Off to the Shindig!

The Shindig is an annual get together of metal artists who communicate and share knowledge through an internet list server. Wanda and I have been to a few over the last four years. Each year it is hosted by a different member of the group in a different place. This year it's being hosted in Brooklyn, Wisconsin by Rich Fizzell.

Rich's place is about 400 miles from Gene's so we planned for an overnight stop about mid-way in the city of La Crosse, on the Wisconsin side of the Mississipi River.

It had rained overnight but looked like the day would be cloudy. With temperatures forecast in the mid eighties it promised to be a warm and muggy day.

Gene cooked us a wonderful omelette for breakfast, and we spent some time programming the GPS to take us around the northern and eastern sides of Minneapolis St Paul rather than through the city. We were hot in our riding gear before we started, but once under way we were quite comfortable as we rode through green woods and past farms.

Our first stop was in the drop-dead gorgeous city of Stillwater, on the Minnesota side of the Mississipi.

The going was quite slow because there were many towns along the way that we had to slow down to ride through. A bit further down the road, the tummy upset I had two days ago struck Wanda, so we made an early second stop.

La Crosse didn't look far away from Gene's on the map, but we rode for ages without seeming to be getting anywhere. Our GPS at one stage took us from Wisconsin back across the river into Minnesota before returning us back to the road we were on originally. Weird!

We stopped in the little town of Pepin to visit the shop of Tom Latane, a master blacksmith and friend of Gene's. Gene organised for us to call in on our journey. Unfortunately Tom was not there, but we met his wife Kitty who was expecting us. We got to see Tom's blacksmithing shop and some of his work including a beautiful traditional door lock. Kitty is an accomplished tinsmith, and we got to see lots of her work - full-size cookie cutters and miniatures that were made into earrings.

We had one more stop to make before we reached La Crosse: Gene had told us about Buena Vista Park, located on a cliff above the town of Alma. It was well signposted and the ride up was winding and slow - a welcome change from all the straight roads we have been riding. At the top we were welcomed with commanding views of the river and surrounding countryside.

We finally reached La Crosse a bit after 6 pm, tired but full of excitement the prospect of meeting many of our old friends, and making new ones over the coming days.