Posts Tagged ‘friends’
Telling Trend
I seem to be all too willing to skip a day of riding lately when rain looms close on the radar.
Some folks squeezed in their miles before rain reached Grand Rapids, others got a little wet.
I joined a group that opted to pack up dry tents and set out for Ely early to put them up in the park here before even bigger storms arrived.
There was a possibility of riding around Ely, but we chose to eat lunch and wander the shops instead.
Back at our tents, we debated the amount of rain headed our way .
It was a LARGE amount.
A single dripping leak in a rainfly can lead to a big mess in the tent.
Looks to be much dryer today, so the likelihood of riding is high.
I suspect the trend of becoming more willing to forego biking on “iffy” days reveals my priorities are on spending time with these special friends more than accomplishing big miles on the bike.
Unfortunately, I still ate yesterday like I was burning a lot more calories than I actually did.
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Almost Packed
Today, I depart for the annual Tour of Minnesota biking and camping week. I think this will be my 26th time in the 31 years since I first tried my legs at long-distance cycling. I guess you could say I found out I liked it.
I almost finished packing last night.
The bag currently weighs in at 45 lbs. That’s not a concern this year because the tour has changed from them hauling our gear from campsite to campsite, to riders needing to drive their own cars to each destination after biking a loop that day. Unless this new routine really ‘wows’ me, I believe this will be my last year riding the TOM.
What brought me back this year? The people who have become treasures whom I get to share the week with, submersed in the great outdoors and pedaling together for long hours over many miles.
One of the things I find challenging about packing for trips is the number of things I am still using, and thus don’t get packed until the last minute. After that, my challenge becomes trying to recall where I put things that did get packed.
Usually, I end up figuring out a system by the 3rd or 4th day, but by the end of the week, I’ve started tossing things anywhere and everywhere, and my duffel bag becomes a big mess. The amount of chaos in my bag is often related to how rainy the week has been.
This year, the forecast looks like a good chance of rain up north. We are starting in Grand Rapids, then heading up to Ely for two nights before coming back to Chisholm. I predict my bag will end up messy.
I’ve not prepared any posts in advance this year. Hopefully, I will be able to connect to the internet through my phone and, at the very least, provide an image or two each day.
Northern Minnesota Iron Range, here we come!
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New Discoveries
Quite a while ago, we discovered that a person we knew from our school days in Eden Prairie was a volunteer for elections in our township. She and her husband own a log home nearby on the Rush River. We plotted getting together for lunch, but somehow failed to accomplish it for years.
Yesterday, we finally made it happen. Ann and David showed up at our house, and the minutes flew by as we shared snippets of our life stories over a fantastic meal and a tour of portions of our property. We found Dave to be a wealth of knowledge about our plants and trees.
I queried him on the demise of the maple in the labyrinth, but he was stumped (no pun intended) as to why it died so mysteriously.
Right away in our woods, Dave spotted golden oyster mushrooms on a downed tree and alerted us that they are good eats. We gathered a bunch to try cooking up.
That is definitely a discovery for us, as we’ve never considered eating mushrooms growing in our woods. When we first moved in, we spotted some that looked like the coveted morel mushrooms with the irregular honeycombed surface, but we weren’t confident enough to try them.
We learned later that it was very likely that they were morels, and we could have consumed them. Sadly, we’ve never seen them growing here after that time.
Dave went on to share his experience cooking down wild plums, making juice from wild grapes, creating a lotion for skin out of jewelweed, and he pointed out one other edible berry I didn’t know about on our property of which I’ve already forgotten the name.
The most important discovery is that we need to get together with them again soon, as we share many commonalities and a similar respect for the natural world in which we live. We are looking forward to seeing their property and strengthening the surprising number of connections we discovered during this initial all-too-brief visit.
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Visible Air
Between Canadian wildfires and tree pollen, our air quality is visibly contaminated of late. Cyndie took this picture yesterday:
The difference in clarity of the closest trees compared to the fainter color of the more distant ones makes it pretty obvious.
Yesterday was one of those days that makes me feel guilty for driving our car when signs over the freeway are posting alerts and suggesting people make fewer trips. I’m afraid smoky air in the summer is becoming a regular thing.
I got 80% of the mowing done, and we were able to make a brief appearance at my grand-nephew, Drew’s, high school graduation party yesterday. Today we are hosting two couples whom we know from Cyndie’s time working with the Eden Prairie schools. We are looking forward to sharing the beauty of our place with the couple who’ve not been here before.
