Coop's Corner: Superior September Sunday

Monday, September 10, 2018

Superior September Sunday

One more very grand and fun day!

Peg had asked me Saturday night to stick around for a warm loaf of Chocolate Chip Sourdough but our baker wasn't up until after the stars had disappeared, so my coffee was without sweet. Not a problem though, the motorcycle ride got started early enough anyway.

Eric and I were texting early (even earlier for him, WY time) and he wondered where I was headed for the day. The answer was that the Himalaya would do the deciding and that's about how it went.

In general terms, we traveled north.

North of Interstate 94....

Buy in bulk when practical....

You can turn the sound up on this one....

North of Elmwood, Wisconsin but that green sign is for locales WAY north of Elmwood. Might have been the involvement of Aliens and their UFO's.

The plan was to discover a small as of yet unvisited diner somewhere....but then I got to Interstate 94 and thought it would be fun to momentarily act like a serious traveler really headed somewhere, so I joined the tourists, did a freeway Denny's instead and I'm not sorry.

I'm always humming or out and out singing when I ride, though normally only when there aren't bikes behind me and I'm going solo ( :) ). Instrumental or with lyrics, makes no difference, I can do it. For some reason Sunday, that first hour seemed to be Bob Marley's greatest hits and I have no idea why (might have been the Denny's breakfast). They got old after an hour, not that Mr. Marley hasn't got more hits, rather I only know a few. From there, I jumped to Glenn Gould's Well-Tempered Clavier but though I know it, I'm no Gould. So that didn't last long and the transition to Keith Jarrett's Köln Concert an easy and long lasting one. Later, Help Me Rhonda, Eight Miles High......Metheny and Mays more often than not, on and on to the point I don't even remember. There was some Pink Floyd and Clapton to finish up as I crossed the river back into Minnesota, I do recall that.

My repertoire is almost endless.

This was pretty cool....a long skinny hayfield, 4 round bales and a red tail hawk on each one. I slowed down but was afraid to stop.

Freshly graded with buggy and horseshoe track highlights....

An action shot of the letter I mailed to you Dave...from the Wilson, Wisconsin Post Office.

Both Rustic Road #3 and #4 almost meet here, each done long ago though this was my first time back since that time.

The overlook at Glen Hills County Park, also along Rustic Road #4.

Dad's grandfather's grandparents in a very small cemetery between Hillsdale and Prairie Farm.

Speaking of Prairie Farm, I stopped for a coffee and then a young man drove in with a 'Bear Truck'. Antennas, kennels for his dogs, etc., all the trappings. I was curious since my association with the bear hunters was that they typically practiced much further north. Emmett introduced himself and I learned a lot. Initially a bit defensive, he got comfortable when he figured out that I was genuinely interested, sharing the very little that I knew based on my limited contact with the hunters while riding the forest roads further north. While we were talking bears, there must have been 20 Miata's driving by.

Maple syrup collection by gravity. These are (now) many very available milk bulk tanks, once used for keeping milk fresh, cold and unsour, now used to collect maple sap for boiling to make great sweetness. Remember, you've seen it on these very pages..."Life is too short for fake Maple Syrup"

How I decide.....see those large radius arcs to the left (west)? That is a Sport Bike road. The tight corner to the right (east)? That's a Himalaya road. Oh sure, you can run Sport Bike roads for awhile but you can't subsist on them; a guy can easily get too much. The Himalaya roads are the long term solution and this is how it works when I'm not following The Purple Line.

These are split second decisions with nary a thought required.

Just outside of Knapp....a new one!!! Here it's going up and wasn't bad at all.

The other side going down, ditches and washouts....I'll be doing this one again.

He used a 6 row planter, a shorter season variety of beans in 2 boxes on the left, a longer maturing one in the 4 boxes on the right.....resulting in stripes.

For my Oregon friends....

And finally....it wasn't still warm and though that matters, that fact was not enough to keep me away. Those are Premium chips and so is the bread.

8 comments:

MikeSeptember 11, 2018 at 3:25 PM
You are singing these songs from memory?
ReplyDelete
Replies
David MasseSeptember 11, 2018 at 3:25 PM
I guess music runs in the familyQ
ReplyDelete
Replies
JasonSeptember 12, 2018 at 5:01 PM
Now I have "Sunshine of your love" running through my head. And it is good.
ReplyDelete
Replies
Coop a.k.a. CoopdwaySeptember 12, 2018 at 8:23 PM
I only bear partial responsibility for this but I'm glad for the little I could contribute.
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

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)