A Beautiful Saturday

I have had some less-than-ordinary stress in my life for the last month or so experiencing the day I had last Saturday made me forget some things temporarily.  M and I went on a motorcycle ride mid-morning and wouldn't be back for almost 8 hours.  The weather was unseasonably warm for October with the temperature in the 80's.  We didn't have a destination in mind other than maybe going north.  Follow me on the journey:


We started at Aamodt's Apple Farm in Stillwater, where it was extremely packed.  I want to say there were a thousand cars in the parking areas but I'm sure that's exaggerated.  Because we were on the bike, we didn't have room to buy anything but we bummed around and sampled some apples and honey.

We stopped in upper Stillwater to eat lunch at Acapulco. The worst service ever and we won't be back to that location.  We got on the bike and headed through downtown Stillwater, which was packed.  We weren't sure what was going there but we knew it wasn't just because the weather was so beautiful.  After finally getting through downtown, we headed north up 95 and went to visit Jackson Meadow, which wasn't scary at all this time and then headed to St. Croix Chocolate Company for a treat.  We each had two pieces of chocolate.  This chocolate is the best I've ever had.  

We headed further north to Osceola Landing.  This is the same picnic area that we usually pull into and have our lunch when we are on our annual canoe trip.  Because of a busy summer, we weren't able to go on this trip for the first time in five years.  We'll be going next year for sure.  The day was somewhat hazy so it's reflected in the pictures.  The fall leaves and colors were past their peak but the foliage was still colorful as we crossed into Osceola, Wisconsin and rode around on back roads. 

 

   

When Michael was in his early teens-20's at his job at the time, he "dipped" (put the plastic coating on) this bench. We sat and had some ice cream at the park behind Coffee Connection. 

We headed back south on the Wisconsin side through Somerset where we stopped in on my Aunt Terri and Uncle Ken at their house.  Do you remember that cat that both M and I agonized about taking?  Instead of them taking the cat to the Humane Society, they ended up keeping her, which made me happy. 

We stopped at an old drive-in movie theatre, which we found out is a place where they have outdoor church from May to September.  I've driven by this so many times but have never driven in until now.

Finally, we headed back into Minnesota through Stillwater where the traffic was still bad.  After talking with Ken and Terri, they said there was a pumpkin contest going on in Stillwater and the largest pumpkin weighed in at over 1800 lbs so we decided to check them out.

 

 

The St. Croix River is very high and is flooding areas of walkways by the river. With the setting sun shining on the trees along the river, the colors were much more vibrant. 

On our way home, we stopped by the cemetery to say hi to Cherrie and Rainy just as it was starting to get dark. 

The day was perfect.  Just M, me, the motorcycle and the day's experiences.