah's Witnesses had a national convention here in duluth and he
said they came with a $10 bill in one hand and the 10 Commandments in the other
and never broke either of them.
Sorry about rambling on,
but I am retired.
102 miles
7/6/26
Wild Turkey Ride Report
Day before yesterday, I decided to take a ride. Excuse me I’m dictating this
while I walk the dogs up there all kinds of errors that is because I am picking
up dog shit etc.
Also, I am laying down some dog shit here. I decided to go to the iron range. I
headed it out of town on the Rice Lake Road past the airport. It’s a beautiful
stretching road for many many miles. Through the woods. Also, between the 2
halves of Island Lake on a narrow strip of road in that’ll lake is beautiful
with numerous islands in the distance. It is a reservoir, part of our power
company’s, huge grids of locks and dams and lakes, etc. I’ve heard the people
do not own their lake homes on this lake, but they lease it from the power
company. Your shoreline can vary remarkably in one year depending on the need
for water downstream at the power plants. Rode up through the.Palo Township
area. Getting close to the range. All the roads have finish names. The Finn’s
migrated there from the iron range. They were key figures in labor unrest on
the iron range trying to get their share from the big shots like JP Morgan that
controlled everything. Lots of labor unrest up there even some shootings if I
remember right. The American communist party got its start up there towards
Chisholm, one of the locals was a bona fide candidate for president. At any
rate, the fins migrated from the range down to that neck of the woods I was
driving through and considerably farther east. There is an old Finn school well
preserved miles above two harbors. I stopped there on my bike at least once a
summer. There are kiosks there. One of them holds an aerial photograph taken in
about 1948. That shows numerous finish Homestead/farms dotting the landscape.
These guys moved out there, Homesteaded and eeked out a living and a family.
The next kiosk had that same aerial photograph the same altitude, etc. This one
was taken sayi in 2009. Not one of them was visible any longer. At any rate
came into the iron range at aurora- Hoyt lakes and continued north across the
Embarrass Mountains, which, I take it are part of the Lairention divide. At
their peak my bike turned over 30,000 miles. I stopped to take a picture. Kept
going past more finish Homesteads that you can now visit to see how they did
things back in the day.The cabins are also/barns attached. I took a right way
up there towards Embarrass. The town of embarrass. A nice little place. The
name comes from the French Voyagers, who named it, most likely, 100 years
before George Washington was born.French voyageurso pelnetrated all through
this neighborhood way up into Canada and across the continent to British
Columbia. The primary export of this entire continent, Beaver skins, came
through grand portage on Lake superior headed back towards Europe and the trade
goods manufactured there came back up the grand portage to trade with the
natives.. Embarrass was the name they applied to river there over there
because it had so many rapids and required so many portages. This town is
historically known for being the coldest spot in the state butTower north of
there recorded the state record low in the mid 90s. Now it is deemed that
Cotton north of duluth is most likely the coldest spot in the state traditionally,
but there was no accurate thermometers there in the days back then. There are
now.I rode through cotton this spring when it was 35°, on my way to Virginia,
Minnesota, it was north of Cotton, where my nuts fell off. Got to the town of
Babbitt. I hadn’t been there in years and there was a road I wanted to fill in
on my map from that town to Ely. Babbitt is a company town. By the 1950s iron R
head been completely or nearly completely, exhausted. A professor at the
university of Minnesota invented invented a way to extract ironore
pellets from Taconite. It was a resurrection for the iron range which was on
its way to looking like the copper country of the upper Peninsula or the coal
country back east. The original iron towns looked a lot like those in Michigan
and back east. Babbitt on the other hand was completely designed for the
workers by the taconite companies. Hoyt Lakes is another example. Silver Bay is
too. And there was one named Taconite Harbor, where the Lakers would pull up on
the big lake at the end of a rail line that I think came from Babbitt area.
