Coop's Corner: Multiple Days around Richland Center

Monday, July 13, 2020

Multiple Days around Richland Center

I'll add some photos here that didn't make it into the daily reports, especially some of the helmet cam images that simply take too long to sort through with a laptop battery that isn't lasting long enough between charges.

I'm capturing every 10 seconds which means, according to my cyphering, 6 images/minute, 360/hour and that means give or take up to 3000/day of decent riding time. You'd think that every 10 seconds I'd be capturing most everything I'd care to share but I can go a long way in 10 seconds and it's only the luck of the draw that allows me to capture things I hope were caught. At my average pace, I'm traversing almost 450 feet every 10 seconds, 1 1/2 of those football fields we hear so much about. An especially long distance when you consider the wide angle of the helmet cam lenses.

While I'm on a number and statistics kick here, the Himalayan has an A and a B trip meter with each of those trip meters keeping track of average riding speed over their respective distances. I normally use the A box for gas fills and B for total trip miles. My accumulated miles for the almost-week were 1176 with an average speed of 31 mph. The Saturday ride that we did together ended up being 174 miles with gas and dinner trips into town with a higher, blistering average speed of 33 mph. I could tell that we were really hauling ...ourselves. Looking back once I saw disturbed gravel, the result of my burning and churning rear wheel! Though Eric wouldn't have struggled to keep up, I'm sure there were times he was concerned; I maybe caught a glimpse of concern when we stopped to rest.

Oh, one more thing with numbers and then I'll quit this objective foolishness and get back to subjective. My gas mileage calculation for our breakneck pace on Saturday. Of course, total operating economy cost/mile needs to take clutch cables plus their delivery into consideration.

Here's where we did it....

Here's what the week's worth of adventures look like....1175 miles worth.

Here the images that didn't make the daily cuts...this one a bossy pool party.

Sunday evening on the Wisconsin River .....

Women kayakers on the water....

I must have seen half a dozen of these homes in the greater neighborhood with their built-in dates of origin, this one 1903.

This one's for you mom!

The North end of Pakala Road, the puddle-free zone.

Almost a puddle but doesn't meet all criteria....

A weakened bridge....narrow ATV's only.

Southwest of Boscobel, a few of my favorite roads with the bonus of a ripened small grain sighting. Grain is around but there are far fewer fields of it than of soybeans and corn.

More buggy tracks....

Saturday morning....

We stopped at Vetesnik's for some bike shopping....

These seem to be the big sellers lately and from what I've been hearing in 2020, it's lucky to still see some on the lot, sales have been that hot.

Kickapoo Corners for lunch....

We discuss and lament over this concept often. This reminder to us all in the 'Corners Gift Shop.

Coffee and some Blueberry Cheesecake in Wauzeka.

We always stop here....to take a break.

We saw the mail carrier go by the other way and weren't quick enough to capture the back of her Jeep. Eric was on his game though and caught her coming back down the draw.

After getting back to camp Saturday evening and then after dinner in Richland Center, we started fire building. I was batoning a solid chunk of oak when neighbor Ken came over to check up on us, impressed with what I was accomplishing with my little knife and a club. Ken and his wife are Florida residents, summer campers in the campground. He walked away after a few words and then came back with a couple chunks of hot coals from his fire to aid us in starting ours....a wonderful and thoughtful gesture. We all stared at the smoking kindling, patient I went for my compact telescoping bellows, Ken went back to his camper for something else. I was flabbergasted as you can plainly see here, Eric had the presence of mind to capture the event.

We soon had a Supremely Fine Fire, huffing and a' glowing!

I filed my cougar sighting with the DNR; they really only care about the 4-legged sightings and I had to guess at size and weight. There are plenty of other websites dedicated to the taller ones.

What a wonderful week!! Some hot rain that didn't hurt a thing, some cold rain that could have caused trouble; both of us a bit too cavalier with clothing choices and faith in week-long weather predictions. Riding in those Mississippi/Wisconsin River Valleys offers an endless array of twisty up and down, some of them gravel, back roads. Ask either one of us, it just doesn't get better.

5 comments:

RichardMJuly 13, 2020 at 6:19 PM
Nice photos of the trip. On a trip down the Cassiar, I had the GoPro capture 10 frames per minute for the whole trip hoping to capture a bear photo. I saw almost two dozen bear but not a single one with other camera. I eventually made it into a time-lapse video on YouTube...
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mohessianJuly 14, 2020 at 6:55 AM
Do you and the Amish exchange waves as you go by?
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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)