Archive for June 2012
Got Yucks?
What makes the bike trip so special? It’s definitely the friends who return, year after year, that make this an event that is much more than just a chance to ride bikes.
Thanks to Suzanne for capturing these snapshots of me and a few of my pals, after breakfast in the cafeteria of the 1910 public school of Mellen, WI.
You may not be able to tell how much fun we all have together, from the expressions on our faces, but we love a good laugh.
Our legs might get fatigued after miles of pedaling, but our ribs hurt from gut-busting, tear-springing laughter. How can you not get the giggles exchanging text messages with Julie in the tent next door? Or hearing Rhonda tell the joke about what the bra said to the hat?* And, Busbee Peckermann? …I’m afraid you need to hear Roger explain that one. But, once you hear the story, the mere mention of the name is a guaranteed laugh.
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*Look it up. The answer is out there on the web… .Sweet Serendipity
Some images beg to be captured. When the view of this field emerged, as I cycled past a line of tree cover, the single, isolated tree immediately caught my attention. I thought for a second, about whether I wanted to break my rolling momentum to take the picture. The answer was, “Yes.”
I wasn’t the only one who noticed the allure of the tree. Several passing riders called out their approval of my decision. My good friend, Rich, pulled over to take some photos of his own.
All this attention must have turned out to be too much for a deer that had been concealed in the line of trees to our left. In the broad daylight of mid-morning, we were surprised by the suddenly darting deer, searching for a more private place to nap, across the open field spread out before us.
He ran right into the field of view of our cameras. We got a 2-for-1 reward for our effort.
It was a nice reminder of the value of seizing the moment. I would have missed this sweet serendipity if I had decided to just ride on.
The Grind
Back to the grind and I am ambivalent about reclaiming my role in the work-world. Imagine that.
My vacation week of cycling was good. It was a return to an old routine I am familiar with, having participated many times before, however, it felt different for me, compared to previous years. Something about that feeling is influencing my motivation about writing about the trip. It is possible that the simple difference of having not written a journal each day, is part of it. But I think there is more.
I think it is also a function of living away from my wife, of having my home artificially staged to look good for showing, of the looming possibility that my home will sell when I have nowhere to go.
I told the story of Cyndie living and working in Boston, and our dream of selling our home to buy rural horse property, so many times on the bike trip that the sound of my own telling began to ripple my perceptions of our dream. I was on vacation from it all, but I was frequently re-affirming the plan. It was both invigorating, and unsettling.
On the Friday a week ago, when I was completing my packing for the bike trip, and about to be picked up for the drive to the starting town, I finally identified the disturbing smell that was increasingly making itself known in my house. A couple of days before, I walked into the house and thought I noticed the faint smell of something that resembled a dirty diaper.
I checked the garbage, the refrigerator, and even the plants in the kitchen window. It was definitely an organic smell. Friday, it became strong enough to be obvious. There was a dead mouse somewhere in the house. I was just about to close up the house for a week, making it available for showings the whole time I would be gone, and there was a dead mouse stinking to high heaven.
The first feedback that came in was pretty brutal. By the time I got home on Saturday, the smell was no longer obvious, but during the week, I had to reconcile that I was not in control of that situation. It was, what it was.
Returning to work is what my reality is today. It is what it is. I’m hoping it will be a relatively gentle grind. I’m not feeling very much in control of the situation.
Here is a shot from the bike trip that tells a story from one of our rest stops…
I’m Home!
It’s always nice to get home again, even though the trip was so much fun that I wish it wouldn’t end. We enjoyed mostly favorable weather, right up until the second-to-the-last day, when a robust thunderstorm swallowed much of our riding time, and left us soaked to the bone.
Earlier in the ride, Jim enlisted the support of the local police to escort us across a high-traffic intersection, and I caught this shot as we started out…
This trip was different for me, in that I have acquired a familiarity with the routine that allows a certain amount of casual planning, yet it had been 2-years since I last participated and I was a bit rusty on some of the details.
I remembered to bring my journal, but I forgot a pencil. I never did get around to buying or borrowing one, so, I didn’t do any writing all week. Maybe I was due for a break.
The good thing about that is, I didn’t fret over it. Just went with the flow.
