Posts Tagged ‘adventure’
Fly In
For years, I lived within bicycling distance of Flying Cloud Airport in Eden Prairie, yet I never attended any of their events. Yesterday, I walked among planes and talked with pilots at my first fly-in. It has me marveling over what I missed all those years.
It also has me appreciating all the money I have saved by not becoming a pilot. 🙂
With the Battle Lake airstrip within walking distance on a beautiful paved path past the Glendalough State Park, Cyndie and I hiked under the series of incoming aircraft to take in the spectacle. George was already there with an orange vest on as a volunteer helping direct traffic when planes taxied past the wandering spectators.
The incoming civilian small planes floated in with little fanfare while the louder, larger, and faster military planes made speedy passes and garnered the bulk of attention. I was filled with questions about the difference of all the designs and found an excellent teacher in George’s friend, Ed.
I first met Ed at an impromptu drop-in visit for dinner at George’s house. He had become a mentor for George during his time of instruction to earn a pilot’s license. While chatting about the typical first-meeting details that define us, we quickly surmised that Cyndie and I had purchased our home and property from his sister. We had an instant bond.
I also quickly learned why he made for a good mentor. He was not only an experienced pilot, but he had spent his career directing planes as a flight controller.
Flying, like so many other pursuits, holds an allure that can easily pull a person in all the way. Despite that, I learned, the number of pilots is on the decline. There are less young people entering the field than the number of flyers who are aging out.
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I’ve survived the pull of that flying thrill several times before, with pilot-friends Mike and Rich both bringing me along on flights, and the time when our son, Julian, was investigating the possibility. I think I’ll be able to withstand the pull again with George and Ed.
I wouldn’t help the averages, anyway. At this point, I’d just end up being another pilot in the 60-year-old bracket.
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Flying High
Cyndie and I have been invited to spend the long Labor Day holiday weekend at George’s family lake place in Battle Lake, MN, but we won’t be driving up together. That’s because I am already there. George flew me up yesterday evening in his small plane.
I raced home from work, threw some things in a bag, and off to the Red Wing airport we drove. A couple of hours later, he had me safe on the ground at the grass landing strip of the Battle Lake municipal airport, which is right next door to their lake home.
It was a beautiful evening and the flight was hardly bumpy. George had warned me it could be a rough ride, but we lucked out. I wasn’t at all uncomfortable and gleefully absorbed as much of the overhead perspective as possible before sights disappeared behind us as the miles slipped past.
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Cyndie will drive up to join us today after she tends to the morning chores. Our property sitter and animal caretaker, McKenna, will be overseeing operations at Wintervale while we are away.
Cyndie and I need to be back earlier than George does, so I will be riding back with her on Monday. I’m guessing the trip will seem a lot longer on the way home for me, than it did coming up.
We really flew!
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Stadium Inauguration
That was fun!
We had a blast last night at the opening event in the new U.S. Bank Stadium, an International Champions Cup match between A.C. Milan and Chelsea F. C.
It was exciting to be at a soccer match between two powerhouse professional teams. It was exciting to be inside the brand new home stadium of the Minnesota Vikings. It was made more electric by being among 64,101 other equally giddy spectators.
I’m sure it was also enhanced for me because I was with my peeps. I was with my family, and we were among a number of other special friends, whom we discovered by surprise. It even turned out that one of the match referees was a neighbor who grew up with our kids back in Eden Prairie.
We figured out a logistical improvement on the way to pick up Elysa, deciding to leave our car at her house and take the light rail train to the stadium. Julian would walk to meet us from his downtown apartment. This kept our parked car on the east side of the cities for what we hoped would be an easier departure away from the main congestion.
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The light rail trip over was a breeze. We met and visited with a nice guy who made it even more pleasant. The evening was hot and muggy, but both the train and the stadium offered air conditioning, so it was surprisingly comfortable. Disembarking the train put us smack into our first of multiple moments of crowd-herding.
