1st Annual "Bursch Biker Bakeoff" Road Trip - The Journey Begins
submitted by Fred Bursch June 22, 2009
After spending most of yesterday trapped in-doors with rain and gusty winds, I feared that the forecast for my week-long motorcycle trip might be wrong. The long-term forecast for the week was to be sunny and hot, with scattered thunderstorms but it didn't appear that way this morning. At dawn there was fog over the lake and Terri was afraid to let me venture into the fog on my motorcycle. Luckily by the time I left home the fog had burned off and the roads were dry.
My first stop this morning was the gas station to fill up the motorcycle. It is certainly nice to have gas less than $4 per gallon but it is still much higher than this past winter. I paid $2.93 per gallon for premium, which what I use in the motorcycle because of the high compression of the engine. Luckily I get better than 40 miles per gallon.
My second stop was at the bank to load up my wallet. When traveling the back roads ATM's are not all that frequent and some of the gas stations don't take credit cards. I make sure I have an extra $20 tucked away for emergencies.
I arrived at the Alex office shortly after 8 and found Lola Rademacher and Shelley Anderson already hard at work.
When it comes to the Bursch Biker Bake Off, they had a bit of an unfair advantage. Shelley first started working for me in Alexandria about 30 years ago and she knows most of my weaknesses. She had a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies waiting for my arrival. Luckily I had a light breakfast and there was still room for an adequate sampling â€" they were marvelous. I was going to pack them on the bike but thought the 90 degree forecast might be a bit too much. Now I wish I had taken them along but Shelley promised to freeze them for future consumption.
Unfortunately for me, Lola and Shelley also had a scale waiting for me. I feigned ignorance for a while but then they made me climb on the scale, complete with my heavy leather jacket and boots. That way we will have no accurate measure of actually how much weight I put on this week, because the jacket and boots have to weigh about 10 pounds, or more. We even got a customer to take a picture of the whole crew, plate of cookies and me on the scale.
Life is good. As I left Alexandria the sun started to appear through broken clouds and I entered the freeway to the tune of Harley pipes with Bonnie Raitt in the CD player. I cruised on up to Fargo with stops in Ashby to have my picture taken with a coot, and in Rothsay with a statue of a Prairie Chicken. I hope to get these pictures uploaded to Facebook sometime in the next day so you can all join in the adventure.
Sandie Anders commented to the Fargo staff about my noisy motorcycle pipes as I pulled into the parking lot in Fargo. Chicken Ceasar salad is awaiting and Susan has enough garlic in it to keep away the mosquitos as I continue the trip.
To be continued….