Over the river and through the woods...

OSLO and the COTU arrived within about 20 minutes of their scheduled time, in spite of plane de-icing at the other end.  Winter travel can be tricky.

We headed out to the local Greek/Italian/American restaurant for supper where they each ordered their favorite meal.  (Moussaka for OSLO, shrimp for the G'daughter and chicken parmesan for the G'son.)  It is good to have them here.  Now, we just need it to stop raining.

Twas the night before the night before....

Well, either the end of the world didn't happen -- or it did, and this is just a simulation. I understand that there's some good research that gives a pretty good probability to that last one. It doesn't seem to matter -- it feels real enough.  I took advantage of that not really the end of the world day by getting an iced coffee (to go) at the Hava Java Grill.  It turns out that I can wog and drink through a straw all at the same time.  Yay, me.

With 4 bike rides and 6 power wogs under my belt since we arrived here, I can say with some certainty that I'm tired.  Other than that, here are a few observations.  I feel self conscious in Michigan about how slow I am.  Here, I feel fast.  And guilty.  Anyone not pulling an oxygen tank behind them is just showing off.  In Michigan the paths and streets are full of runners, walkers and joggers.  Here, I've seen one other person going faster than a stroll in the last 10 days.  One elderly gentleman commented early one morning that I'd better hurry or I'd miss the bus.  (??????)

The beach remains my favorite turn around point on foot.  It looks a little different every time I'm there, as beaches do.  The photo above was taken around noon today.

With all the talk of Christmas trees and Christmas bushes, I was tempted to steal a photo sent to me by a friend of her Christmas tree.  It was warm and charming, with a welcoming fire burning in a Franklin stove in the background.  Perfect for the blog.  Instead I took a picture of our funny little tabletop tree, decorated (so far) with just a pine cone.  Ah, but it's a perfect pine cone.   Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.  Good cheer to all.

A Nice Way to Spend the End of Time

If the end is indeed upon us, I'd like to get in one more blog post first.  Pi will not be featured in this post, however.

The old hybrid bicycle has been working well for my recreational rides here so far. Its fat, relatively low pressure tires and steel frame absorb a lot of road vibration, and it's upright position is kind to my old bones. It's slow, but I wasn't in any hurry. Yesterday was a pretty nice day and I was happy to be spending part of it riding a bicycle. The Kiwanis maintain an attractive park with walking trails about 5 miles from here (definitely not as the crow flies). It was closed for maintenance the entire time I was here last year.  Yesterday's ride confirmed that it's now open, so I'll be exploring it again -- unless the world really does end tomorrow.

This morning's exercise was a round trip to the local beach.  Getting there on foot required that I go further than I'm accustomed to, at least so far.  I handled that by putting it on my Long, Slow calendar. (Once a week or so I like to stretch the length of my outing, usually walking part of the route and not pushing the pace at all.)   A 4 mile round trip just comfortably gets me there, and going along the beach all the way to the end by the boat landing puts it at 4.3 miles.  I'm still trying out different places to use as my turn around spot.  Tomorrow I'm thinking that I may try out the Hava Java grill -- it's a bit closer than the beach, and includes the possibility of caffeine.  A small treat for the shortest day of the year.

Well Laid Plans

Before we left Michigan I had put together an elaborate exercise plan for Florida. So far I haven't used it at all.  Many of the assumptions that I made when I put it together have turned out not to be true.  I had thought that I would walk/jog places that I don't bike here, either because of the traffic or the lack of sidewalks.  It turns out that if it isn't a good place to ride, it probably isn't good for wogging, either.  I also thought that all of the streets here were concrete, which is more jarring than the asphalt surfaces I'm used to.  They're asphalt, which is nice, since otherwise I was going to have to take up trail running.  (Think Ollies Pond Park, around and around and around.)

My newest plan is to get up early and get my power walk out of the way before the sun gets too hot. So far the earliest I've made it out the door is 8:30 am,  and -- at least by Michigan standards -- the sun is already hot.   I took this photo just down the street from here this morning. Football fans, clearly -- of different teams. But they cooperated enough to use a common theme and the same post. Or goal post.

Today's route was acceptable, though not exciting -- a mostly circular route with a diameter of about a mile -- that took me through the parking lot of the closest Walgreens and along two different waterways between here and the highway.  Another one of the assumptions in my original plan was that I couldn't bike and wog on the same day.  A short bike ride this afternoon made me question the truth of that, so I guess it's back to the drawing board.
Late Edit:

The new shoes.