In the time I just spent on Wisconsin State Trails and in DNR campsites, I noticed how the properties are tended, yet also what I consider to be a little neglected. It showed me what a difference we make by tending to our land with such constant effort. As I was mowing yesterday, I kept spotting areas where I wanted to use a string trimmer to clean up or where I needed to use the hedge trimmer.
At least we only have 20 acres to manage, and my time isn’t money. It doesn’t cost any more if I take one or two days to finish a task.
I can spend all of my energy tending to the growth around here, but I’m not able to control the quality of the air that moves in.
Last night, there were a couple of really loud frogs croaking away their musical trills just outside our windows. They can go on endlessly, it seems. One of them seemed to start losing its steam. The staccato chirps began to drop off toward the end in a humorous way, almost like he was running out of air. I wondered if the pollution was getting to him, too.
Cyndie got her phone to record it because it was making both of us laugh. Of course, in doing so, she fixed it. The frog upped his game and went back to producing a perfect repeating pattern of prridit.prrrridit.prrridit.prrrridit chirps as soon as she touched the button.
Show off.
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Goodbye Trails
We said goodbye to the Rails-to-Trails in the driftless region around Sparta yesterday and made our way home. I am very happy to be writing on my laptop again instead of my phone. The horses look to be in great spirits. Cyndie sent me a picture of Mia getting some nice attention from Light as they practiced a little mutual grooming.
It probably goes without saying that the grass needs to be mowed. That meant I couldn’t dawdle upon arrival yesterday just before dinnertime and had to set in almost immediately with processing the post-trip routine of cleaning and drying the tent, the rainfly, the ground sheet, my sleeping pad, airing the sleeping bag out, and sorting out clothes that need to be washed. I’ll get to the clothes later, but everything else is cleaned and dried in preparation for packing it up again in two weeks for the Tour of Minnesota biking and camping week.
With that taken care of, I hope to snatch a few precious hours this morning to mow before we set off for Savage, MN, to attend a graduation party for my grandnephew, Drew. I’ll cut what I can. We also learned that the person who was going to feed horses and Asher while we were away is no longer able to come. Sorry, Hays clan, our visit will be brief so we can get back for afternoon chores. Maybe I will be able to do a little more mowing as a result.
We have guests coming to brunch on Sunday, and Cyndie would like the place to look respectable when they arrive.
I’m still in the afterglow of the fabulous four days with Rich. Did I mention we were the only car and campers at the walk-in campground in Sparta?
We were also the only ones in the campground in Elroy (the one with the impossibly steep hill) on our first night there. Thursday night, one other campsite got claimed. After the first night sleeping in Elroy, we figured out ways to avoid making any extra trips up that incline. We left a lot of stuff in the car parked across the road so we could shower at the trailhead after riding and before heading out for dinner without climbing back up to our tents.
Yesterday morning, we were able to bring everything down in one trip, dropping it at the gate to be loaded after Rich brought the car over from the lot.
We added 44 miles to our 4-day total, riding the “400” State Trail from Elroy to Reedsburg and back before showering at the trailhead in Elroy and heading home. Brunch in Reedsburg was at Greenwood’s Cafe, a gem of a place for breakfast with a small-town feel.
The exclusive dose of gravel railroad bed trails took a toll on our minds and bodies, so if I were to do it again, I might look to add a change of pace with some miles on a few country roads. The trails plum wore us out each day. On the bright side, though, the effort should serve us well in preparation for the Tour coming up in just two weeks.
That reminds me, I didn’t give my bike a bath yet to wash off all the accummulated grime. I wonder when I’ll find the time to get to that.
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Trail Tunnels
Morning started out wet and drizzly again so we lingered in our tents for an extra hour or so.
Walked delicately down the steep, slippery hill to start riding to Sparta from Elroy.
Had to climb long gradual inclines to reach each of the 3 tunnels.
Finally got some sunshine!
Total elevation biked for the day: 1300 ft. Not bad for railroad grade trail.
Total mileage: 51.5.
Tunnels are an interesting experience. The longest one, completed in 1873, cut into an overhead natural spring that rains down still to this day.
We met a DNR staffer who agreed to check our state trail passes while being photographed.
