2016 EMoto 4Corners - Chicago to Minneapolis

Chicago to Minneapolis was a long beautiful day of riding filled with a few challenges, of course.

Leaving Chicago I thought there would be no traffic since I would leave North Chicago heading North. Wrong. Apparently there is well known reverse-commuter traffic heading to Midway Airport. Oy! However, I’m on a motorcycle so I sliced through the traffic by safely lane-filtering.

Lane filtering is when motorcycles travel along the dotted lines between cars that are either stopped or going 30mph or less with a speed-difference of less than 10mph. It is safer for motorcyclists by reducing the chance of getting rear-ended, and gets everyone where they want to go faster.

My first stop was a AAA office in Milwaukee where the nice folks in the call center were super friendly. Then on to Ben Nelson’s house.

Ben has been an internet friend of mine for a while, so it was nice to meet him in person. He has completed several electric scooter/motorcycle projects and has about 999 more in the works. He’s great, and let me charge in his garage as fast as my bike possibly could. That is, until we caused the main breaker for the garage to switch off. Then I turned down the charge rate for the supercharger (it is controllable via a phone app).

So we had a nice chat, he showed me some cool stuff, and I was off to Madison, WI. In Madison, John and Jim met me at an A&W Root Beer gas station. I plugged in my bike, took a drive in John’s Tesla 70D, then we had lunch at Culver’s, which is a classic Wisconsin fast food restaurant. Then, of course, I got a photo with the famous pink elephant, thanks to Jim’s suggestion.

After Madison I had a nice stop at Parkland Campground where I got to dip my feet in the pool after a couple of female campers flirted with me. (“You can plug in at my site anytime!”). Then another great experience at Irvington Campground where I met some fascinating campers and finally off to Minneapolis.

Got to my friend’s house in Minneapolis around 10pm, then charged at a nearby school building. It cost $9 to use both plugs ($3 each, but I messed up connecting the first time on one of them.).

Didn’t have much time to catch up with my friend, but it was great to see her in person for a bit. Off to sleep at midnight, then gotta get up for a 3rd morning in a row at 7am for another long day of riding into the Dakotas!