Pi Miles --

The gear requirements for foot powered exercise are small -- with the most critical items being the shoes. I thought I'd left a decent pair of tennis shoes here, but they are nowhere to be found. A visit to the outlet store on the highway netted me a nice pair of gray and green Reeboks, that should serve me well.  Not overly cool, but functional,  and comfortable the first time out of the box.   Yesterday morning was gray and overcast, so none of the photos I took while I was out made the cut, and you'll have to trust me that I got close enough to the beach to see the harbor, and that was about it.  3.2 miles round trip -- close enough to pi for blogging purposes.

There was some late afternoon clearing and we got back from supper just in time for the sunset over Spring Lake.

This morning was my first time on a bike since late November.  With the help of wheels and gears, the beach seemed a lot closer than it did yesterday.  I also cycled through the neighborhoods near the house, racking up a few miles while getting reacquainted with the layout of the streets and waterways.  Bicycling specific fitness doesn't hang around if you don't bike, and I needed a nap this afternoon.

Sunrise 8:07, Sunset 5:10

That's a 9 hour and 3 minute day in Holland today. We went looking for a little more daylight, and found some.

Dec. 13, 2012	Rise	Set
Actual Time	7:09 AM EST	5:36 PM EST

That's about an hour and a half more daylight than I saw on Tuesday.  10 hours, 27 minutes.  The extra 30 degrees aren't hurting my feelings any, either.

Philosophically Challenged

Quiet has always been my sound of choice. On a bike there is always plenty to listen to -- even an expensive wheelset makes some whirring noises, whether it is the blades whispering or the sound of the tires on various types of pavement. I love those sounds. A wheelset through fallen leaves is a symphony to my ears. I've never understood those riders -- and there are many -- who plug into music while on a bike. To me they're missing one of the nicest parts of the ride.

Sooo...... Today I figured out how to work the Ipod that I inherited from the G-daughter when she graduated to the Ipod Plus a few years ago.  And I stayed to the right on the paths, and to the left on the streets, and only used one earbud.  Since the device is loaded with the G-daughter's music, I started out listening to a radio station.  Did you know Bing Crosby is still singing Christmas music?  I eventually fumbled my way through some other options, and by the time I reached mile 3.1 or so, I'd discovered the shuffle option.  It did indeed make the time go faster, though I'm still of the opinion that if you need to play music in order to endure an hour of exercise, perhaps you should find another form of exercise.  4 miles.

Visitors from the North

OSLO and her family spent the afternoon and early evening with us today. I took a couple of photos before we sat down to eat.

The wild one with the attitude and the purple streak in her hair baked up a batch of cheese biscuits for us.

It was all good, and we were sad to see them go when they headed out into the foggy, windy, rainy night.
I just recently added word verification to the comment section here.  It was getting spammed pretty regularly, so there didn't seem to be much choice.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

Semi-Circles

I can't walk 1.5 miles in roughly half of the compass points, because of this big lake that sits between Michigan and Wisconsin. I also find it hard to do a circumference, because the streets here are mostly laid out in a grid. That often leaves me with either a perimeter or if I'm creative enough, a loop.

Today's yog (that's Swedish for jog) was roughly in the form of a figure 8. I don't know the formula for the perimeter of a figure 8. I'm pretty sure it involves the use of pi, though.  Many people have taken advantage of the warmish (though dark and dampish) weather over the past few days and have gotten their Christmas decorations put up.  This snowman looks a little strange to me against the green grass and the fog filled Lake Mac.  I wandered a little further than usual, so ended up walking some -- no point over-doing this.  Too warm a day to stay inside.

And The World Turns

This year's November blogging activities have been fun, but it is time to move on. 30 consecutive posts each -- times 4 bloggers -- is a lot of creative juice.  Not to mention all of the creative comments.  Often they were the best part.

A new season is upon us. Holiday decorations are popping up all over town, in restaurants, and on my neighbors lawns.

Good job.

Where I Keep Bike Stuff

There's a lot of gear involved in biking. I'll be the first to admit that I have way more than I need, though each and every piece of it was carefully considered when it was acquired. Obviously, to call myself a biker, I need a few bikes. Here's the boss of the stable, Ruby. She sits in a room all by herself, and everyone calls that room the bike room.

