Posts Tagged ‘vacation’
Touring Little Falls
It usually feels good to get back on the road again after the day off. I have no idea how it will feel for me this year, because my pre-trip training was far short of ideal.
My pre-trip blog preparation also fell short, so I am now posting from my tent. Ugh.
I love… settling into the tent and then hearing Julie and Rich start laughing inside each of their respective tents a few feet away. Laughter is absolutely contagious.
I miss… not hearing loud pickup trucks revving (sp?) their engines in the vicinity of where I am trying to sleep. I guess it’s a thing in small towns when a couple hundred strangers drop by to camp in the park.
Touring Alexandria
Getting to Alexandria is bolstered by the added blessing that it is the location of our day off from the regular routine of getting up before the sun and struggling to pack our things while in a sleepy fog within the cramped confines of our little tents. Then it’s a forced march past the food troughs before unceremoniously resting our bottoms on the tiny bike seat for hour after hour all day long.
What? I love this bike tour! Doesn’t that sound like an awesome adventure!
Maybe you have to be there.
On our day off we get to sleep in as much as possible in a tent that turns into an oven when the sun hits it. We are on our own for food and whatever adventures we feel up for. Some folks find a laundromat, but that is the furthest thing from a vacation activity I want to seek.
I just might find someplace where World Cup games will be shown. I may, or may not, ride my bike. I’ve been inclined toward both options over the years, so I make no hard and fast rule about such a possibility. It’s usually dictated by how well I have been tolerating long hours on the saddle for the first three days.
I love… sleeping in a little bit on the day off in the middle of the tour, and then living in the moment to watch the energy of people around me flow, paying attention to what ever grabs me and following wherever that leads. What, me plan?
I miss… being able to go to my closet for just the right shoes or clothes and accessories for all the wide variety of adventures that may become available in a moments notice. Pickle-ball anyone?
In sandels?
.
.
Touring Fergus Falls
I’ve been here before. Fergus Falls. I remember it fondly, although, only vaguely. For some people, retaining specific details happens naturally, but I am much more inclined to form a general impression about places I’ve been. I know I have biked to Fergus Falls before on at least one previous tour, but all I have in mind of the experience is a notion that it was good and I thoroughly enjoyed time spent there.
Maybe this year will foster a more specific detail, or two, for the permanent memory bank. It may depend on whether I found ice cream, or not.
I love… the years when the bike tour coincides with FIFA’s World Cup soccer tournament, like it does this year (even though the US team is not in it. Ugh!!). There is often a sub-group of like-minded “football” fans among the bikers who then converge on whatever establishments can be found which offer television coverage so we can hoot and holler together over the beautiful game.
I miss… being able to sit down on my easy chair upstairs on our loft in front of our big screen tv to watch sports or movies with my favorite snacks and beverage at a time of my choosing and not when I’m in the middle of some other distracting fabulous adventure in its own right at the very same time.
A little weak, maybe, but I had to miss something!
.
.
Touring Morris
Today, if everything went as planned, we awake in Morris, MN. A prairie oasis on the Pomme de Terre River. If there is a Dairy Queen within walking distance of the high school, there’s a good chance I visited it last night.
I love… that so many of the brilliant people who do this bike ride with me every year share a fondness for walking after a long day on a bike seat, plus they seem to have an equal interest in searching out ice cream at every opportunity.
Bonus love… Biking all day long burns so many calories, I can indulge in ice cream treats more often than usual.
I miss… Cyndie’s home cooking, especially her fabulous breakfasts, the incredible “love-lunch” sandwiches she makes for me on work days, and the delicious dinners that somehow keep tasting better than the best one she made the time before.
.
.
On Tour
I am on vacation! Per my habit, this includes taking a break from writing every day while I am away. There’s always a chance I might post a fresh tidbit here or there during the trip, using my thumbs on the teeny-tiny mobile device I’ll have with me, but the year I tried doing that every day of the tour, I found it made my vacation less of a vacation.
For the week, I have programmed Relative Something to offer you a note about the towns we are visiting, along with two thoughts about being away from home. The yin yang duality in the whole of my annual biking and camping week, the Tour of Minnesota.
Today, the group of more than a hundred of my closest friends wake up in Willmar, MN, after our first night of camping together.
I love… The first night of seeing this large number of incredibly close friends and casual acquaintances reunite with shared anticipation for the adventures that lie ahead.
I miss… Waking up in my own bed every morning after a night on a comfy mattress snuggled on a familiar pillow beside my precious wife.
“And they’re off!”
Let the pedaling begin.
.
.
Gettin’ There
Well, in case you haven’t noticed, today is June 14th. It just so happens, the Tour of Minnesota biking and camping week starts on June 15th. Holy COW, that’s tomorrow! I suppose I better start getting ready to go.
Today is my last day at the day-job before starting this annual biking adventure. After that, it’s a quick stop for some supplies, a rush home to get some grass cut, and then it will be time to start packing.
Tent, check. Sleeping bag, check. Bike, check. Helmet, check. Bike shoes, check. As long as I pack those essentials, I will be functional. The rest is just superfluous accoutrements.
