Guest Blogger Haiku

From my baby brother:

A family game night
Scrabble qua entertainment
"beeves" is a real thing.

Merry Xmas to me

Silent bike, holy bike
I'm not calm at this sight
Round fat tires
Disc brakes and gears
Holy bike will last
many years and years.
Ride in heavenly peace,
ride in heavenly peace.

Silver bike, holy bike
My heart quakes at the sight.
Shouts will stream
from places afar.
Heavenly, snow crunches under tires.
I have got a new bi-ke.
I have got a new bike.

Silver bike, red rimmed bike
Big fat tires
Big fat bike
It comes with a spare wheel set
I'll learn to mountain bike yet.
Woohoo, a month til d'livery
Woohoo, a month til dlivery.

"Pretty good year pretty good pretty good year"

And [Maggie] [s]he writes letters with [her] birthday pen

Remember a year ago? That's when I announced that, since I was turning 40, I'd try to raise a little more money for the MS Society and do the big July bike ride across Minnesota and the mud run in addition to the 150-mile bike ride. It was a fun year. I'm older and wiser now, which means that I hesitated less when signing up for all of that again this coming year.

Tonight I finally cleaned my crusty old bike chain and put my bike on the bike trainer. (I was a little sick and a lot overwhelmed after the last many weeks of work travel, so I needed to wait a bit.) I don't know what I rode in the last few times I took my bike out, but whatever it was, it needed to come off of my chain. It was good to sit on my trusty 2010 sangria and black Giant Avail, although the basement isn't nearly as nice of a place to ride my bike as the outdoors on a summer day. I also swapped out my rear tire for a trainer tire and remembered how much it stinks to put on/take off good tires on a road bike. That alone was a workout.

Next up? Christmas and all that entails, including my brain's inability to remember the correct words for the carols. Instead of "haste, haste to bring him laud," my mind insists that the babe, the son of Mary, be given some lard. And, instead of conspiring by the fire, the fires in my mind must be hot, because later on, we're instead perspiring by the fire.

In that vein, here is my winter greeting to you:

Dashing through the snow
Wishing I was on my bike
A little too wimpy though
Too scared of all the ice (yikes, yikes, yikes)
Bells on bikes can ring
Making spirits bright
What fun it is to ride yet sing
A biking song tonight.

Oh, cool road bikes
Mountain bikes
Biking all the way
Oh what fun it is to ride
All around the coun-tray, hey!

Cool road bikes
Mountain bikes
Biking all the way
Oh what fun it is to ride
All around the coun-tray.

Happy Holidays!

Go to http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/MaggieMS150 to follow my fundraising progress.

"I've Been on a Walk on a Winter's Day"

Unfortunately that's about all I've been on.

Last Weds, as the snow was coming down, I grabbed my bike and stuck it in the basement before I had to catch a flight. I was home for less than 40 hours, and did squeeze in a little time on my rowing machine before seeing friends Saturday night. As I was packing my bag again today, I saw my bike in the basement.

When I'm back on Tuesday, I'll set up the bike trainer.

I have been eyeing up a new bike that I could ride in the snow: one of those ridiculously wonderful fat bikes. It would convert into a mountain bike, which seems to make the outlay of cash more justifiable.

Between that, snowshoes, ice skates, skis, a rowing machine, and my bike trainer, I theoretically can get back in shape - sort of - this winter. My work travels will be subsiding, which will be a big help.

I got to skate with these cuties over Thanksgiving. If I could see them monthly, I would be one happy auntie.


It was a chilly walk home from the Jeff Tweedy show tonight in Seattle. I told the person I was with about my assorted "biking and coming across Jeff Tweedy" dreams. We'll see what weird dreams tonight will bring. The other night David Bowie made an appearance in a work dream.

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/MaggieMS150

"Same Old Place, Same Old City"

"Oh, Atlanta," sings the great Alison Krauss. I say it more as a sigh, on the exhale.

What an unfriendly city to pedestrians and cyclists. Ashley and I thought we had figured out a way to walk to dinner. All the natives said no way. We got a ride and saw that there indeed was no way. Most of my Atlanta walking, when not downtown, has been on dirt paths where a sidewalk should be, like in the photo below.

