Rainy Days and Mondays

 Today is both a rainy day and a Monday -- guaranteed to be a down day.  Yesterday was okay though, and I just read something on my news feed that said time travel may be possible, something about how the math works out.  I have a couple of photos from yesterday, which is as close to time travel as I need right now.  Biking has been slow this month, as I believe I've mentioned, so I told my dafter I needed some time to myself on Sunday to ride my bike.  She's good about that sort of thing -- she knows me better than I sometimes give her credit for, and she postponed her weekly visit until late afternoon so I had time to ride.  

This is near my usual sit down spot along Ransom Street.  The wind died down as I rode, always nice.  October is my favorite month to ride and I'll have to see how that works out. It's just around the corner.

TJ stopped by later to check up on me and, then OSLO and finally the girl came by after she was done working.  We have good discussions in the garage, I'll miss that when it gets too cold to meet out there.  Contact free delivery of Papa John's pizza is also becoming a semi regular Sunday thing. Patterns and routines are comforting in these uncertain times.

Different places to sit

Yesterday morning LH and GG suggested a group ride.  I passed on the group ride, while admitting that I planned to take a bike ride, but by myself.  It was either that or alcohol and drugs, I told them.  I encouraged them to take a ride together, and they agreed to meet each other to ride through Waukazoo Woods.  When I met them for an evening walk yesterday evening, I had taken a ride, but they hadn't.  It was apparently a modified version of "Without Gino there is no ride."  

My solitary ride was quiet and out of my garage.  Biking didn't make my priority list this past week, an error in judgement on my part.  I always feel better after a bike ride.  Or at least almost always.  Anyway, a plan was made for a group ride today with LH and GG.  We drove about a half hour south of here, parked in the driveway of a friend of LH and GG, and biked to Saugatuck.  I haven't been there much over the years, and I have biked there even less often.  It's still a charming little town on the Kalamazoo River.

We started loading the bikes on my bike rack about 1 pm, and were back here a few minutes before 5pm.  We rode a bit over 12 miles.  I will let you do the math.  It was a pretty ride, fall is beginning to show its colors, we were mostly on quiet country roads, and there won't be a lot more chances to do this sort of thing this year.  My mileage for this month as well as this year is pathetic by historical standards.  These things happen -- I hope to eventually return to the discipline that makes riding my bike a higher priority than most other things.  I'll keep you informed.

Visitors of all sorts

 M and P arrived Friday afternoon and tonight they are having dinner with OSLO and her SO.  I promised you pictures, but only took a few.  Their travelling house is pretty cool and tomorrow they move on a few hundred miles to the south.  Their timing is good, the weather here is forecast to get quite a bit colder by next week.  The weather this week here was a little cool but otherwise ideal.  No rain, not a lot of wind -- although the day we drove to Grand Haven State Park to check out the lake, there were red flags flying.  Sunsets weren't spectacular most nights, but the evenings were pleasant, light jackets, that sort of thing.  My grandchildren were rock stars, in my opinion, even with TJ on lock down at his campus, he joined us via Facetime a couple of times, here's one from Saturday, I think, with M and TJ talking via my Ipad.

Note the new table -- M renamed the garage as the party room.  Fair enough.

M and Belle visiting with TJ over Facetime.

Venus is part Australian shepherd, I believe, hence the blue eye.  She's not much more than a pup, and very sweet.

They have their two dogs, Belle and Venus, with them as travelling companions.  This was the weekend I was taking care of old Charlie, GG's dog, so Belle and Venus only visited the one time.  Three dogs seemed excessive.  I visited the travelling house a number of times, so got to spend some time with them on their own turf.  Nikki took some time off from work to visit with M and P and to help me out in multiple ways.  Like I said, rock stars. OSLO joined us for garage chicken parmesan on Sunday, so we got in a sort of traditional family dinner that night.

The girl was here for lunch today before work and took Charlie for a walk.  He spent 3 nights here, and seemed to do fine.  He's old enough that kennels trigger highly anxious behavior so it was good that he settled in here so easily.  He slept next to my bed and took the elevator downstairs in the morning.  Dogs get arthritic too, it seems.  His owners picked him up this evening.

Good luck to them on their travels, God speed and all that.  I hope they have a ton of fun with this new lifestyle they've chosen.  

Deck Renewal, a story in picture form

 OSLO's SO arrived Friday morning armed with all the appropriate equipment to restain our old deck.

Before shot of the deck, power washed in early August.