I am now in the struggle of reorienting my thinking from the carefree mode of vacation, to the responsibilities of taking care of the home and heeding the scheduled events I committed to before I left. What were those, anyway?
The day-job starts up again tomorrow. I better not forget that. The yard at home is in need of attention. I must unpack my camping gear and prepare it for storage.
It is good to be home again, but I already miss the freedom of that open road and the treasure of like-minded friends who make it such a wonderful week-long adventure.
Trip Over
After all that –the blathering on of the last week about bike touring and this trip– I hope you are anxiously awaiting my stories and images captured from the adventure.
I am, too.
If I haven’t arrived to update this post, it means I have not had a chance yet, and am probably sleeping in, luxuriating in the comfort of an actual bed again, in the paradise of my in-laws’ wonderful vacation home on Round Lake, near Hayward, Wisconsin, with a collection of friends.
That is the plan, anyway.
And if that is the case, you’ll just have to wait another day. I plan to be back home to sleep in my own bed tonight, and hope to begin posting “live” again, tomorrow.
Thanks for following along on my adventures!
Last Day
By this time of the week of biking and camping, we are ready to be done with this scene:
We are ready to get back to our own beds.
Now, this year, I have something special in store. This last leg of the trip this year starts in Hayward (where my in-laws’ vacation home is) and heads back to Spooner where the ride began, and where most everyone’s car is parked.
Not mine. We strategically left our car at the cabin, at the start of the week. Today I, and a few friends, ride our bikes to the luxury vacation home and hang out at the lake and then sleep in beds for a bonus night on the end of the bike trip. Pretty spiffy.
If all goes according to plan, I will be back to posting live tomorrow, from the “cabin,” with my first report on how this year’s annual “Jaunt with Jim” bike tour went for me and the approximate 150 of my very special friends.
I’m hoping it will be all sunny, warm, and tail-winds to write about! Oh, and plenty of good food, too.
Bike Touring
Long distance touring on bicycle is not as hard as it may seem. It’s all in the rhythm. You pace yourself for a long duration. The journey becomes as valuable as the destination. We generally ride at a fairly casual pace. Each person, or group of people, seem to have a certain speed that suits them best. We fan out into groups that ride their pace.
We don’t ride the whole day’s distance in one block. We ride a couple of hours and take a break, usually to ingest more food. Some people have taken to exclaiming that we are an eating group with a biking disorder. Food at each stop keeps us fueled for the day-long exercise. By the end of the day, we feel tired, but it is a good tired. I have no problem falling asleep as soon as I turn out my night-light and lay down in my tent.
Our trip also provides the luxury of hauling our gear from town to town, so we don’t need to carry anything on our bikes, except what we feel we might need during each day’s ride. There are a stalwart few who do still carry their own tent and gear, like everyone had to do in the early years of this annual ride, but the majority accept the benefit offered, and that makes the long distance even more achievable for the average rider.
For this adventure, however, the cycling seems to fall to a secondary level of importance, behind the friendships that have evolved and the companionship of a wonderful group of people who return, year after year, to share each others’ company.
We do a special kind of bike touring.
Some Days
Some days if feels like you spend most of the day looking at the back sides of people in front of you on the road. It is a view not unlike this:
Trip Song
This is the previously published slide-show to the tune I wrote about our annual bike trip in the middle of June…
Still Ridin’
Okay, so it’s now day 3 of the bike trip. If it wasn’t obvious, I need to tell you that I am describing the basics of our trip, before it has actually happened. The posts this week were written last week and saved in queue for my daily readers. As per my usual routine, I take a break from posting for the days I am on the trip. I try to get off the electronic grid as much as possible for this vacation, yet I sneak in a visit to nearby establishments that might have a Stanley Cup hockey game (or World Cup Soccer every 4th year) on for viewing.
I hope to capture the highlights in my hand-written journal that I like to scribe when I settle into my tent for the night. I get to that after I spend a few precious minutes tickling the strings of my travel guitar that spends the night in the tent with me.
Anyway, back to day-3… Since it is Monday, it finally feels genuinely like being on vacation. If all goes according to plan, we will have spent the night tenting in Superior. Today we are riding to Bayfield, where we get to spend 2-nights camped in the same location. It is always a treat to not need to get up early and pack the dew-covered tent for one day out of the week.
Relative Something 