Relative Something

After returning to only one day of work, I am able to proclaim the greatness of the past week’s Jaunt with Jim bike trip. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not that a day of work was required to establish that perception, it’s just that it cemented my opinion that much more emphatically. And the return to work wasn’t all that bad, either.

About 2:30 in the afternoon yesterday I was distinctly ready for a nap. I was reminded of the day in Grand [Portage or Marais… Oops, I forgot which one. Bet it’s in my journal] when I barely got my tent set up and found myself sitting at its door with my legs out and then just leaned back and laid down to rest and took a little impromptu nap. Heavenly. I think we should add a nap room at work.

With the Twin Cities currently suffering a dew point of 71°F, I miss being on the shore of the greatest of Great Lakes, Superior, and reveling in the coolness it provides. I am so happy that we had the good weather we did last week. Many people in town were worried about us since it was rainy at home and stormy to the south of here, but up on the north shore we didn’t get a storm until Thursday night. Brought the nerves to an edge to be laying out on a football field in a tent when overhead there is a flash-BOOM! with little pause between, but it was a refreshing experience that reminds me of days gone by when we weren’t so isolated in our buildings behind closed doors and windows under the spell of our central air conditioning luxuries. By morning it had moved on and we didn’t have to ride in the rain, just some spotty fog that included an instant drop in temperature of what felt like 10° or more. Hardly worth framing as a hardship.

I am happy to report that the rest of my pictures from the week of biking are now available at my Picasa Web Album. Maybe having my pictures available like that will help inspire some stories from the trip. It just doesn’t feel like this trip lends itself to the retelling in the same way that the Himalayan trek did. It seems to me that a lot of what I would be inclined to write about ends up being that kind of story that ‘you had to be there’ for. Stories that really only pertain to those people who were there and would share the laughter of how Bob fell trying to change into his shorts while Steve held Bob’s sleeping bag wrapped around Bob’s waist or how I rode up to Gary to marvel over his not falling when his crank became disconnected from his chainring but the pedal remained clipped to his shoe, and then watched him roll over the edge of the pavement into soft gravel that was entirely unforgiving and caused him to go down and break his mirror before I rode off in fear I was creating an unsafe distraction. Or how I had been teasing Scott about being a moose and when he later shouted back at Gary and me to look at the tracks beside the road, Gary asked how he knew they were from a moose and I quietly said to Gary, “It takes one to know one.” Suddenly from the distance, Scott hollers, “I heard that!”

I don’t know if I can adequately describe coming down the steep drop from Devil’s Track General Store to Grand Marais in a soaking rain that lasted only a brief time but left standing water on the road as I glanced at my computer to see I was at 39 mph and afraid to touch my brakes as my tires hydroplaned and the bike got squirrely in the gusts of wind and spraying water before the pavement suddenly became dry and the wind effectively dried everything but my shoes by the time we got back down to the school where not a drop of rain had fallen on the tents. Speaking of the General Store, the gal working at the time our little sub-group of cyclists popped in for lunch was seen walking down the aisle of her store grabbing a bag of buns, some produce, meat and cheese when I walked in, and preparing fresh sandwiches for us which she asked us to eat first and come back and pay for later, after the rush was past so she could better spend her time making more sandwiches for other riders showing up. A beacon of trust and efficiency, she was.

Maybe you didn’t have to be there to understand, but those of you who were, you can’t help but smile over the additional details you hold in you minds, can you?