Coop's Corner: The Last One For This Season?

Sunday, November 4, 2018

The Last One For This Season?

Today I and I'm sure many others, had planned on joining our annual Swan Ride. Registration (and FREE breakfast!) at 8am, the ride normally meanders down our direction with lunch somewhere south of here along the river. The swans don't stop for a rest on their migration where they once did in huge numbers but the ride continues. Bill retired and moved to Florida and now some other brave folks have stepped forward to organize and lead the ride.

The predicted temperatures and precipitation expected for the next couple of weeks may just be signaling the end of my 2018 riding season. If I get out at all, it will most likely be for some short, very nearby miles. The pie chart is taking shape and I'm actually surprised at what I'm seeing. As a tease, let me say that it's been good. Soon ready I expect but not revealed until I know for certain that real totals are in.

My brother hesitated about joining the ride this morning but in the end decided to join....

I did not. The snowflakes all morning were sufficient deterrent.

Saturday afternoon was actually not bad riding weather...at least it was dry and in the mid-40's. Early Saturday was coffee time in Minneapolis and I was home before noon. Thinking that I'd be taking the Helix on the Swan Ride Sunday, the yellow scooter chosen due to its superior weather protection, some miles beforehand seemed like the thing to do.

I dropped off the document package that I'd put together for this house when originally built. Mrs. seemed excited and certain that her husband once back from pursuit of a wily deer would be as well.

Things started out well enough (Volt jacket liner was volting) but soon I just wasn't feeling it. After noting that my thermostat unit showed no little red number heat settings, I gathered up the cords and decided to proceed with my ride without the aid of resistant electrical supplement.

Coming into Red Wing from the south...

Across the river into Wisconsin...

In rural Hager City, I pulled over to take a look and see if I couldn't figure something out. The Helix has 2 SAE cord connections, one immediately under the seat and another in the trunk in back. With the thermostat plugged inside the trunk, all seemed fine, heat working.

Pulling the seat off exposed the battery, the connections and most importantly, the fused cords leading to both power outlets. The one I'd been using up front was a blown 8amp fuse. Since I've never blown, replaced or even looked at any of my fused cords, I have no idea why that lighter fuse was there. The 15amp supplying the rear cord was in fine shape. They were swapped and I once again had warm comfort.

Friend Patti's parents-in-law live on this farm, the barn in big letters proudly proclaiming "EAT CHEESE".

My uncles sold their gravel pit to these folks.....

I pulled in to the Trenton Cemetery thinking that I'd do some exploring on some of the Sea Wing disaster headstones but decided to come back and look another day after I'd have a chance to do a bit of research on some of the folks that didn't make it to shore.

Proceeding to Minnesota and here crossing the Wisconsin back channel.

I was surprised at the number of bald eagles I'd seen on the day's short ride, a few flying but more of them sitting out in harvested cornfields, no doubt chasing exposed critters. This one was flying and managed to be caught on my helmet cam.

Work on the bridge continues...

Barn Bluff ahead; more grain trucks. Grain trucks everywhere trying to keep up with those 12 and 16 row combines that are doing all of the gathering.

Some pie and coffee in Red Wing...

70 miles on the Helix....have I ever mentioned what an excellent touring machine it is??

10 comments:

motormikeNovember 4, 2018 at 5:09 PM
Doug turned me the dark side.....Helix side.. a Helix convert.. fun fun fun… and yes.. I did weekend overnights.
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EricNovember 4, 2018 at 5:24 PM
Someday, when I can no longer get my leg up and over. The scooters do look like fun!
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motormikeNovember 4, 2018 at 6:34 PM
Yo.. EC..don't wait until ya have to take Silver Centrum and ED pills...( I'v just read about them ) to throw a leg over... get a scooter.. enjoy the fun. :) :) :)
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RichardMNovember 5, 2018 at 9:02 PM
What kind of pie? You know, the important info...
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AnonymousNovember 5, 2018 at 9:25 PM
Never heard of the Sea Wing disaster until now. Steve and I have been wandering around and through Trenton lately. Looks like we'll have to make a stop at the cemetery.

Thanks for sharing the ride. Scott S
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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)