Coop's Corner: June 2024

Wednesday, June 26, 2024

A Quick Trip To Iowa - 2024/06/22

The trip I actually took was an abbreviated version of what I'd originally hoped for. A counter-clockwise loop around the western edge of Iowa, then back to the central region of the state and home. Not so surprisingly, it was the heavy weather predicted that kept me from leaving home on Monday, June 17...I'd hoped to be riding for 4-5 days. When that didn't seem reasonable, I moved everything back to departing on Friday the 21st. Finally on Sunday the 23rd I left with plans to just be gone overnight.

That very weather that kept me home has now resulted in the region's flooding disaster. Down through central Iowa I did see much evidence of water standing in saturated farm fields, many crops with wet 'feet'. Rivers looked a bit high but over my weekend, none of the heavy IA/SD/MO/MN rainstorms had reached the center of Iowa at that point.

Here's where I went....

Not that far from home, the flooding Zumbro River

Breakfast in Spring Valley at Big Bob's Eatery...

South of Dysart...

Only recently did I learn about the Iowa Freedom Rocks. Each county has one so I decided to stop at any of them I might pass by and on this trip, it looked like I'd be going close to 3 of them. The first one was in the town of What Cheer in Keokuk County.

West side in What Cheer...

I used my points for a free room in Oskaloosa....expecting a Queen room... I was very comfortable!

Later that very warm afternoon I visited Forest Cemetery to find my grandmother's infant siblings that didn't make it. Grandmother Beatrice was born in 1904, she grew up with 2 sisters and a brother. There's a lot more to their story, part of which was their move to central Montana when Bea was 12 years old, that story told in my Vananda, MT Post.

I spent another hour searching for some of grandmother's cousins, also in Forest Cemetery.

Later (still hot) the evening light was calming down the day's bright sunlight, a time I picked to go out to the old homestead to get the drone up. There was no expectation of old buildings being present and I don't really know enough about what buildings had been in existence in the 1900's. But, there was as you might know by now, a lot of curiosity about that C&NW track running right through the Beard farm, literally bisecting the acreage.

So up the drone went in the hopes of determining some remnant of roadbed, contour...a reasonable topographic location for the old track.

Based on the rail line shown in the 1920 Plat Book, I believe, with a certain amount of imagination, that I can see where the line was likely to have laid.

Regardless, it's beautiful country!

Back into Oskaloosa for another Freedom Rock....

Monday morning it was time to head home....

.....and to stop at one last Freedom Rock, this one in Montezuma.

Hot Pork Tenderloin in New Hampton....

It was a good trip even if it was a shorter version. This week was a good time to not be in western Iowa, prayers for those that are.

Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Steamboat Days Car Show, Winona Minnesota - 2024/06/15

While we were at the Hiawatha BMW Rally a couple of weeks ago, breakfast was being enjoyed in Peterson when a heretofore unknown fellow motorcyclist walked in amongst the patrons and magically picked me out of the crowd as "the guy who's riding the Himalayan". Himalayan Mike (they need nicknames cuz the stack of Mikes is getting high) shared info on his collection of unique and special machines but we really connected over our shared enthusiasm for our Himalayan's.

Himalayan Mike will have future presence on the blog I'm sure but he's being mentioned now because of his invitation to attend the Car Show festivities in Winona. After a busy morning in wet Minneapolis, I hustled down to Winona to see what I could see.

I didn't pay much attention to the cars....this was for the Mike that you all know.

Thanks Skip for sharing your shop with us!

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)