Quite a few stadium staff had the ignoble responsibility of standing with tall signs commanding the direction they wanted the crowd to travel. Of course, many of us often had designs on getting somewhere other than where they wanted us.
The first up-close view of the building is impressive. Using phones to share our locations, Cyndie and Julian worked to bring him and the three of us together, but with a bit of lag time complicating the data, we found ourselves circling until we stopped  at a specific gate and he came to us.
In the mean time, we had walked against instructions, around barriers, and away from the crowds until we were all alone on what must be the back side of the venue.
The mood was very festive inside. We were plenty early, but already there were long lines forming for craft beers and some of the specialty food items. We opted for regular old stadium brats, pizza, cheese curds and fries, because the line was shorter.
That doesn’t mean the wait was shorter, though. They were barely able to make and serve the food fast enough to meet demand. As the evening wore on, I heard reports that some offerings had run out. I suppose that can happen when you sell out a venue of this magnitude on its opening event.
We ran into one complication while trying to locate our seats. There were no indications of our section. An usher informed me we were up a level and directed us to an escalator. I asked again at the top and was pointed in another direction. With still no signage indication sections, we came to what appeared to be a dead end with an entrance to a club.
I asked where I would find section C10 and an agent informed me that she didn’t know but was working on it. We paused our advance, armed with drinks and food, but no free hands to eat it. Back and forth the harried staff with ear pieces moved, trying to serve their guests. Finally, they figured out our seats, and sections starting with “C” were indeed inside that “club.”
Brilliant.
I suppose it might have helped if I had known what tickets we had purchased.
The game was excellently satisfying, with a variety of soccer action and goals. The main event passed by too fast and suddenly it was time to go home. With no clue on an escape plan, we followed the crowd to the first obvious exit door. That offered a second option down, so we took it. That choice merged with an equal sized mass of people coming up from beneath, quickly doubling the size of the mass.
The exit we were all funneling toward turned out to be a single-wide door into the main concourse. Bad option.
Next came the wait for a train. We went with the flow, mostly. Missing one important gate, we found ourselves on the wrong side from where we wanted to be and needed to walk back against the flow to get into the queue for trains going east. It took several trains and many minutes of waiting.
Julian texted us to report he was safe and sound after his walk home, while we were still in wait to reach the platform. Eventually, we got our turn and squeezed our way onto an already pretty full train.
Made it home well past our normal bedtime, after midnight, but happy as could be.
It’s a great stadium, it was a great soccer match, and it was a blast experiencing it with my wife and kids.
Now it is raining here, and I’m feeling like I could use a nap…
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It’s Tonight!
I’ve been waiting a long time for this…
Back in March, I let my family know that this event was on my birthday wish list. They arranged tickets for the 4 of us, and so now we will be checking out the new Vikings stadium in Minneapolis tonight, before the NFL team even has a chance to play a game in it.
This will also be my first time attending an international football match between top level professional clubs. Double bonus!
Our early plan is to park near Julian’s apartment and walk the city streets to the stadium. We decided to test out the food vendors for our dinner as a way to better immerse ourselves in all that the new venue will have to offer.
There is every possibility that this could be the only time I will be in the stadium. NFL ticket prices long ago surpassed my level of worth for the product offered.
I plan to provide a full report tomorrow on the details of our adventure, although it may be published a little later than usual, as I am expecting to be out well past my usual bed time tonight. Hopefully, Delilah won’t mind if we get home long after it has grown dark to bring her in from her back yard kennel.
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Another Source
The air is completely still outside this morning. Maybe that is why my internet connection is more stable today than it was yesterday. The signal is not being disrupted by waving tree leaves.
The calm is in contrast to the disruption swirling in my mind. We have been stretched into another batch of new experiences over the last two days, taking us places we’ve not been, introducing us to new people, and giving me an opportunity to pull a flatbed trailer behind our sometimes trusty old pickup.
