Coop's Corner: A Good Day For Breakfast

Sunday, May 11, 2014

A Good Day For Breakfast

Since I did what I could for the moms in my life yesterday, today's bright and mild morning dictated a ride to breakfast.

Going down County X and stopped for a photo of the vista. This laboring Mack was pulling a pretty good sized Cat at about walking speed right here, hoping to soon shift up a gear as the uphill leveled out just enough. There's an almost switchback with quite a rise just beyond and around the corner that he's still working through.

Mostly the ponies were ignoring me......

More livestock appreciating the real stuff........

I stopped for a gas/coffee break in Arcadia and had a nice chat with Eric and Cindy. They were out wandering and wondering about what to do for lunch; hopefully finding what they were after.

I made a run through North Creek (Rod, how are you doing?), looping back on Church Road to Arcadia.

I went right on past Caddie Klink but decided that it was mandatory to do Pretzel Pass and Alligator Slide today. Here's the famous intersection.

Here's a video that I took from the spot in the photo above near the most right hand edge of the 'bowl'. Pretzel Pass loops, just below the trees, around the bowl shaped hayfield and then drops down the road above to the point where I'm standing when I took the above photo. In the video, I finally zoom in to the Alligator Pass/Pretzel Pass junction. You can hear the tick tick tick of the cooling exhaust pipes on the bike.

After a stop at the Nelson Cheese Factory for a cone, I crossed the river at Wabasha and then pulled in to this Wayside Rest near Lake City to check on the Mississippi's high river. According to the daily reports, it has gone down slightly.

This is a loop through the wayside that runs down much closer to the river. In years when the river is really flooding, I'd be standing at water's edge right here.

14 comments:

Martha May 11, 2014 at 9:03 PM
The area is greening up nicely! Motorcycle, bicycle- I'm thinking how nice it would be to travel the area on horseback. Off road, of course.
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RichardMMay 11, 2014 at 10:26 PM
Nicely greening up! Was it overcast?
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DebMay 12, 2014 at 9:56 AM
Awesome! My kind of country!

I'm glad you had a great ride day!
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TrobairitzMay 12, 2014 at 12:24 PM
A lovely ride through the country to breakfast. Perfect.

How were your temperatures, it looks a little chilly.
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UnknownMay 12, 2014 at 2:48 PM
Coop:

we are still cool in the mornings too but it has been warming up into the mid 60's. Glad to see the snow and mud is gone but the river level still looks a bit high.

I'll bet that it feels nice to be out and about after such a long winter of having to shovel/clear your driveway

bob
A weekend photographer or Riding the Wet Coast

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VStar LadyMay 12, 2014 at 9:47 PM
Pretzels I understand, but how many alligators do you get up there? Looked like a great ride, glad the Moms were all suitably recognized before though.
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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)