Not quite done -- taking a break to buy a 4th gallon of stain.

I am pretty sure that this is the best it's ever looked since we've owned this place.  We're giving it a couple of days to get thoroughly dry before we use it -- today is cool (I'd call it cold) but dry.  Guests from the west have arrived, visiting in one of the few ways possible these days -- they brought their own house.  We had supper on a picnic table next to their place last night and lunch in my garage today.  Tomorrow we will try a family supper in the garage.  I'll try to take a few pictures and report back.  Keeping calm, trying to stay safe, carrying on.

Fall biking has begun

I took a bike ride on Tuesday, but took no photos.  I rode with LH and GG on a lovely fall day with a substantial wind from the south.  Group rides are nice, don't get me wrong, but they always seem to eat up a lot more time than when I ride alone.  We rode to the end of Perry where it dead ends into the airport.  The airport bond proposal failed at the last election, and the runway has already been decommissioned and the asphalt ground up and redistributed somewhere.  There was talk of a bike trail going through the north side of the property, but so far there's no sign of it.  I'd like that -- it would give me a path from here to 152nd street that would parallel Ottawa Beach Road, just a quarter mile north.  We'll see in time.  We next swung through Waukazoo woods where we lost a bit of time when LH and GG ran into a friend of theirs raking leaves in her yard.  Then there was a stop at the prayer garden at the Catholic Church where we were joined by a retired Hope professor who had a tale of miracles and prayers to share with us.  Well, we were sitting in a prayer garden.  After he'd prayed for us -- and who couldn't use that these days -- we rolled on a good solid half mile to Bowerman's.  Apple cinnamon donuts called, so yet another stop.  All good things.  So today I finished up my grocery shopping and got out on my bike before noon and was home in time for a late lunch -- pretty much the same distance.

My mid ride rest stop was at the usual place -- Ransom Park.  The grass was being mowed near my usual picnic table so I moved to a bench near the playground.  The temperatures were in the low to mid 60's, the wind from the NE around 10.  Pretty much ideal.  Covid is still a serious concern here, so I'm happy for empty spaces and the lack of crowds.  My Grandson's university is on lock down for 14 days because of an explosion of positive cases among the student body.  He's following all the rules, so it's discouraging that many others are not, especially those who live in off campus housing.  Fraying of the social fabric, at least that's how I see it.  Fortunately there is Facetime, but I will miss having his company at our garage suppers.  Though there probably won't be many more of those as the temperatures drop and the sun sets earlier and earlier.  As TJ said when I Facetimed with him yesterday, Keep Calm and Carry On.  (He's a history major.)  Tomorrow looks to be a busy day, my daughter's SO is planning to stain my deck for me, and we may have company from the north.  Stay tuned.

Bike to the bridge on Butternut

 I haven't posted anything here for about a week -- lack of inspiration?  Or more likely, lack of bike rides.  Our weather has not been friendly for biking, with a lot of rain and wind, and of course the holiday.  Oslo and most of her family seemed to enjoy yet another garage supper on Labor Day -- fortunately it's still warm enough for that.  It was her SO's first experience with my Covid rules, but there were no complaints.  I fixed chicken parmesan, using Tyson's frozen, breaded chicken breast tenders, and it was well received.  Oslo brought cherry pie for dessert from the Traverse Bay Pie Company.  It was tasty.  Today it was finally warm enough and dry enough for a bike ride, and though I wasn't feeling terribly motivated to ride, it seemed like it should be a good idea.  Sometimes that's enough to get me out the door, today was one of those days.

This was my turn around spot and my sit down spot.  Just a mile from the PSPS, and I probably had the legs for it but I talked myself out of it.  It's hard for me to go the PSPS without going inside, and that's just unnecessary during these strange days.  The ride was long enough to make me a little bit tired -- just about the perfect distance for a bike ride.

Nice enough

 Not much new here.  I took one bike ride so far this month, and saw a few cardinal flowers -- my only sighting of them this year.  I'm glad I didn't miss them completely, but they were likely more photogenic a week or two ago.

TJ was here today to mow my grass -- there are 212 people at GVSU that have tested positive for Covid (out of about 20,000), so I worry about him.  And he and I stay probably more like 10 feet apart, share no indoor spaces, and occasionally don our masks if it seems prudent.  The outdoors is still a nice space, so that's good.  Signs of a change in seasons are everywhere though.

The sky is a golden color tonight -- the effect of the sun shining through the smoke from the fires out west, they say.