The Mississippi Cruise ‘N Ride - Day 2
(The next 24 hours of the dream.)

We decide to visit “The Hungry House Café” for supper and make reservations for 7:00 that evening. It’s a short ride and by 9:00 we’ve had our fill of “home cooking” and local hospitality.
Some people turn in when we return to the boat. Some relax in the upper deck bar and rehash the day’s ride. We also do some planning for tomorrow’s ride.

8:00 am sees most of the riders up, fed and ready to go. We rouse the rest and head out just after 9:00 for a ride south along the western bank of the river. It’s a rugged, hilly route with a lot of small towns (and no malls). We stopped for coffee at Millville (right after I got some great video shots of the crew coming up a winding hill).

After that, we cut south west away from the river for a ride through the countryside. Eventually, we cut back east toward Dubuque where the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium houses the world’s largest steam towboat along with lots of other interactive displays on Old Man River. After a brief stop however, we decide to push on to Galena (Iowa) which is just a few miles from Dubuque and houses J&P Cycles. It’s a huge repository of motorcycle parts and is kind of a warehouse, show bike showroom and restaurant. We head there for lunch and more videotaping.

After lunch, 2 couples decided to head for the National Motorcycle Museum at Anamosa (about 10 minutes away. The rest of us head south and east along highway 52 to Mendota and then spend the rest of the afternoon working our way back through the cornfields to Dubuque to meet the houseboat.

We get back (a little late) at 6:00 pm and immediately hit the hot tub and the upper bar. It has been a long day although we didn’t go that far as we stopped a lot (166 miles).

Tonight we’re just going to BBQ some pork chops and bake some potatoes.