Leg 22 - Villa Park, IL to Friendship, WI

Left Villa Park, IL at 7:10 am, June 20th after a two week stay with my younger brother Rick and his wife Linda. Rick, Linda and I rode over 500 miles together during my stay.

We rode to Pleasant Prairie, WI to visit our cousins Spring and April and their families. I had not seen my cousin April in close to 40 years. Spring surprised me with an impromptu belated birthday celebration complete with a cake with candles accompanied by ice cream. Thank you Spring.

We rode to Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery with a caravan of cars and two other riders for a one year memorial of Rick's long time friend, Bob, who had died in a car accident. He was an avid rider and a member of the Patriot Guard, as is Rick.

We rode to Starved Rock State Park for a Father's Day brunch. This was the first time I can remember being at Starved Rock even having grown up in Illinois. It was a beautiful ride.

This was also the first time I had spent more than a couple of days with my brother Rick since I moved to California in 1975. It was nice to spend the time together after all these years. What is remarkable is even though we both have been life long motorcycle riders, we had never ridden together.

I rode to Fox Lake, IL to have lunch with a few high school classmates that found time in their schedules. I had not seen several of them since graduating high school in 1965. Laura, one of the attendees, grew up in the same neighborhood. Thank you for the great conversation and wonderful company.

Terry Meyers, one of my classmates, is a life long rider and decided to ride with me to Friendship, WI. His family used to live in Friendship and he took the opportunity to visit the area. Terry lives in Rockford and we decided to meet in Harvard, IL. Terry has a 2001 Goldwing that he has customized to his liking:

We met in Harvard, IL around 8:45 at a local Harvard restaurant. His directions were to take a left at the cow statue in the center of town, ride two blocks and look for his bike. I arrived before Terry, went in and ordered breakfast at the only restaurant open. When I walked in the door I was warmly greeted by a couple of patrons. Everyone who walked in the door was greeted with a welcome similar to the one Norm got on Cheers. Got to love small towns.

Terry showed up about 20 minutes later dressed in similar rain gear to what I was wearing. The weather was predicted as 'ISO thunder storms' and we both got caught in the same passing rain.

We were on the rode again at 10:00 am. The weather was 'iffy' until we got to Columbus. Terry decided to get comfortable and took off his helmet and rain gear and rode in shorts and a cowboy hat. :-)

The plan was to ride to Friendship, WI to visit the family patriarch, Elden Carlson whom the family refers to as Sonny. He is the oldest surviving relative of the Lomax / Carlson families. Sonny and his wife Valerie had disconnected their telephone land line and I did not have a phone number to let them know I was coming.

We arrived at Sonny's house around 2:30 in the afternoon. I knocked on the door and when he answered the door he didn't recognize me. To be fair, we had not seen each other since I was a boy, over 50 years ago. Sonny is now 83.

Terry took the opportunity to bid farewell and left me to reminisce with Sonny and Val. We had great conversation over a nice dinner that Val cooked up and I left around 7pm after exchanging phone numbers, email addresses and a couple of photos.

I decided to camp in the Castle Rock County Campground on Castle Lake. I took the photo from inside my tent just before I called it a day:

Overall, 218 miles and 7 1/2 hours. The ride up Hwy 89 took us through some gorgeous Wisconsin farmland. A great two week layover.