There are two more bikes that I keep indoors, in the closet that the house plans refer to as the "mechanical room."  The Elite and the Bianchi.  These bikes don't get ridden much currently, but they've both been ridden a lot over time.  They've accumulated more than 20,000 miles between the two of them.  There is a pail with bike rags in that closet, an extra bike stand, and a fender.  I do have a few more bikes -- a winter bike in the garage at the bay house that hasn't been ridden for about 2 years, and two bikes in Florida.  Three if you count the old junker that sits in the corner of the garage.

I keep bicycle clothing items in this stand in the same room as Ruby.  On the right, top to bottom baskets, are shirts, shorts, and miscellaneous head gear -- balaclavas and such.  On the left is the helmet space, underwear (socks and sports bras), with tights in the bottom cube.  The tire pump is in the corner, and most of the water bottles are under the sink.  Bike tools and lube go in the drawers, along with most of my gloves.

This is the same closet where the Elite and the Bianchi are kept.  Not all of this is bike gear -- I can see six or seven things that are general purpose, and even two things belonging to my partner, JB.  (His stuff is scrunched up against the wall on the left.)  It's mostly jerseys and vests, with a couple of jackets.

Bike shoes are under a table which is under the jerseys.  On the shelves there are a few extra helmets, and a backpack that I once thought I'd use while biking.

On the wall next to the Bianchi and the Elite is a bike rack that I've never actually used to store a bike.  But I could, if I wanted to.  The satchel on the left is full of bicycle bandanas.  I rarely wear bandanas any more, but there was a time when I had a bandana to match each of my bike jerseys.  Really. The musette on the right does not currently have anything in it -- it's more on the order of wall art, though it is perfectly functional.  And cool.

I almost didn't count this -- this is the linen closet in the laundry room.  It currently has a pair of wind pants, a pair of windstopper tights, and a long sleeve bike jersey hanging in it.  Not much, really.

We have a bedroom that the COTU refer to as the bedroom of desolation, since it isn't used regularly by anyone.  The closet in there catches odd stuff, like the vacuum cleaner, and a bunch of jerseys that I don't  wear much any more.

This is most of what I have here, plus some bits and pieces lying around on the dryer and similar places.  (I won't get into what's in the attic.)  While looking for a pair of gloves to wear on my bike ride today (Yay!), I came across a list of the bike gear that I have in Florida.  Fortunately for my dearly beloved readers, NaBloPoMo is nearly over, and you won't be subjected to that list.

28 down, 2 to go

Some November days I head out the door for some exercise mostly because it will give me something to blog about. Today was one of those days.  Someplace new for my hour of sweat sounded good. (I read an article about a study done in Denmark.  People who slow jog for 1 hour every day live forever.  Or something like that.)

The beech woods is a place that I've always loved in the fall. The fairgrounds is a good starting and ending point for a loop through that part of the township. There is a dirt path from the dog park back to the bike path along Post, so I started there.

I don't think these grasses along the Lake Mac shore are native, but they are attractive this time of year. From there I looped through Winstrom Park near Perry and 160th. It looks okay from this vantage point, but the city fathers decided that the pine trees that had been there forever needed to be removed, so the rest of the park looks pretty ugly.

The last mile and a half back to my truck was mostly along Ottawa Beach Road -- not normally my favorite route, but it was fairly quiet today. As I approached the Fairgrounds at the end of my loop, there was a police car parked near the entrance with an officer pointing a radar gun in my general direction. It made me laugh. I considered stopping and asking him how fast I was going.  3.55 miles, plus .3 miles of warm up and cool down.  Close enough.

More on How to Tie Your Shoes

After Mr. Moohoo's lesson yesterday on how to tie a shoe, I almost hate to mention the problem I've been having with my shoes lately. It involves a flawed approach to tying my shoes. It seems like a puny issue compared to having reached near-senility without learning how to properly tie my shoes. It is also a fact that this is at least the third time that these shoes have been on the blog. Seems excessive. But it's late November, so I'm going with what I've got. Here's the photo. Notice what's wrong? Know why? I'll pause for a minute, then continue beneath the photo.

I've done this multiple times now.  The problem is the off center tie, of course. The "why" part is a little less obvious. Apparently I think I am going for a bike ride in these shoes. When tie shoes are worn on a bike, it's good to tie the bow on the side away from the drive train and other moving parts. And tuck in all the ends. Amen.

I biggened this photo because I like it.  I took a walk down the beach this afternoon, and noticed that we are at the time of year when it is possible to take photos with the camera pointed at the sun.  So here's a photo of Mother Nature bestowing her blessing on our breakwater and light house.  Or something.  During the half hour or so that I was on the beach, I was the only one on the beach.  Either direction, as far as I could see.

