Spring Cruise May 14-16, 2021

Our first cruise of 2021 is in the books. There were 23 club members that traveled to the Wisconsin Dells for the weekend. Friday, we met at our first stop, Shipwreck Bay, on Castle Rock Lake for lunch. The sun was shining making it feel very warm after all of the coldy winter. We stayed on an outside deck and had a great lunch and reminisced with Viper friends we hadn’t seen for a year. After lunch we cruised around the lake by taking some county roads. Can’t say we didn’t get lost a few times but the scenery was nice and we ended up at the right place, Fawn Creek Winery. Most of us sampled about 12 different wines and then bought a few bottles as well. The winery was a small place but had a nice deck so again we went out on the deck and had some more wine! But not too much because we still had to get back to the hotel. Being with Viper friends and laughing and telling stories and talking about our dogs was a great way to get back into our Viper cruising. We proceeded to the hotel which was a resort and got checked in. Had a couple of hours to dinner so some members checked out the water park in the resort and others explored the two stairways down to the river. Did I mention there were 80 steps on one path and 75 on the other, whew! After dinner we all settled in to be ready to do a little racing the next day.

Saturday morning brought early rains. It was raining so hard that we had to cancel the track event scheduled at the Dells Raceway. Some of us sat in the dining room and had coffee/tea and others had breakfast. It finally stopped raining and we headed out for our next stop which was Carr Valley Cheese. We again followed some county roads and finally arrived at Carr Valley Cheese but a couple of cars weren’t there yet. We got separated after getting gas and some went to a different cheese place. Anyway we all ended up at the right place and boy did we buy the cheese! It was a nice drive and visit at this place! Once again we headed off to lunch and enjoyed the company of our Viper friends. After lunch we were going to a Lavender farm but found out it was closed. Good thing we checked the web site again. We continued on to another winery, Balanced Rock Winery. This winery was very modern and hip with lots of young people and their dogs! There was a band playing and one of the band members looked exactly like our member Jeff! After sampling and again chatting with everyone and enjoying the music and dogs, we headed back to the hotel. We had dinner at the Kilbourne Grill which was at the resort and even had a couple of Viper members who weren’t with us all day come just for dinner! It was nice greeting everyone with hugs!

Sunday morning we all slept in a little while some went to the water park again and others were taking walks and climbing those stairs! We headed back towards the Dells main street and had a nice outdoor lunch at the River Pub. After lunch we all headed different directions. Some stayed and took a boat ride on the river, while most of us headed home.

For a 3 day event, we all had a great time catching up with our Viper friends. Next time hope more of you can join us as well.

Remember the next Viper cruise is July 9-11 and we’ll be heading to St Joseph, MO. The home and birthplace of Jesse James. Info and registration is on the Illinoisvipers.com website.

See you at the next cruise!