Okay, maybe I’ll bring a camera, and some clothes, a sleeping pad, sunscreen lotion, and ibuprofen. But that’s it. That’s all I need.
Oh, and a toothbrush. Spare shoes. A raincoat. A hat.
I found our old original Foxtail toy. I’m bringing the Foxtail
After dinner yesterday, in order to check off a couple of chores from my pre-departure list, I pulled out the diesel tractor and attached the loader. Cyndie and I transferred three large piles of composted manure to a remote location, to provide plenty of open space in the compost area before I go.
Whenever I was off dumping a full bucket, the chickens would show up to check out what Cyndie was doing. I could see them scamper away each time I returned. Eventually, I paid them a visit on foot to offer my regards.
They are just starting to show hints of what they will look like when they mature and start producing eggs.
As of last night, we still have all twelve birds. This kind of success is what breeds our willingness to keep trying the unencumbered free-range life for them.
After they start getting hunted again, our thoughts will change, I’m sure.
Speaking of them getting hunted… while the world was all caught up in the escapades of the downtown St. Paul raccoon that scaled a 23-story building in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, we had our very own varmint contemplating a climb up the side of our 1-story coop.
I admit, it wasn’t nearly as exciting, but it made for a cool capture on the trail cam.
You can almost read his mind, as he computes the potential reward of maybe gettin’ up there.
I wonder if I should be electrifying the hardware cloth that covers the windows. I’m hoping there is no reward whatsoever should he or she actually decide to make that climb.
.
.
Gulf Coast
Our day at the beach…
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Making Do
It’s a struggle down here in Florida, coping with all this convenient weather for strolls in the sun and nights out on the town, but we are making do.
Cyndie was behind the wheel with Mike holding on for dear life. It looks like they were coming in hot and she stopped just in time, but she was actually about to back out for an excursion down to the bocce courts.
Cyndie’s mom added a little adventure to that outing by taking a tumble, and somehow, which even she can’t explain, cut her leg severely on a metal rake used to maintain the courts. Expert response by bystanders, including some nurses, offered immediate treatment and Cyndie, Fred, and Marie got to spend the afternoon at the clinic where a doctor stitched the deep gash.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Walking the grounds we saw some remaining toppled tree stumps from hurricane Irma last summer.
Fred and Marie took us out for a night of music and food, keeping the genre a secret to surprise us with the perfectly suited personifications of Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, and CSN&Y.
The fact that there are snowstorms battering the ranch at home while we are gone is making this all the sweeter, and only slightly causing me to fret over how things are going for Mckenna.
I didn’t leave instructions on how to start the Grizzly to plow. It’s not in her job description.
She’ll just have to make do.
.
.
Brief Getaway
See ya! We’re outta here!
Who needs a reason? We are leaving this morning for a weekend in Florida, traveling with our precious partners in adventure, Mike and Barb Wilkus to visit Cyndie’s parents.
I expect my posts will be rather brief for the next four days, while I focus the majority of my attention on people, food, sun, surf, games, and whatever else spontaneously grabs our fancy.
Just in case, I have a series of snapshots queued up from the house and grounds in Beldenville to provide you with a daily distraction. Time will tell whether I end up inserting a few tropical surprises, too, from our weekend escapades.
A great big “thank you” shout out to McKenna for taking care of things at home for us while we are away. We couldn’t do it without you!
Bon voyage!
.
.
January Thaw
I have lived near the Twin Cities for most of my life, but I never realized how consistently we experience a January thaw. From Meteorologist, Paul Huttner’s Updraft blog:
“A January thaw is defined as two or more consecutive days of high temperatures above 32 degrees. That happens in 93 percent of all years on record for the Twin Cities. In fact, a January thaw is more reliable than a white Christmas (72 percent) in the Twin Cities.”
Everyone at Wintervale is enjoying this little break from the ravages of the deep cold that has besieged us for the last few weeks.
The sunshine and warm Pacific breeze was just right for an afternoon sun bath.
The chickens are much quicker to come out of the coop with the warmer temperatures. The Buff Orpington spent a fair amount of time breaking up frozen sand so her bath could be a mixture of sun and soil.
When I noticed her kicking up a dust cloud storm and wallowing luxuriously in it, I pulled out my camera to record video of the spectacle.
I got two seconds of fluttering and a minute and a half of her sitting mostly still, occasionally pecking at the frozen sand. She was not interested in being the star of my movie.
The scene of Dezirea nodding off in the sun, with her tail flowing gracefully in the gentle breeze turned out to be the more rewarding video, even though it has about the same amount of action as the shot of the hen.
Legacy interrupted my video of Dezirea when he stepped forward to poke his head into the bright sunshine and blocked my view.
We have been trying to absorb this early January thaw for all it is worth, given the impending swing back to serious winter weather being forecast. Tomorrow could become a day of our greatest snow accumulation this season, and the thermometer is expected to sink back to sub-zero overnight temperatures.
Hello, again, winter.
It’s getting hard maintaining a charade of still being on a tropical vacation by simply revisiting our photo albums.
But that doesn’t prevent us from putting forth an effort.
.
.
Relative Something 