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Good morning from the Moto Grappa at the top of Virginia.
Regrettably, a GRiSO is no longer resident here, but I post now and then some ride reports for those who -- perhaps especially Down Under just now -- can only read wistfully about riding.
The “Bottom Line Up Front” is that the pix in this post -- cross-posted elsewhere, too -- are about a c.two-week, 3000-mile motorcycle ride with buds in a (successful) search for mutton and fried cheese curds (and beer, bourbon, & BS) in Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa. Hardly "epic" compared to Prudhoe, Ushaiai, and similar treks, but great fun for those of us who did it.
One pic now; lots more in the link that follows.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Here are the details.
For the past several years, I and some similarly demented riders — mostly on Moto Guzzis, thus confirming the mental determination — have ridden to Daviess County in western Kentucky to eat mutton. Yes, it’s an acquired taste that few seem inclined to acquire, but as most here know, any excuse to ride will do.
As musician writer, and food critic, Tom Maxwell, recently wrote in a great piece about mutton, "Owensboro, which (somewhat brazenly) calls itself the "Barbecue Capital of the World," is located in Daviess County in the western part of Kentucky.
When there, we routinely go to the several local restaurants that feature mutton, e.g., the iconic Moonlite BBQ. The dispute about which is the best is a local spectator sport.
But our goal is not restaurant mutton, but a church picnic and its top-tier mutton.
There are quite a few of those church affairs, but my family’s parish — which we helped establish in the early 1800’s — is St. Mary of the Woods in Whitesville.
St. Mary’s has held these picnics for about 160 years. The first I remember was about 1957.
Unlike some church picnics (and many BBQ restaurants all over the US), St. Mary’s does not — Bill says somewhat snarkily — parboil the meat.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]We Guzzisti — and some other-brand riders who want to be like us
— go twice a year as there is a spring and fall “edition.”
Some of us launch from my place, the Moto Grappa, at the top of Virginia and ride to Owensboro. We usually take three days … because we can.
This latest event, held on Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, 26 May, is the subject of the first part of this post.
This “Mutton Run” differs from previous forays in a significant way, as some of us continued on after that in a quest for fried cheese curds!
Two years before I retired in 2013, the Army HQ’s where I served relocated from Fort Gillem, Georgia, to Rock Island Arsenal, Illinois. I had not wanted to make that move, but am so glad I did. Why?
First, I was a geographical bachelor, so my honey-do’s were limited. Kathi, my Perfect Pillion & Polish Princess, has since caught up with the ones I missed (with interest
). That said, as I took my Moto Guzzi Norge out there, and, while there, bought a GRiSO, I was able to ride every weekend … and just about did in season, of course. Yet, with proper gear tempered with common sense, the riding months were longer than I expected.
And, second, the “alphabet roads” — secondary, tertiary, and more — especially in Wisconsin’s "Driftless area” were grand. Having spent the previous 10 years riding in the mountains of Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina, and spoiled by the likes of the Cherohala Skyway, Blood Mountain, the RBRSH, Deals Gap, etc. after etc., I did not expect the fun I had riding in the Driftless.
While many know of this region — essentially where the glaciers “missed” — in SW Wisconsin, NW Illinois, NE Iowa, and SE Minnesota, it was news to me until I rode out there.
As it had been some time since I and Cap’n Larry visited and rode with me out there, we loaded our GPS’s with turn-by-turn maps of 33 of the best of the Driftless area’s “alphabet roads” that we got from Dale Hoke, Driftless Roads. We eventually combined two described on his site: the Pecatonica and Taliesin Routes, and touched on others.
Oh, wait; I forgot the “third why:” Fried cheese curds.
I’m not talking about what Culver’s has a “side.” What a pale shadow of the real thing. Culver’s does mighty fine with frozen custard and OK with “Butter Burgers,” but fried cheese curds? No. Sad.
As I said, for me, this was a 12-day, 3000-mile motorcycle ride. For some, e.g., Larry, it was as much as 4K.
Eight Guzzis were in the group — tho we never rode in maddening-for-all convoy. We also had two “Other Brands” who joined along the way.
If you find the number of pix daunting, bear in mind that I culled the 1000 pix I took down to a more manageable 900 or so. OK, not that many.
The link opens in "landscape collage," thus allowing you to look at all at once rather than slogging through those individually.
If you view in that format, hover your cursor over each pic to see captions. The system truncates some of the longer ones.
You can view the pix in slideshow form so the pix are larger, and let it roll every 10 seconds or move them along manually more or less frequently.
OK, yes, the link at last …
Running Mutton & Chasing Fried Cheese Curds
Bill
P.S. Tom's Maxwell's (great) piece on Kentucky mutton is here: https://www.tastingtable.com/1299511/how-mutton-barbecue-became-iconic-dish-western-kentucky/Kentucky Mutton BBQ
Subject: Mutton & Fried Cheese Curds — OK, & Motorcycles, Too! 
Sat Jun 22, 2024 8:25 am
