Archive for June 2014
Headed Home
As the route for this year’s bike trip came together, the last leg ended up being the shortest of all, at roughly 22 miles, to get us from Windom back to Jackson where our cars are parked. That’s okay with me. By Friday, my mind is on getting home to my own bathroom and a real bed again. One of the hardest parts of the transition from this vacation back to a normal routine is ratcheting back my diet to a normal calorie intake.
When your vacation involves riding a bicycle all day long, every day, you can pretty much eat whatever you want and justify it as fuel for the next effort ahead of you. My past experience tells me that I won’t be riding much bike when I get home from this trip, so it behooves me to cut back on the daily ice cream treats and what seems like a week of non-stop eating.
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It’s People
From Slayton to Windom, MN today. The Thursday of our annual ride has a special energy to it. It is the second to last day and the bonds that develop through the week are strong. We’ve shared the accomplishment of riding through good weather and bad, living in close quarters and enjoying relaxed time together in vacation mode.
At this point, we can feel the end is near, and it induces a sense of urgency. I want to absorb as much of the energy of communing with these fine people as possible. You wish you could bring them all home in a pocket and include them in the rest of your life, showing them off to friends and family at home.
It is not possible, except in small fractions, and I have successfully done so with a precious few. Gary Larson and I have traveled to Nepal together to trek in the Himalayan mountains. A dozen others have become year-round pals who gather for a variety of other events, not necessarily bike-related.
The biking is nice, but the reason I come back to this trip every June is the people who I have come to know, some by first name only. I see them once a year for a week, and I still regard them as some of my favorite friends.
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Riding On
We ride from Pipestone to Slayton today. Will the wind be at our backs? Have the thunderstorms missed us all week? These are the thoughts that run through my mind in the week before I depart. Memories are still fresh of the year our group got pinned down in a tiny convenience store, waiting out a severe storm that poured down copious amounts of rain that never seemed to quit. Many of us gave up after a couple of hours of killing time there and made a mad dash that turned out being well before the pouring rain and lighting strikes were over. Oops.
I also wonder how Cyndie is doing with the horses and Delilah, and all the chores associated. Is the week feeling long for me at this point, or will it have whipped by in a blink? I’ll write all about it here when I return next week.
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Still Vacationing
Today we are headed to Pipestone, MN. I will have been off-line for 5-days! Wow. I sure hope my butt isn’t sore at this point in the trip. I didn’t have very many miles logged prior to this week, so I am unsure how I’ll hold up to the long days on the saddle. Luckily, the mileage is shorter than usual this year, so my odds of having a problem are reduced a bit.
One solution to that concern would be to get a recumbent bike. Trust me, I’ve considered it multiple times. I’ve never gotten over the hurdle of purchasing another expensive bike that I only ride occasionally. Did I write ‘never’? Never say never.
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Day Off
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It’s day four and this morning, we don’t have to pack our dew-soaked tents at the crack of dawn, which is a precious thing. It is an off-day from riding and we have the day free in Luverne to do whatever we please.
Some folks look for a Laundromat, but not me. I’m on vacation. I’m not doing any laundry!
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One Week
The trip I am on provides an excellent example of the relativity of time. I will be gone from home for one week. How long is one week? It is just 7 days. I have been gone from home for longer than that on many occasions. From my experiences of the 15-odd years that I have participated in this week-long bicycle/camping tour, I know that one week seems both incredibly long and woefully short.
I will miss my wife, our bed, the convenience of our bathroom, and all the rest of the comforts of home. For some reason, spending an entire week exclusively using a bicycle for transportation, makes riding in a car at the conclusion of the trip seem like a totally foreign experience. Upon arriving home again I have always found that it seems like I have been gone forever and changes that occurred while I was gone are dramatic. But it is just one week.
I tend to believe it has something to do with how different the days are from my usual routine. For this one week I am able to immerse myself in the experience and camaraderie without needing to give any thought to my normal daily concerns. That makes for a great vacation. The route and meals have been determined for me, as well as where I will camp. I get to relax and enjoy the miles of riding and camping in the great outdoors, and most significantly, immerse myself in sharing the experience with like-minded friends.
