wedding weekend recap

What an amazing weekend we had!  After the week I had at work & everything that had been going on, I needed to get out of town.  Joe felt the same way after a looonnng work week.  We were ready to take the bike & hit the road.

Friday evening started with meeting my mom at August Hill for a couple glasses of wine & some catching up.  We ended up at Starved Rock where we had a couple more drinks and some dinner.  I headed home about 8:30 since we we're planning to leave early the next day for the wedding in Minnesota.

After a quick fill up & a slice of breakfast pizza, we hit the road about 7AM on Saturday.  The drive was around six hours, but we stop about every 100 miles for gas & to stretch our legs.  The ride was gorgeous.  The weather was perfect, chilly in the AM, nothing chaps and a leather jacket can't fix, and nice enough in the afternoon I could go without the chaps.  The scenery in Wisconsin and Minnesota is breathtaking.  I am determined to spend more time up that way, especially on the bike.  We found some great places & already started making plans for a winter weekend getaway that we can hopefully get all of our friends involved in.  

seriously, how gorgeous is that sky?!

We ended up in Black River Falls Wisconsin (I just LOVE the name of the town) for lunch.  Any place with a name like Black River Falls is bound to have a good bar with good food & good beer, which was exactly what we were looking for.  We ended up at Traveller's Tale.  It has only been open for 3 weeks, but the food was great, the beer was local, the owner is from England, he met a girl from Wisconsin & moved here & opened this gem.  Joe had a killer burger, the Black River Beast, I had a soft pretzel, & we sampled a few of the local brews.  

the Black River Beast!

The wedding was at 3 but we didn't quite make it.  The reception started at 5:30 so we had plenty of time to relax for a bit after the long trip, get ready, & head down to the bar for some appetizers.  The reception was a blast.  It was small, but so much fun.  We were so glad we decided to make the trip.  Jeena and Matt are so perfect for each other, it was awesome to see them finally be married!

table #7 was definitely the drunkest!

the beautiful bride and groom! plus me and Jessica!

husband, groom, Mike, & Jeena

Joe and I

Jessica & Mike (a couple!) won the garter & bouquet toss! they're next :)

dancin til we dropped!  had a blast.

Sunday morning we woke up about 7, ate breakfast, & began our journey home.  The plan was to hit the New Glarus brewery, but it was going to take us about 2 hours out of our way so we changed our minds & decided we'd just stop back in Black River Falls.  We got about an hour down the road & remembered that Leininkugels was not too far out of our way, only actually took us about 15 minutes back north which was not bad at all.  We love craft beer & brewery tours so we figured we're here, we might as well stop.  So glad we did.  We didn't end up doing a tour, but we bought some cute stuff & you could sample five beers for $1!  How awesome is that?!

love this pic!

We did end up back in Black River Falls, Mike and Jessica caught up with us & we went and had some lunch & got back on the road about 3.  We still had at least 4 hours of driving time ahead of us not including stops & one minor breakdown on the side of the road.  It wouldn't be a bike trip without one though!  We ended up home about 8 last night.  My face was sun & wind burnt to a crisp, I had a splitting headache, I was tired, & hungry, but it was well worth it.  We went about 900 miles in 2 days & we hit the 50,000 mile mark on the bike.  We bought the bike a year and a half ago with 42,129 miles so in that short amount of time we've put over 8,000 miles on it.  I love that we do so much of our traveling on it, it's a great way to see different places.  It's so relaxing & fun.   More adventures await!  Up next is our annual camping trip on the bike to Poopy's!