Coop's Corner: 3rd Day

Monday, October 7, 2013

3rd Day - Just Ride

Well, I mostly just rode ....... when I wasn't stopping -

To sit, listen and look
To use my camera phone

It was a beautiful day, almost too good for early October in our neighborhood. The weather site said 40 degrees at 7, I was on the bike at 9:30 and it wasn't yet 50 but getting close. I left the Lumix camera home today and pulled out the 4S for every shot. I'm still not as smooth with it as I should be but I keep trying.

Hwy 60 west of Gotham, the Wisconsin River.

A perfect arc.....and I'm going to do it next.

Looking north, a very long ways, over the top of the Wisconsin River Valley and beyond.

You just know it's a good one when it starts out like this.......narrow and soon steep.....

and at the crest....

A hundred yards beyond and down again.

Mid-summer this area had double digits of rain in one storm and I saw remnants again today.

Once again, the photo flattens out a prominent hill; the bull in the foreground was paying very close attention to me. I meant no harm to his girls.

I met the grader, a good thing we were both going slow.

After turning on to the next gravel road, I discovered that he'd already finished that one. The newly roughed up gravel made for slightly more careful navigating. Staying completely on one side or the other of the road's crown was the prudent thing to do.

A momentary dip, then a rise, then a steep descent.

One of my favorites, Gran Grea Road.

The adjacent walnut grove w/red vines highlighting their early leaf drop.....

These valleys are full of springs and the resulting streams.

A long green hayfield bordered by pavement.

Just before cresting the hill, I came upon this almost moon-scape, eroded hillside, abandoned farmstead except for the cattle grazing around it.

Once at the crest and looking back down....

You can't buy gates like this at the farm store......

I'm not even sure how far I went today, almost 250 based on the gas I used.......just under 4 gallons. It's a good thing I'm going home tomorrow evening or I'd get so good at this wandering that I might forget how to get back to Minnesota......but until late tomorrow afternoon, there are some more roads......

10 comments:

LuckyOctober 8, 2013 at 8:17 AM
Wow! Looks like a fun day out! I'm not sure how the Triumph will handle loose gravel, but I'm tempted to find out after seeing these pics...
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Martha October 8, 2013 at 8:21 AM
Are we looking at crop circles? Some playful grass and crop design from the air?

Sweet ride, sweet countryside. I love the fresh graded road. THAT I would ride through. Such delicate weather we are enjoying. I understand why heading home might be difficult.

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Coop a.k.a. CoopdwayOctober 8, 2013 at 8:38 AM
Delicate for October is perfect. I am, shortly, going to delicately enjoy another one.
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TrobairitzOctober 8, 2013 at 10:10 AM
A beautiful area for a tootle around the countryside. Your iphone did great with the pictures, but I give you credit for having the eye for what to photograph.

The loose gravel looks a little tenuous. I get to patches like that and chant to myself - "loose on the bars, loose on the bars."
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UnknownOctober 8, 2013 at 10:18 AM
Coop:

You're killing me with these photos. Oh how I wished that I should buy a small 250cc dual sport and explore some of these non-paved roads. It seems a more relaxing way to explore and enjoy nature.

before I forget. Part of the problem with snapping photos with your iPhone is that you tap your screen and then it "moves", causing blurred images. Instead, click one of those volume buttons. Orient your iPhone so that the buttons are on the top. One of the volume buttons is also the shutter release. You are more able to snap a photo when you can hold your phone more firmly. Of course I think you knew this already

bob
Riding the Wet Coast
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RichardMOctober 8, 2013 at 2:52 PM
Beautiful roads and if you were looking for gravel, I think you found it.

I end up using my phone camera far more than anything else. Fortunately, they are improving enough to be a pretty fair substitute.
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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)