For that reason, the week seems to pass in a blink. We hardly get started and it is already over. This trip makes for both a very long week and a very short week, all at the same time. Maybe that is why it seems so magical.
Today we ride from Worthington, MN to Luverne. Happy Father’s Day!
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Middle June
Today is actually the first day of riding for the Tour of Minnesota bike trip I am on. After camping in Jackson, MN last night, we will be riding to Worthington where our visit coincides with the 2014 U.S. Windsurfing National Championships.
To give you a taste of what this ride is like, I am going to re-post a video slide show I created to a song that I wrote about the annual week of bike touring and camping we have been doing for decades. It’s a bit long, but if you don’t have time now, it will still be here when you check back with time to spare.
I figure I should update the lyrics this year to reflect the change in leadership. It is no longer “jaunting with Jim,” but it could easily be sung as “biking with Bob.”
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Start Vacation
My vacation starts today. I saw a news headline somewhere indicating that today, Friday the 13th, happens to coincide with the full moon. What luck! It also happens to be the day I leave for southwestern Minnesota to camp in Jackson overnight for the start of an annual June tradition, a week of bicycle touring and tent camping that I have participated in for two decades. The moon can serve as my night-light while I try to reacquaint myself with my usual —but several years removed— camping routines.
For 39 years our ride was called the “Jaunt with Jim” because the ride was conducted by adventure/travel writer/columnist, Jim Klobuchar. Last year Jim retired from leading the ride and turned the task over to Bob Lincoln. Bob established a new name and identity for what will actually be the 40th year of the ride, so this year I am riding in the Tour of Minnesota.
As I have done for most of my adventures, I will journal my experience using the retro-tech of pencil on paper, and then compose and post stories upon my return. For the week that I am gone on this vacation, my daily posts will come from pre-scheduled tidbits that I have composed to give you a peek at where we will be this year with some images of what the ride has looked like in years past.
I’ve done as much to prepare our property for my absence as time allowed. Now I leave it up to Cyndie to keep things under control until I return. I’m hoping her recovery from hip surgery is far enough along that she is up to being the sole caretaker of animals and property for a week. I know from experience that it is a daunting task.
If all goes as planned, posts here will return to “live-daily” again on Saturday, June 21st. Till then, feel free to envision sunny skies, cool tail winds, and low dew point days for me and my friends for the week ahead. I’m off bicycle touring! Ta ta.
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Man Power
Well, man and machine power, anyway. I cranked up the power trimmer yesterday to knock down the grass and weeds growing along our fence line. The tall growth is starting to put a load on our electric fence. I swear, things are growing inches per day around here lately.
Cutting with that Stihl trimmer is way too much like vacuuming for me, and if you recall my story about vacuuming, I find it to be a frustrating process. Everywhere I turn there is more that could be cut. How do you know where to stop? I am so obsessive about being thorough that it takes me forever to complete each section I’m working on.
I was most of the way down the driveway when Cyndie arrived home with a pizza. I told her I wanted to finish the fence around the front of our property and then I would come up for dinner. As she drove off toward the house, I restarted the trimmer and it promptly ran out of nylon line. I can take a hint. I went up for dinner, and to load new line for the trimmer.
The focus shifted at that point, and the labyrinth became the priority. Even though I had used the trimmer to cut the labyrinth path the previous time, things are growing so fast that it was already too thick again for the reel mower. Cyndie took a shot of the new peace-pole while I was working. She got that from her mom for her birthday.
I stopped cutting long enough to take a picture that shows the result of my effort. The area on the left is what it looked like before I cut it.
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Horse Power
I was able to use our 4-horse power grass mower yesterday on the strip just outside the small paddock. We had put up a fence around a small section of our driveway to give the horses somewhere to stand that wasn’t always muddy, but it didn’t encompass that grass strip. I decided to make a small adjustment in our temporary fence so we could give them just enough space to reach a large majority of that front section.
Without any hesitation or fussing about, the four horses spaced themselves nicely outside the paddock fence and got down to business cutting the grass. They do great work. They mow a little bit like Cyndie does, haphazardly picking spots to work on, but there are no clippings left behind, and given enough time, they eventually get it all trimmed to the same length.
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Relative Something 