Accidental channel?

I think I accidentally channeled Paul Westerberg on Friday night with my happy night bike ride haiku. On the way to rowing on Saturday morning, I heard him sing this on the radio: "We watched the sun fall down and I hop on my bike; still that night."

This only struck me because, well, I don't really like Paul Westerberg that much. (I might now get kicked out of Minnesota.)

So, I'm feeling guilty. I planned to do a big ride today, but skipped it. It was a beautiful day, but I tweaked my almost better back when at rowing practice yesterday, and decided to keep it more straight than is possible on my road bike. Instead, I did yard work for six hours. Our house no longer looks abandoned and spooky. Now it just looks neglected.

Why guilt? Because I know in two months, when the weather is crappy, I won't have fond memories of doing yard work but could've had a memorable ride. Oh well. I bet my neighbors like me better now.

Fall haiku

Solo ride at night
Air is still, streets are quiet
I move stealthily

Big Talker

I pretend to be a hearty cyclist, but I drive to work if it is raining or if I have suburban errands to run or if I have heavy groceries to buy. I have only rode to rowing practice a few times.

I admire my coworker, Ward, who commuted by bike every day this past year. He has no car.

The days when I bike and stop on the way home for errands or to go to a movie or to go to a meeting are some of the most fun days. So why do I so frequently make justifications to my self and use my car?

I carried home two bursting pannier bags of veggies yesterday (from the CSA delivery to my work) and felt all smug. That's nothing compared to the load of this lady in the photo.

Some people would say she is crazy for transporting her six kids via bike. I think that's cool. I think she is crazy, though. Six kids?

Magnetic Personality?

Do I attract blood and gore (and other bumps and bruises)?

Today, I went on a lovely ride with some of the integral members of our MS150 team: Kim, our team captain; Stacy, who inspired us to ride our bikes; and Keisha, their friend from junior high who is remarkably unflappable and optimistic.

We ride through Como Park, on the U of M transitway, on the Dinkytown Greenway, over the river, by the Guthrie, over the stone arch bridge (see photo), through St. Anthony Main, on Nicollet Island, over the Hennepin Ave bridge (by the cool Grain Belt sign), back to the Guthrie, and back towards Como.

It was a nice relaxed ride, good for chatting.

And then, on the Transitway on the way home, a college kid waved us down. The guy he was near had fallen off his bike, over the handlebars, face first on the pavement. Quite the bloody face and hands.

We asked this guy in his 50s how he was, we offered to call his wife, we offered to sit by him or walk him home. He was quite crabby. I attributed this partly due to the fact that he may be introverted (although it appeared he was a waiter), that he likely was embarrassed, and that he almost certainly was in shock, clearly was in pain, and had a concussion.

He called his wife, bitching at us for telling him he should try to reach her. She didn't answer. We got his bike working. He rode it a little. And then he started riding home.

I rode along his side, asking if we could ride with him to make sure he made it okay. He agreed. He didn't chat, but when I asked him midway how he felt, he said, "Better. My vision is coming back. It was all yellowish and weird." He made turns without warning, and we got him home.

When we got him there, despite his sullen and hostile behavior, he shook my hand and thanked me warmly, asked me (after Stacy yelled to him to watch for signs of a concussion) what to watch for, thanked me again, and pointed at my helmet and said he thinks he should start wearing one (although it wouldn't have helped much with landing on his face). Once we left and he saw himself in the mirror, I'm sure he figured out why we were worried.

Didn't I just say yesterday that I need a first aid kit? And this incident was almost exactly one year after my cousin and I had to call 911 when an old lady tipped over when I called out, "On your left!" Sheesh.

I think he will be okay. I felt bad harrassing him at the beginning, but didn't feel that we could just leave him.

It still was a fun ride, and all the weird vibes were erased by the wonderful steak dinner I had afterward with my friends Mary and Jane and their families.

I have been thinking the past few days of some new routes for our training rides for next year, and can't wait to explore them.

Counterclockwise to Kaposia

This morning I rode, instead of rowed. I was a little conflicted, because the rowing days this season are dwindling and the river is really pretty. But I've missed my bike.

I met Matt (who I met during the TRAM) at the dog park by Minnehaha Park, along the Mississippi River. We decided to do a route I sort of discovered at around this time last year but which he apparently does more frequently. To mix things up, we did the route in a counterclockwise fashion.

We were entering a turn at Fort Snelling and Matt hit a patch of sand and crashed. Thankfully, he was just scratched and bloody, and his bike needed just a few adjustments. We rode a little slower today than either of us normally does, either because it was pretty cool out, he was a little shaken, I haven't ridden much lately, or some combination of those factors.

Despite stopping for Matt to collect himself, riding a little slower, and stopping briefly to switch/refill water, the 40-mile ride wasn't actually that long.

We rode from Ft. Snelling, through Lilydale and the District del Sol to Kaposia Landing in South St. Paul. We did a loop around Kaposia so I could get the full view. I love that damn Mississippi.

So, I knew a little bit about Kaposia. Today, I learned more:

Kaposia was a seasonal American Indian settlement, also known as "Little Crow's village," after a long line of tribe Chiefs named Little Crow. It was founded in 1750 by a group of Mdewakanton Dakota.

The village was originally located on the east bank of the river where Central Avenue intersects with Chicago Northwestern Railroad tracks, below present-day Indian Mounds Park.

In the early 1800s, over 400 Dakota would use Kaposia as their place of residence, living there over the warm summer months.

In 1837, the village was moved to the western side of the river, and then moved again due to the Treaty of Mendota, which gave white settlers the right to settle in the region.

