Visiting the Mayo Clinic

I stopped in Rochester because there was no way I'd make it to Madison yesterday. Rochester is known for the world-famous Mayo Clinic medical center. The hotels all have shuttles to Mayo as most guests are patients.

The center itself offers tours because of its great size and its museum and artistic works. I took a self guided audio tour of the artworks.

I also took a look at the museum. The highlight for me was one of the first heart and lung bypass machines, this one's circa 1957.

I have some video of the atrium, where a pianist is playing live music, most probably for patient comfort.

I stayed last night in a hotel for $50. While I don't like spending he money, I certainly got my money's worth, as I could take a long-needed shower, have some breakfast and coffee, wash my clothes, soak in some air conditioning, etc.

Leaving Rochester at about 3PM I met a guy on a Harley and rode with him for about 2 hours. We took 2 gas stops together. He was retired and visiting his daughter. He said he had almost 100,000miles on his 2005 Harley. After talking about how I dropped my bike, he chimed in saying he had dropped his nearly a dozen times, and to me he seemed like an experienced competent rider. In his most recent crash he was in a relative's driveway, and started loosing traction on the gravel and tried to "power out" of it. Instead, the bike straightened out quickly and spat him over the handlebars, where he hit the ground breaking 5 ribs in the process. He said it was the most painful experience he's had, and it took 10 months to heal. I didn't feel so bad about myself after that story!

Here are our bikes together