I’ve never done that before.
Luckily, I didn’t need to do any backing up.
We own horses. We need hay. Over the now several years that we’ve been on this equine adventure, that’s the key priority that pushes me into doing tasks for which I have no previous experience.
Last year I was feeling pretty smug over having found hay to purchase and hauling it myself in small batches with the truck, and augmenting that with bales from our own field. Now I have come to understand that what we purchased wasn’t considered prime quality fodder by our horses, and we’re admitting to ourselves that our field isn’t yielding much better.
Cyndie checked with new acquaintances and then made a connection with another hay grower. Grass hay is the term used to clarify what we are after for our horses.
I was on the far side of our property yesterday, trimming the 4-foot tall weeds that have grown along the southern border of our back pasture, when Cyndie and Delilah appeared and interrupted me. The new hay source was available immediately and leaving town for a two-week vacation tomorrow. We had to act now.
Suddenly we are checking maps and venturing down dead-end roads among farms that don’t get many visitors, looking to connect with someone we won’t know when looking at them. Kids on bikes check us out immediately, when we pull in a driveway and try to figure out where to go.
We are not surprised to discover Lonnie is friendly guy, and the kids are his grandchildren who live across the road and they love to help with hay. Mostly, they like to talk while we toss and stack bales. Lonnie offered up his flat-bed trailer to allow us to haul a hundred bales in one load and off we dove into another of my firsts.
I relied on his method of stacking and strapping to secure the load. He generously offered to come rescue us if any of the tires went flat on the trip there or back. How reassuring. I noticed he put a registration sticker on the trailer before we hooked it to the truck. I guess it hadn’t seen any road use for some time.
We made it most of the way home before a middle bale worked loose and dropped off the front. I had just turned off Highway 63 onto a rural road, so the drama was moderately reduced. I know now that we should have used that 3rd strap he considered putting across the load, but didn’t.
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Everyday Adventures
Yesterday afternoon, I was walking from the shop toward the barn on one of my favorite paths when I felt a wave of heightened appreciation for the daily adventures we enjoy as a result of Cyndie’s and my decision to move to the country and become horse owners.
After feeding the horses and cleaning up under the overhang, I lingered among them for an extended visit. They each took turns approaching me for some physical contact. Dezirea was the most persistent about moving in so close that I had to watch my feet to keep my toes out from under her front hooves.
They all wanted scratches, each in their own special spots. They spend a lot of time all day long trying to fend off bugs and I imagine the lack of having a hand to swat and scratch must make it a real chore. They swing their heads, stomp their feet, and snap their tails, but none of that is the same as a good scratching with a hand that can reach all the difficult spots.
Hunter tends to favor his chest and neck, Dezirea definitely prefers the middle of her back, Legacy has lately accepted head scratches, and Cayenne will take anything we offer.
It is a thrill and a privilege to have the adventures of horse ownership available to us every day.
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Let’s Party!
I’m Home! Before I even get a chance to write about the bike trip from which I just returned, it is time to jump into the next adventure. Today is the day our daughter, Elysa, is celebrating her 30th birthday with a gala at Wintervale.
I have some work to do to spruce the place up before guests arrive, especially getting my wet tent dried out and stowed. It is spread out with other gear all over the living room floor. I finished laundry last night but didn’t get the tent hung on the line until the sun was low because I was busy mowing the lawn.
I wanted to make sure that chore was done first.
The grass was a little long, but not all that unsightly. I have a fair amount of clippings to clean up this morning. There were a few spots that were pretty bumpy where some horse hooves left their marks.
While I was gone, the herd decided to go on a little adventure of their own. I got a voicemail from our neighbor across the street that reported our horses were wandering across his property toward his son’s house up the road and then had crossed into another neighbor’s corn field.
Cyndie said she was not home at the time and must have left a gate to the barn unclipped. That allowed the chain to be manipulated and the horses were able to navigate their way through an open barn door to freedom. Our neighbor left messages on both of our phones, but neither of us responded, so he just kept an eye on them.