New Material

Thanks, fellow bloggers, for your suggestions.  Beaches, beeches, archives, never give up, and end of month round-up are all good topics.  I didn't mean to imply that I was giving up, just that I was out of material.  So today I had to round some up.  There have been a number of food posts this month, so the soup I made this morning fits right in.

A lot of leftovers went into the soup, but no turkey.  It's vegetarian -- carrots, celery, onion, garlic, tomatoes,  green bean casserole and sweet potatoes.  Used up the relish tray and a few other leftovers.   A big bowl of this with some peanut butter toast fueled a quest to find a beach, other than the one outside my door. (Which will likely appear at least one more time.)

The water levels are low here, too.  It's more pronounced on Lake Mac -- at least to my eye. This was my turn around spot, at the water -- just the way I like my exercise.  By the way, snow flurries.  Nothing like what TT and PW had in the piney north woods, but it is still too chilly for me to bike.  The roads are clear though, so it may still be a possibility.

I paused long enough to inspect this sign.  From a distance (the road) it looked like it said, NO DOGS, DOG ON LEASH.  That seemed confusing to me, so I had to bushwhack my way through the dune grass so that I could get close enough to see the arrows.  No dogs to the west, dog on leash to the east.  I am so confident of finishing out NaBloPoMo, that I used three of the 5 bloggable photos that I took today.
Late edit:  I was curious about how much soup I had for lunch today, so I checked and that is a 5" bowl.  (Diameter)  Since the volume of a sphere is 4/3 times pi times the radius cubed, and that bowl is about 1/3 of a sphere, that comes out to about 16 cubic inches.  Since we all know that one cup is 14.43 cubic inches, I ate a little bit more than a cup of soup for lunch.  Useful.

Slow Sunday

The weeping beech tree has finally given up and dropped its leaves.  Dave and his crew were here last week to do the fall leaf clean up.  I think I'll just let the wind take care of these, or not.

It was mild enough to get outside for about an hour, but I didn't take any photos.  (This one is a day or two old.)  I've officially run out of blogging material.

Slog, Wog, Log, Blog

Two days in a row?  I've avoided that until now, preferring to give myself plenty of recovery time as my muscles and joints adjust to a different set of stresses. Today I headed out into the wind, ready to switch to brisk walking if it seemed prudent. But it was too cold to spend much time walking, so I ended up logging 2.9 miles of mostly wogging with an additional .7 miles of warm up and cool down.  That's far enough to take me to this point--

 This is the end of James Street, quite literally.  Street ends that end at public water are public parks here, but very few of them have been developed to accommodate public use of them.  Including this one.  There's very little off street parking, and the trail is up and over a sand dune.  I'm not a trail runner, so this is one of those places that I walked.  I do like a turn around spot with a view.  And -- the view when I turned around was:

Well, maybe next time I'll stop at the top of the dune.  I saw no bikers during my exer-slog, but boy, there are a gazillion runners out there every time I'm out.  What's the deal with that?  (Side bar to Emily:  There is nothing wrong with mall walking, it's just not my thing.  Rather like trail running.  And I'll let you decide if these photographs are more interesting than some of the scenes I've seen on TV of Black Friday shoppers.)

Taking a Sharp Turn Towards Winter

For those of us whose metabolisms don't handle carbs particularly well, the day after Thanksgiving is a work day. As in "work it back down" or "work it off." I am in that category, so even though the radar looked like this:

and the temperature was 32 degrees, and there was a WNW wind blowing at 21, gusting to 41.... I headed outside for some exercise.  It was pretty clearly not a biking day, but I have a back up plan that I've been training for for a couple of months now.  The gear:  AmFib Pearl Izumi tights.  Windstopper, fleece lined.  Perfect.  Two wicking layers, one of them UnderArmor Heat -- similar to Smartwool, I think.  Perfect.  A windbreaker jacket.  Wool hat, neck gaitor, fat gloves.  It all worked, I was always warm enough, never too warm.  My current favorite route goes south along Lakeshore, then through the neighborhoods to the marina area along Ottawa Beach Road.

The clanging of the lines on the sailboats drew me to the waters edge for this photo of the tall masts against the heavy, dark grey sky.  It wasn't snowing much at this point -- a few flurries.  What the locals call graupel.  I didn't bring a watch with me on purpose.  (I enjoy wogging a lot more when I'm not constantly calculating my speed.)  I just wanted to log some miles and spend some time outdoors.