In 1853 the people of Kaposia were required to move because of the Treaty of Mendota, which opened the land west of the Mississippi to white settlers.

The Kaposia site on the western side of the river became known as Port Crosby. In recent history, before becoming a park, it served as a landfill.

Yes, we kicked the people of Kaposia out of their summer spot along the river and later put our garbage there. How nice.

After leaving Kaposia, Matt and I saw a huge bald eagle, crossed the river, and rode up the eastern side, through St. Paul, back to our starting point.

It was a fantastic way to start the day, other than Matt's spill. But that also taught me I should probably carry a few first aid supplies.
     

So I looked at the scenery, I read my magazine, And the moon rose over an open field

I had to change those lyrics a bit to reflect the fact that Dan did most of the driving on our Vermont Road Trip 2013, while I mostly read and gazed out the window.

As a recap, this is what we did.

Our route (counterclockwise)

As noted in earlier posts, we drove from:

Minnesota to Cleveland, where we saw family and
Maggie's friend Micah, and...

Cleveland to Syracuse, by way of Niagara Falls

Matt's and Lia's family cabin

We then ended up in Vermont. Once there, we stayed at Matt's and Lia's family cabin for a couple of days. We then toured the Ben and Jerry's factory on the way to stay with Matt's cousin Margi. Margi is fantastic, and generous. She offered us a bed, showers, and a freshly butchered chicken and vegetables from her land. She and her boyfriend John took Dan mountain biking on the most well-known trails in Vermont, which John basically created. I stretched my road-weary back and went for a short bike ride while they did that (and saw some frolicking deer), and then Dan dropped me off at rowing camp on Tuesday 

Ben and Jerry's

Margi's

Kitty and me

To be fair, I never would have gone to rowing camp if it hadn't been for loose banter with Kitty over a $9 beer at a Kansas City baseball game a little over a year ago. I'm glad she followed up on that little chat, and am glad that we were at camp together. It was a pretty tight schedule. We were on the water one hour after we arrived on the first day, rowed multiple times each day, watched video of ourselves, did yoga, and raced. I could go into a lot of detail about camp and what I learned, but I won't. The highlights are that I got to spend a lot of time on the water in a really beautiful place, I got really comfortable in a racing single (which is a really narrow, tippy boat) that was sized perfectly for me, and I got to clear my head of some stressful work clutter. I think I also improved my rowing form, too. I didn't find it as strenuous as others seemed to, I think due to the fact that I've been on the water a fair amount recently, and I used similar muscles a lot this summer when riding my bike. Maybe I just wasn't working hard enough.

The boat I used, beloved #3

Cold morning on Hosmer

Just one day's activities

Dan picked me up on Friday, and we drove through Montreal in rush hour, construction zone traffic. We stopped about 45 minutes shy of Toronto and got some sleep. The next day, we drove into Toronto and met our friends John and Eric for breakfast. We then drove a crazy-far distance: from Toronto to Michigan, to the U.P., and to my parents' cabin in Eagle River, Wisconsin. We rolled in late, dodging many deer, gave our dog some lovin', and crashed. The next day - Sunday - we collected ourselves somewhat leisurely and headed back to Minneapolis, using today to get reacquainted with our real lives and to catch up on laundry, mail, yard work, etc.

Mackinac Bridge, from lower to upper Michigan -
Lake Huron on the east, Lake Michigan on the west

For those of you who, like me, have never really been in Michigan, we drove through the northern part of lower Michigan on Saturday afternoon and it was amazingly beautiful and hilly. By the time we got to the U.P. of Michigan on Saturday night, it was getting dark, so we missed out on all the beautiful views as we drove along the northern portion of Lake Michigan, but what I saw looks really cool. We'll have to go back.

Let me know if you want to see my entire photo album, and I'll send you a link.

Special thanks to Matt and Lia, Terry and Mom, Kitty, Sarah and Sam, Margi, Micah, and John and Eric for all the help related to our travels. I look forward to trying to use whatever skills I learned at camp, and look forward to being reunited with my sweet bike, which got a little tune-up when we were on vacation.

So then, a little gourmet ketchup

We:

- drove to Syracuse and had a late night dinner in the restaurant. The waitress recommended a good breakfast joint, called Stella's.

- ate at Stella's and drove to Matt's and Lia's family cabin in Waitsfield, VT on Sat. After figuring out the locks, propane, water, and fridge, and after cleaning up mouse poop, we had a most fantastic dinner at American Flatbread. It alone was worth the 26-hour drive. There's a photo below of the cabin, as well as of the farm where American Flatbread is located.

- went for a huge, steep, slippery tiring hike and then swam in the brook on Sunday.

- went to the Ben and Jerry's in Waterbury and drove to Matt's cousin Margi's house on Monday. We ate chicken and veggies from her backyard.

- went to Margi's boyfriend John's house near East Burke. A photo of his excellent toilet paper holder is below. Dan mountain bikes with them on the famous Kingdom Trails. John essentially is the founder of that system. I went for my own little ride (photo below). Dan dropped me off at camp. A photo from that first night is shown below.

That was just last night, I guess. We rowed almost immediately, ate dinner, watched videos of some of us, and went to bed. We've already rowed twice today and watched videos of all of us. Yoga is happening in 20 mins, and then we row again. All before dinner.

The food is fantastic, and I got to have fresh-pressed apple cider. I am consuming more calories than I've burned, I think. That's why (also my freakin' sore back is calling for some stretchy ab work) I opted for yoga over going to the brewery tour. (The coach is buying me a growler, however.)

Tomorrow we row a ton, and race.