Coop's Corner: Last Ride Of The Season?

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Last Ride Of The Season?

We're running on borrowed time now. Dave and I got out for a really nice Sunday ride and this might have very well been it for a ride with any distance. I'll often take out the TW200 for some very local backroad riding but the rides are short, both in time and in distance. Once the first snowfall arrives and the roads get salted, my riding is over on the paved roads.

Anxious for one more ride on the new-to-me RT100, Dave and I agreed to meet back in Alma for lunch. We both left home a bit earlier than necessary and wound up meeting at the gas station on our side of the river by chance.

Justin, peaking out of his carrier, on the back of the Elefant.

Dave had pup Justin along and wanted to stop prior to lunch at Reich's Park to let the dog get some exercise before we ate.

Reich's Park is where over the last decade the migrating swans have often stopped in the Buffalo River/Mississippi backwaters to rest on their flight to Chesapeake Bay. Through the years it has been a gathering place for tourists to see what once was thousands of big white birds landing and taking off from their momentary resting place. The migration was later this year than what seems to be normal and in recent years, the number of birds stopping for our viewing pleasure has gone way down. We did manage to see a few of them though in among the Canadian Geese. The white birds in the center of the photo are Tundra Swans.

After this stop, we mostly rode, finding many quiet gravel roads mixed in with those paved, hunters and their recently fallen prey were everywhere. We made one more stop to let Justin run and roam a bit before heading back towards MN. Gas mileage for the RT yesterday was a fraction over 49mpg and I most likely made almost that kind of gas mileage again today. I put on about 20 miles more than yesterday for just under 145.

7 comments:

TrobairitzNovember 19, 2012 at 4:55 PM
I hope the ice and salt stay away so that you can ride a little longer this year.

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VStar LadyNovember 20, 2012 at 7:45 PM
Sounds like you had an excellent day and were able to take advantage of it. (I have to say I love your friend's Ducati-Doggie carrier!) I had no idea the swans went to the Chesapeake Bay area for the winter, they must be a sight to see. Enjoy what's left of fall.
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayNovember 20, 2012 at 8:09 PM
Just-in(-time) seems to do well in his little carrier though is always anxious for our next rest stop. Now that Dave's got his sidecar rig, we're convinced the terrier prefers that.

What's really fun and amazing is the sound of the swans as they migrate either direction depending on the season. We're near the river, The Mississippi Flyway a major thoroughfare for bird migration. They fly high and in V's and the subtle honks they make as they move overhead is an incredible, unique sound. Every spring and fall, their appearance just sort of starts and fades away over the course of a couple of weeks.
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Martha November 23, 2012 at 8:49 PM
Howdy, Neighbor! You have some nice shots of the freighters! I was going to move to LaX, but decided against it. It really is a beautiful area, and SE MN is, too.

I love the bike photos on the trail in the oaks. Sad to let that weather go.

Your header photo is just what I remember about SW WI and SE MN.
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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayNovember 23, 2012 at 10:13 PM
Hey Martha, I thought "neighbors" as well. Anyone in Sconny is a neighbor even if they're as far away as the opposite corner. Were you over here in Bluff Country? Is the big white yacht still tied up there in the channel opposite the museum?
I know.....I am full of questions :)
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Martha November 24, 2012 at 7:59 AM
Can't answer that about the yacht. I was over in the "Driftless Region" and Bluff Country many months ago. I especially enjoyed the flat open farmland of SE MN. I felt so high up! And it is over 1,000 feet there. I can not (or maybe I can) imagine travelling that area west in the winter by wagon or horseback. I often think of those poor souls when I see landscape like that. It was a nice change of view and I'm a flatlander.

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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)