Riding with Dan & Sablu & Dylan, Weekend of January 17, 2009

Friday, January 16, 2009. Weather was zero degrees and dropping at 6:30 pm

We got a late start up to the Pond today, and had a few tasks to complete when we got there, so we got kind of a late start on our ride today. We left the Pond on the Bonita Creek trail and headed south on 7 S railroad grade. We turned east on 2112. What a great job the groomers have done with this trail this year. We headed over to Water's Edge on Anderson Lake, where we met Barb and got more R4RD benefit ride posters. We left there and headed across Anderson Lake, down to the Junction, and around the back of the Junction to the 18 W trail back to Chute Pond. We came back onto the lake through Everbreeze, and headed back to pick up our friend Sablu, who just arrived at our place. We got his sled going and headed over to Kitty's Grill & Bar for a delicious fish fry. We knew we had a busy day of riding coming up, so after a few games of pool at Kitty's, we called it a night. We only rode 17 miles today (Sablu rode 3/4 of a mile!)

Saturday, January 17, 2009. Weather was 6 degrees and snowing pretty good at 9:00 am

We officially have changed the name of today's blog to

"Riding with Dan & Sablu"

Most people say we look like we should be brothers, so let's just say we are................

Dylan went riding with some friends today. They headed north towards Armstrong Creek, so we decided to head south. We figured it was a good day to go south because of the good amount of snow on the ground, as well as the fresh snow coming down. We left the Pond on the Bonita Creek trail and took the 7 S railroad grade down to Gillett. Trails were in good condition- a little bumpy in spots, but the fresh couple of inches of snow gave us a nice cushion to ride on. We continued on the 7 S trail to Cecil, where we picked up a Shawano County map at the BP. We quickly learned that many trails are not marked as nicely as the ones in Oconto and Langlade Counties are. We guessed our way through many intersections as we made our way south towards the Mountain Bay trail. We got on this trail just west of Bonduel, and headed west towards Shawano. Trails so far continued to be good or better. The Mountain Bay trail is an old railroad grade, and it was in great shape- flat and smooth. The "in city" part of the ride would not have been nearly as nice without the fresh snow. We crossed many city streets that were snow covered, so it wasn't too bad. We wound our way through Shawano, making only one wrong turn before we were west of the city and back on the Mountain Bay trail. Traffic so far on the trails was very light, and continued to be the same as we headed west on the 20 trail- the Mountain Bay. We stopped along the way to stretch our legs and regroup at the Long Branch Saloon, just east of Bowler. We figured out there was a BP station in Bowler, so that was our next stop. This was a "one stop shop", grocery store, and gas station located right on the trail- very convenient. We continued west to the 9 N trail, and headed up towards Langlade county. We went through Phlox and Polar, where we hit the 18 E trail. We followed that to Gator's Rockin' Country Bar in White Lake where we stopped and enjoyed a home made pizza for lunch. We continued on the 18 E trail to Boulder Lake, then to Four Corners, and took the tunnel trail to 2112. We turned south on 7 S railroad grade and headed down to AA Bar in Breed to drop off a R4RD poster. We continued on south to Vollmar's Trailside in Suring for another poster drop. We fueled at the BP in Suring before heading over to Black Bear Trail Golf Club to attend the Dave Yokeum benefit. This was a great event for Dave. Attendance was great, food was fantastic, with numerous fabulous raffles of all kinds. It was a very well run benefit, and I'm sure it raised a lot of money for Dave Yokeum. After the final drawing (we did not win anything...........does that make the money I spent tax deductible?), we headed home. We rode 183 miles today. Trails were good to excellent, depending on where we were.

Sunday, January 18, 2009. Weather at 10:00 am was 12 degrees and sunny.

Dylan joined us today, so here is the three of us at a break on the trail.

We left the Pond on the Everbreeze trail and headed west to the 7 N railroad grade. I normally am not a big fan of the grade, but I wanted to check it out so we headed north to Halfway Bar and turned west. The grade and all other trails so far were fresh groomed and flat. We turned south on the Mountain Lakes trail and headed back to Four Corners, where we took the trail north toward Animal's Bear Trail. We continued north across Hwy 64, and made a loop into Langlade County, coming back in to Oconto County at Boulder Lake. Paul Bunyan trails were fresh groomed and flat, but Langlade County trails were not groomed last night. In spite of this, they were still in good  enough condition- a very nice ride. Here are a couple of pictures of the trails:

We headed east and took the tunnel to 2112 and back to the Pond.  We rode 63 fabulous, very scenic miles today. The Chute Pond trails again made us proud all weekend. If you were blindfolded, you would have been able to tell when you were or were not on Chute Pond trails. Some times there was a big difference, other times only a little, but there was a difference. Thank you to our Groomer Boss Keith and the Groomer Boys for a job well done. Our first Club Ride is this coming Saturday. We are meeting for breakfast from 8:00- 9:30 am at Kitty's II on Hwy 32. There is a full day's ride planned- here is the Ride Itinerary . Hope to see you there.

Dan, Sablu, & Dylan