River Roads

What an awesome evening! The weather is just perfect with a high in the mid 80's, a cool breeze, and a sunny sky. A coworker didn't have twist my arm very hard to leave work early and go for a ride on our bikes. Vrooom! Vrooom! Buzz. She has a Harley with loud pipes. She does the Vrooming and I do the buzzing. Away we went to Big Lake. We took the back roads past the Green Valley Nursery into Elk River, across those crazy railroad tracks on Main Street that form a W forcing me to head up, down, up and down in quick succession, and north along the Mississippi. We went past acres of potato fields. The potato plants are healthy and bulky and already forming blossoms. We went past pumpkin field and corn fields. Even though the giant sprinkler in the corn fields are 500 yards away we could feel the wetness hit us as we went by. A red tailed hawk left a light post as we went by and kept up with us for a short distance. We stopped to shop at the Shade Tree store. You'd think it was a garden store by the name of it but it's a motorcycle and snowmobile store. They sell clothes and parts. We returned on the far side of the Mississippi through Monticello. I could not believe the traffic on Hwy. 25 over the Mississippi. We had to wait a long time for the light to change. I guess I didn't think Monticello had much of a rush hour but I was wrong. We drove past the school and the hospital, following the river south into Otsego. We continued on through Dayton. We came to an awesome farm. The first thing we noticed was the smell of manure. Then we saw the barn stuffed with giant round hay bales. The last thing to catch our attention were the lovely pink and red hollyhocks standing tall against the white barn wall. We came through Champlin slowly. I've hard too many tales about speeding tickets in Champlin. What a great ride.