It is hard to travel for work when there are no options for getting out and moving. I appreciate Minneapolis.

I officially have received my first donation for the next MS 150. That's super exciting!

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/MaggieMS150

I'm sure in (there) you'll find The Sanctuary

42nd Street, the main road in my neighborhood, has a bike lane between the main border roads, Cedar and Hiawatha Avenues.

Last night a big SUV must have thought that the bike lane, between the parking and driving lanes, was a tiny little lane for cars. It was driving perfectly centered over the bike lane for about a mile, with the tires hanging over the painted lines.

It is unsettling that people in Minneapolis still might not know what a bike lane is, particularly since this is an area that I consider my place of sanctuary during rush hour or when commuting in the dark.

I went to Google Images and found a representative photo. There are a ton of photos of cars in bike lanes, including multiple images of people who drove on bike lanes between narrow walls on bridges. I had to include one.

Good morning here's the news and all of it is good; good evening here's the news and all of it is good.

There are two ways this post could go. Well, actually, once you add "well" and "poorly" to the options, I think you then encounter at least four ways in which this post could go. I will proceed in chronological order, starting with the pretty interesting news and ending with the exciting news. I don't think you should just skip to the end, though. "All of it is good."

Interesting News (with historic photos to hook you, dear reader!)

For the past six weeks or so, I have been, uh, let's admit it - - slightly obsessed - - with bike access to my neighborhood park. The park has a recreation center, which offers day care services, after-school programs, community ed classes, etc. It also has a good playground and a newly refurbished kiddie pool, a beach, tennis and basketball courts, and access to the City of Minneapolis' 85 miles of off-street bike paths. I live on the north end of the park, where the bike trails don't go. A few years ago, the Park Board installed a fence near the sidewalk entrance to the park to discourage bikes from riding on the sidewalk to enter the park. About six weeks ago, park staff painted "No Biking" on that same sidewalk.

Lake Hiawatha - 1936
(black arrow is where my 1920s house is)

Now, I'm not a sidewalk bike rider and think that separate paths are better than shared paths, but this sidewalk is the only way for kids and other people to get to the playground, the rec center, the beach, the bike trails, etc., unless they either ride on a busy street and THEN ride on a sidewalk or if they go the wrong way down a one-way street. So, my friends with small kids: Do you teach your kid to just ignore the "no biking" paint and go on the sidewalk, which is safe and direct? Do you have your kids ride on a busy street with no bike lane? Do you teach your kid to go the wrong way down a narrow one-way street? You see the dilemma.

Lake Hiawatha - Google satellite roughly 2010?
(red flag is my house; red arrow is the sidewalk entrance;
blue arrow is where the trail in the park connects to the
bigger trail system)

To make a long story short, after being polite, yet persistent. I met last week - on election day - with the guy who manages the park. He was nice (and had funky glasses, I should add). He doesn't think a bike path can be added to the north end of the park, due to the narrow entry point, but says he has asked a planner for the park system to come have a look. He said that if time/weather allows, he will have a park worker take the power washer they use to remove graffiti to remove the "no biking" paint. Otherwise, they will just let it fade and not repaint it. A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.


He even agreed to check into reinstalling one of the two backboards at the basketball court and checking whether benches could be added along the perimeter of the park so that old people - like my former neighbor Esther - and others could take a break on their way to the main park areas. I have more wishes, but thought I should stop there. My neighbors are happy, and I'm glad that I was able to have my concerns addressed.

Bike Shop in Downtown Minneapolis - late 1880s
(I just thought this was cool; from https://www.facebook.com/oldmpls)

Exciting News (with other images!)

The frequency of my biking is decreasing in direct proportion to the colder temperatures

I'm not a winter commuter by any stretch of the imagination. This also means that I am not a hard core late fall commuter either. My nephews were recently reminding me of the rules to keep a mogwai from turning into a gremlin. I realized that I have similar rules, for biking: I don't ride in temps below 30, I will not leave my house by bike if there is steady rain or if there is any lightning whatsoever, and I will not ride if there is anything resembling snow or ice on a road I will be taking. (If there has been snow, and it was plowed to the side of the trail and the trails are dry, I will ride on them.) So why do you care?