I did re-learn a valuable lesson today.  Head out into the wind.  The wind gusts blowing ice crystals in my face on the last unsheltered stretch back towards the lake were most unwelcome.  Still, I did what I set out to do, and had a pretty enjoyable time in the process.  Taking my camera was a plus.  So was leaving my watch at home.  I'm still very much a novice at this, but if it prevents the dreaded mall walking, I'll call it a success.

Grandmother's House

My turkey addled brain is -- turkey addled.  The dishes are washed and put away, as is the food, with lots of help from OSLO and some from the COTU.

OSLO's crew has moved on to spend the evening with the other side of their family.  It was another fine Thanksgiving Day.

Dome and Glome

I heard on the Intertubes that today was the last day of bicycling season. Weather Underground holds out hope for maybe a couple more bikeable days here next week, but the last week of November is definitely pushing the season. A dense fog advisory is in effect here, making photography a little pointless. In fact, these
are the only two photos I took today.

 Fog doesn't photograph well, but it never got too thick to see or be seen. And at 50 degrees, it was warm enough, though dampish. I didn't see any other bikers while I was out, which tends to make me feel hard core. The high point of the ride was when I was standing along  Post Avenue admiring the beech woods when I got showered with the last of the leaves from the tree that I was standing under.  If this was the last ride of the season, that was a nice way to end it.

Russ' made our pies for tomorrow, so after I got back from my ride I drove down and picked them up. As I was walking back to my truck, the sun finally broke through the fog.  I took it as a sign that Mother Nature was blessing my choice of pies.  (Reasonable, right?)  Sadly, by the time I got west of Van Wieren's hardware store, the fog bank was back.  The wind is starting to pick up, so it should break up before OSLO's crew gets out on the road tomorrow.

Dessert -- a little bit of history

We spent our first Thanksgiving at the beach house last year.  I'm hoping I can find those place mats -- the photo proves that they're here somewhere.

OSLO has a keen appreciation for pie, an attitude similar to my own. If one piece is good, two will be twice as good.  With whipped cream, please.

The granddaughter is not, and never has been, a fan of pie. (I know, hard to believe.) So she brought her own dessert last year -- leftover cake from her brother's birthday.  This year there will be two pies, one pumpkin and one rhubarb, for six people.  One of whom never eats pie, and another one who prefers mashed potatoes and gravy as a second course. This could pose a problem.

Monday Slump

Warm but cloudy.  Getting outside for an hour or so didn't require multiple layers, happily.

Even the fairly nice weather didn't provide me with much motivation today, but I did need to burn off some of yesterday's excess calorie intake. Pedestrian speed lets me see things that I miss on my bike, much like biking speed lets me see things that I miss driving past them.

That's about it. Today was mostly about making lists for Thanksgiving dinner, checking my pantry for ingredients and negotiating with OSLO about who was going to make which dish.  It will be a smallish group around the table this year, so we're trying to pare down the menu a little bit.  I think we have a plan.

A Bike Ride, A Bridal Shower and A Birthday

By the time Lynne called to ask if I wanted to take a bike ride, I was already home from one. It was as nice a day as we ever see here in mid November, so I got out early. With other things to do and places to be, early was the only option. I rode a couple of loops, one to the north and another to the south. The one to the south skirted this lake for a while.

Today was my Grandson's 14th birthday.  (There are lots of nice photos on OSLO's blog.)  It was also Brad's daughter Mallory's bridal shower, so to avoid conflicting schedules, OSLO had their family party for TJ last night.  He had some friends over as well, so a Saturday celebration worked fine for him.

At the shower this afternoon there was the standard bathroom tissue wedding dress, designed and built by Mallory's young (female) cousins.  These types of parties tend to be girls/women only -- I won't speculate why.  In this photo (below) we are all looking at the back of the candy bar wrappers for .... oh, really.  I'm not going to describe shower games.  (Left to right, TJ's sister, cousin, aunt, grandmother and mother.)

After the shower, TJ's other grandmother also joined us all for another celebration of TJ's birthday -- dinner at TJ's restaurant of choice,  Wild Chef.  We ate too much and discussed how our joint grandchildren were no longer children, and she reminded me once more that we are both older than Tupperware.  (Look it up, it's true.)   That's a lot of activity for me for one day.  Fortunately, it was all good.