That is a complete ghost town. I went through in the 70s and it had all the
same company ramblers. Houses A B or C in the curving streets, etc. That Port
has been canceled and taconite comes to the twin ports here now. I have rode my
motorcycle through the old town site and in the woods you can still see leaning
street lights and maybe an old basketball hoop, etc. The houses were all sold
and moved, probably around the tournament of the century.The Port itself is
really bitching. I think One laker a year still calls on that port to unload
coal for the nearby power plant. It has a very generous public boat landing
there for fisherman, etc. at any rate Babbitt is a town of curving streets and
the houses all laid out by the taconite company. INow they have been mostly
remodeled and changed since being constructed in the 1950s. The company built
churches and schools and all the infrastructure. They needed the workers there.
My point of going to the town was to check it out one last time but also to see
my next-door neighbor and drinking buddy Pete’s church there. He was the priest
of the Catholic church in Babbitt for some time. I rolled out of there along
the North Shore of Birch Lake. I have a 2nd cousin that lives there. Happily
the road was paved all the way to Highway 1 which was my goal. I came out by
the Ely airport which figures in a late chapter of a mysterious book I
got from a neighbor up at the lake named Jack Swim. He was a fishing buddy of
my father’s and a World War II veteran. He said here take this book. Someone
gave it to me back in rock island and said I think your uncle is in the book.
He said I read it and sure enough it has my uncle who worked at the airport in
Rock Island. I read the book a couple of times. It is called 1933. The devil
comes to Henry County. The book is a complete mystery in some ways. Very few
copies were printed. It was published by a press in Rock Island or Davenport
that only publishes books on chess. Y You won’t believe how many books there
are in chess. at any rate, this is about, God I could go into so much detail
that is so unique about it, at any rate young guys who break into the National
Guard armory and steel machine guns, and become Bank robbers. They are savvy.
They, like Dillinger, knew when the money would be in the banks. They invested
their money in a big farming operation southeast. southeast of Rock
Island. It is a fascinating story by an author. I can’t find any information on
whatsoever. These guys buy some interesting cars like a supercharged Cord. And
they also bought an high-performance airplane of limited production. I can’t
remember the name of it, but Lindberg had one as well. They do some robberies
in Minneapolis and things get tight towards the end and protagonist and his
wife takeoff on their going north. Somehow that plane was at the Ely airport.
At Atkinson, Minnesota, Bruce I had never heard of Atkinson and have been down
Highway 61 prior to reading the book, FBI agent spot them. They were looking
for them on every road out of Minneapolis. A gun fight and sued and I think the
agents were wounded or one was killed. I don’t know but they made it to the
hotel duluth and spent a very nervous night there. All of the locations are in
unbelievable detail as if this memoir is for real. It is uncanny. He spends the
night watching his car on the downhill side of the street by the hotel duluth
and the next morning I think a friend picks them up from Ely and brings them to
the plane and he flies it Back in the dark to rock Island navigating by the
Mississippi river. Jack’s uncle is in the block at the Rock Island airport. The
book is fascinating, and the manuscript for it is supposedly discovered is also
fascinating. A cop finds it in Montreal or Toronto while they are on the trail
for the kidnapper of the Coors family heir back in the 1960s. Back in
Colorado. Which did happen. And they chased the guy all the way across Canada.
I think they finally got him in British Columbia. At any rate there are
suggestions towards the end of the manuscript that this guy became associated
with rebels in Central America in the late 50s and early 60s and flew missions
for them and so forth. It is inexplicable, but a good read.
So get on with it, I hit Highway one which is probably the most beautiful
stretch of road in Minnesota crossing several branches of Birch Lake and
going through woods and hills, not far from the boundary Waters, which the
voyager used as their highway for centuries and numerous curves with deceitful
Apexes. Just a blast. Towards Finland, Minnesota it straightens out and I was
already feeling the cool air from the big lake .It was burning hot up in the
iron range up there. Finland used to have a missile base. You can still go up
there and see all the old buildings and stuff from the early days of the Cold
War. Came out in Silver Bay and it sure does look like a company town with the
same kind of house iand curving streets and one central area where the stores
are and so forth. Blasted Home along the North Shore of Lake Superior. I filled
in that one section of the map that was bugging me.