I asked Cyndie if the sheriff got involved. She said no, because the herd took themselves home and our neighbor just followed to close the barn door behind them.
In a curious instance of timing, the reason I asked about the sheriff is because the very same day our horses were off gallivanting around the countryside, bikers in my vicinity were suddenly spooked by a siren that was the result of an officer responding to a horse in the road near the trail we were riding.
I didn’t see the horse, but one of the bikers from our group said that cars had stopped to protect it from traffic and the horse just stood in the road enjoying the view.
Was there something about June 23rd that linked these two equine escape incidents?
Now it’s time to party and celebrate our lovely daughter!
Elysa, you go girl!
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Almost Gone
Today is my last day of work before my week off to go biking and camping. That produces a natural desire to wrap up loose ends and clear my head of as many lingering issues as possible. Already, the biggest burden has been lifted. We learned yesterday that a significant meeting that had been scheduled to happen during my absence, ended up needing to be postponed. I won’t have to miss it after all.
Tonight, I hope to cram in as many ranch chores as possible before diving into the challenge of deciding what needs to be packed in preparation for tomorrow morning’s departure. Will it be hot, cold, wet, windy, or a little of each over the course of the week?
This year’s itinerary for the Tour of Minnesota will be:
June 17th – camp in Brainerd
June 18th – bike to Walker
June 19th – bike to Park Rapids
June 20th – bike to Itasca State Park
June 21st – day off while camped in Itasca
June 22nd – bike to Bemidji State Park
June 23rd – bike to Pine River
June 24th – bike back to Brainerd
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At least I don’t have to worry about what to bring for a snack.
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Thursday Night
When you don’t work on Fridays, Thursday night becomes the early occasion to party like the weekend is upon you. Have some neighbors over, eat a feast, play some cards, and stay up late having loads of fun.
Check.
I’m exhausted. And rejuvenated.
Is that even possible?
Bring on my 3-day weekend. It’s my last one before leaving on the annual week-long June bike camping trip, The Tour of Minnesota. I guess I better start thinking about preparations. Will it be a hot trip this year? Rainy? What should I pack?
I’m thinking about trying a minimalist approach this time around, so the questions take on more significance for me. In one week, I will be making a final decision about what makes the cut.
I hope the weather forecasts show some general agreement by then, and as long as I’m hoping, that they predict nothing but the smallest of chances for rain.
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Many Thoughts
I’ve got a lot of ideas running through my head for projects we are currently considering. I’m contemplating a variety of ways we could add a shade sail in the back pasture for the horses on hot sunny days, for weather that will hopefully be arriving to our region soon.
Once again, we are thinking about ways we could teach Delilah to live with free roaming chickens on our property. We really want to add the birds as a natural predator to the unwanted flies and ticks around here. This leads to several issues to be sorted out, like what we would do for a chicken coop, and will we finally get a shock collar to assist with dog training.
We are surrounded by so many people for whom these issues are old hat. It serves as both an inspiration and a frustration. It is inspiring to have people with experience answer our queries in ways that make things sound simple and easy. At the same time, my little brain has a tendency to get bogged down with trying to figure out details they seem to gloss over when they are in the mode of simplifying for me.
Something tells me I should just take the plunge, and learn by trial and error. There’s a resonance here to the story of us repeatedly not planting asparagus because, every time we talk about it, the fact that it takes years to get established deters us from just doing it. —By the way, we finally did get a couple plants in the ground. Check back with me in a couple of years to see how that turns out for us.
Last night we had dinner at George’s and met new friends. It was inspiring and enjoyable.
Sadly, George reported he lost a ewe that left an orphaned lamb. Cyndie got excited when he said it would need to be bottle fed.
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There are no plans for us to be adding sheep in the future. That is not one of the things on my mind.
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Relative Something 