Since we were camping in Elroy, we turned around after making it through the longest tunnel and didn’t ride all the way down into Sparta.
Rode into a brief rain shower on the way back but didn’t get too wet. By the time we reached Elroy again, we were dry.
Meal highlight of the day was lunch at a Mexican home cooking restaurant in Norwalk. They had tubs of ice cream to choose from to top it off.
The Elroy-Sparta trail and its tunnels were a primary goal of this multi-day excursion. Mission accomplished.
We hope to ride down and back on one more different trail today before driving home in the afternoon.
It’s been a fabulous few days of adventure with Rich. ++👍 Highly recommend!
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Rained Out
Rained off and on all night to saturate everything and then drizzled all day.
Neither of us wanted our bikes and bodies to get covered with grime.
Alternate plan:
Huge breakfast at Sparta Family Restaurant.
Tour the Deke Slayton Memorial Space & Bicycle Museum.
Newest Mission Impossible movie and more popcorn than humans should eat.
Drove to our second campground in Elroy where there is an epic climb to get from the parking lot to the sites.
Needed a shower after that workout, which was handily available at the trailhead.
Tents up, but not drying out due to the persistent ongoing drizzle.
Fabulous time regardless the lack of pedaling.
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Sparta Start
No rain.
50 miles.
Sparta to La Crosse and back to Sparta.
Met Sean who is riding from Milwaukee to Minneapolis and we rode together to early dinner in La Crosse. Great company.
Thank you to Rich for contributing some of his photos!
They Won!
The CrossCribb rematch became a best-of-three after Cyndie and Anneliese defeated George and me in our second game in the fading sunshine out on the deck.
I trust Cyndie’s score-keeping despite how that photo makes it look like she needed to defend their point total. Game three got underway after dinner, and it didn’t take long for the dominance of their victory to unfold.
Luckily, the post-game celebration included ice cream for all, so that softened the blow of losing a little for me.
Earlier in the day, we lunched at Tattersall Distillery in River Falls. That location used to be a Shopko before George and Anneliese moved to Princeton, MN, so it was fun to show them what it has become since then.
In the afternoon, I was able to check off mowing the labyrinth from my list. It is now freshly trimmed.
For those of you who have known us for a long time, you may notice that we didn’t go to the lake for Memorial Day weekend. This is traditionally the big work weekend to clean up from winter’s wear and tear and prepare the community property for the summer. Cyndie can’t recall a Memorial weekend when she didn’t go up to the lake place.
This year, the “cabin” was reserved for a special event for her nephew, so that meant we were available to be home to host the visit with George and Anneliese.
It’s been a pretty special way to take a break from tradition, regardless of a win or a loss in our CrossCribb competitions.
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People Connecting
Our social calendar is humming lately at an uncharacteristic pace. On Friday, we went out to dinner with Cyndie’s brother, Ben, and his wife, Sara, and then they took us to see The Garcia Project at the Granada Theater in Uptown.
Commemorating the 30th anniversary of Jerry Garcia’s passing and marking their 15th anniversary as a band, The Garcia Project is featuring full classic Jerry Garcia Band setlist recreations from 1976-1995 on this tour.
It was definitely a trip back in time. Staying out late to enjoy entertainment at the expense of a full night’s sleep is also something that reminds me of my younger days.
There was no opportunity to sleep in on Saturday morning because I was heading out to meet up with my biking friends in Oakdale, MN, to ride the Gateway and Brown’s Creek Trails to Stillwater.
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It was a good chance to log time on the saddle and catch up with friends who share a history of riding the annual June Tour of Minnesota together. I felt pretty good with the 28-mile effort, but my butt is telling me I need to get more time on the bike to toughen up before the week in the middle of June. Luckily, I have a four-day ride on state trails planned in the Sparta and La Crosse area of Wisconsin with Rich Gordon to solve the time-on-saddle issue.
When I got home from biking, I had time to shower before our friends, George and Anneliese arrived with their trailer and three dogs for a three-day stay.
We kicked off their visit with the first of our ongoing CrossCribb competitions after dinner to pick up where we left off when they used to live with us for a time. The guys defended our honor against the women. A rematch is guaranteed.
I’m loving the interaction with friends, and giving up on my usual routine for a while, although the grass doesn’t stop growing while I’m off having fun. I may need to pull away for an hour or so to save the labyrinth from being swallowed by tall grass at some point today.
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Relative Something 