I haven't been biking much, other than a 40-mile ride each of the past few weekends. I'm dreading winter and will miss riding my bike outside. (Although, conveniently, the weather outside will be so icky, the trainer will feel like a treat.) So... you can only imagine my excitement last week when the MS Society released the July 2014 TRAM route! Yahoo! I signed up instantly. So, guess what I'm doing for a week in July? Exploring a part of the state I don't know so well.

I don't know the exact route we'll be taking, but I threw together this map with lines connecting the cities in which we'll be starting each morning and stopping each day. We will start in the southwest corner of the state, near South Dakota. (I labeled the neighboring states and Canada for those of you who aren't midwesterners.) Leaving from Pipestone, we'll go to Marshall, Redwood Falls, St. Peter, (or is it St. Peter and then Redwood Falls? see - I don't know that part of the state), New Prague, and end at Welch Village, about 30 miles from Minneapolis.

I am really excited. Almost unnaturally so. I guess part of the reason is that now I have a goal to focus on to make sure I get on my bike a lot in the spring. But perhaps a bigger reason why I find this exciting is that it means that summer will come again, and it will be hot. I will complain about the lack of shade near Marshall in mid-July, I'm sure, but it will maybe help keep me from complaining about the winter ahead. Maybe.

So, I got ye olde fundraising sites set up for 2014. Again, I'm making the MS150 my priority due to the fact that the perks of being a high fundraiser (no port-a-potty lines) come in more handy during a ride with 3800 participants, versus a ride with 800 participants. As Thanksgiving nears, I'm feeling extremely grateful for all the support I've received over the past four years, especially all of the generosity I experienced this past year - both in spirit and in terms of donations.

If you are looking for one last tax-deductible donation before 2013 comes to a close, please consider a donation to the MS Society, my charity of choice, by using one of my links:

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/MaggieMS150

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/Maggie2014TRAM

Take a Little Trip With Me...

I wrote my last post before heading out on what was going to be roughly a 34-mile ride with Matt. It turned out to be about a 42-mile ride, when all was said and done, due to our navigational challenges and, in our defense, confusing suburban streets. I think we spent about half the time saying, "I think we go this way" and "Maybe we should look at a map."

The arrows show our deviation from the planned route.

For some reason, all I can think of is this:

Low Ri-der drives a little slower (due to having to check the map frequently)
Low Ri-der is a real go'er (we just kept on plugging along)
Low Ri-der knows every street yeah (now we know many streets in whatever suburbs we were in)
Low Ri-der is the one to meet yeah (self explanatory, no?)
Low Ri-der don't use no gas now (and, obviously, although we did need snacks)
Low Ri-der don't drive too fast (not once we were riding into the wind, although the route was pretty sheltered, overall, surprisingly)

Take a little trip
Take a little trip
Take a little trip and see
Take a little trip
Take a little trip
Take a little trip with me...


It was a fun adventure, despite the jerky man who, on a largely deserted four-lane road (two lanes in each direction) with no real shoulders somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, insisted on riding about five feet from my rear wheel, honking his horn, rather than moving into the left lane to pass me. He was an older guy, with passengers. I wonder what they thought?

So, I'm mulling over my fundraising technique and goals for this next biking season. We'll see what I pull together. I'll post my updated MS150 fundraising link soon for people who want to get one more charitable deduction in before the end of 2013. 

The Munger Trail's Alternate Personality

The mug I bought in Portland last week

As I sit here drinking some tea, waiting for it to get a bit warmer outside before I head out to ride in the western suburbs, I thought I should share some photos from last weekend's ride. I mostly update my blog on my phone, which means all the text is at the top and the photos are at the bottom, which isn't as fun as an integrated blog post. The problem is, once I work all day, I'm not really wanting to get on the computer at home to post more stuff. At least not when the days are getting shorter. I find it hard to stay motivated at this time of year, due to the shortened days.

Last weekend, Dan and I went camping. I really am enjoying our camper. It was pretty cold out - high 20's one night - so it is nice to have a bit more shelter, somewhere you can make tea and coffee in the morning before even going outside.

We went to Banning State Park, on the Kettle River. It is one of the nicest state parks, in my mind. (Don't all flock there, now, and make it crowded.)

Our sort of messy (due to me) campsite at Banning

Bike trail in Banning, leading to the outside world

Banning State Park is a 10-mile bike ride from the Munger Trail, the trail that we ride on for the first day of the MS150 bike ride each June.

It is really quite different to ride on an empty trail when it is 40 degrees outside, compared to riding on the trail with 3,800 other people in June when it is anywhere from 65 to 95 degrees out.

I thought I would juxtapose the difference with these photos. The one with me when I had long hair is June 2012, when I really thought it was quite possible that I would pass out from heat exhaustion. It was in the 90's and we were at about mile 55 of the 75-mile ride. The one that I took of myself last weekend is after I removed some layers from getting warmed up when riding my bike. It is at the same place, in Finlayson.

June 2012 - hot as hell

October 2013 - about 40 degrees, after I replaced my stocking cap with a bandana

In June 2013, we were stopped here for quite a while when they shut down the trail to remove an injured person by ambulance. It was sort of a somber break in the ride.

I also saw the part of the trail where last year we saw a lady flip upside down in the air and land on her head. It was sort of unsettling. I think 3,800 is too many people for the Munger Trail.

The Munger Trail - Oct 2013

Goofy picture of me on the Munger Trail (October 2013) - this is earlier in the ride, when I still had my hat on. I rode about 42 miles that day. Not even close to 150 miles!

It was really interesting to be there alone. It's a totally different vibe. A good one, just different. Not quite as much adrenaline, and no one to offer me snacks and the use of a biffy!

Time to get my bike ready for today's ride.

My Portlandia concession

Not a confession, those of you hoping for dirt, but a concession. It pains me to say it, but I think it was right that Portland was picked over Mpls this year as the #1 biking city.

Public transportation is good (light rail and streetcars resulting in the need for the warning sign shown below), cars stop for pedestrians, and there are good bike lane markings and routes. And tons of people are on their bikes. It was hard to compare what I saw this week to recent Mpls ridership due to the fact that Mpls is now cold and Portland's weather was unusually fantastic.

And maybe my perception was slightly skewed by the fact that I saw mountains and ate delicious food.

(On the other hand, Mpls streets are cleaner, Mpls has more garbage cans, and we ride in crappier weather and are heartier.)

I returned home to find my new MS jersey as a prize for my fundraising efforts (see below), and grabbed Piper for a walk along the area where I often ride my bike. I took her photo at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers. It was a good way to decompress after she and I rescued a lost dog that was in rough shape and which the owner seems unable to adequately care for. (I know that sentence structure is incorrect; I can't figure out the way to fix it.)

Remember the weird remarks I got about my route captain shirt's "follow me!" decal? The letters peeled off, so I stuck our team logo on it. I love it more.

"Happenstance has changed my plans"

"I have no idea how this happens
All of my maps have been overthrown
Happenstance has changed my plans"

Well, actually, I know how it happens. It starts raining.

Matt and I rode the Gateway Trail to Stillwater this afternoon and planned to tack on a bit of a side detour to explore the more northern end of the Bruce Vento Trail. It was raining pretty steadily and was in the 50s, so we scrapped that plan and just rode back. It still was 41 miles and my feet got quite numb. My legs are kind of tired. I think they don't like moving in the cold wetness.

I can't complain about soreness, though, considering that today was the Twin Cities Marathon, the Twin Cities 10-mile run, and the Head of the Mississippi rowing regatta. All those people worked hard, some of them in the rain.

After watching Jen and Jennifer run in the 10-mile race, I went to cheer for Kyle and Mehmet at the 14-mile mark of the marathon. I took the photo below when walking on the Lake St. bridge over the river. Pretty spectacular!

I received TRAM registration info for next July. We have not yet decided whether Dan will ride it, whether I will, or both of us. I think it is assumed that at least one of us will do the 250- to 300-mile bike ride. In the meantime I'm scheming about a good activity to help me with my fundraising for next year.

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.