Coop's Corner: Coop's 85 Miles of Gravel

Monday, May 30, 2022

Coop's 85 Miles of Gravel - 2022/05/27

Brother and I have been promising to make some Day Rides happen.....it's supposed to be easy, he being retired and Ol' Coop working 3-day weeks.

But lots of stuff happens, even just between 2 brothers that supposedly now have a lot more time on their hands.

Friday of Memorial Day weekend we got out. Both of us thought some gravel roads (on the gravel road bikes) sounded like just the ticket and since it had been quite some time since I'd done anything with my 85 Miles of Gravel ride, I doug it up from the GPS Route archives. Actually, I made a new one since I knew that a couple of adjustments to what I had been doing would be good additions.

Here's the GPS Route.....nowhere are any points more than 13.5 miles from our home (I actually measured it!). Sure there are spurts of pavement but in total not more than a few miles.

However, with a few spurs away from the Plan for lunch, coffee and evening Fish Fry, this is what we actually did. Our 85 miles turned into just over 115. Of course my brother's day was longer since he had to travel back home. His Touring KLR easily up to the day's tasks.

These roads were both of our first riding roads, some of them a bit before we were legally supposed to be using them riding motorized transport. During our modern day visit to these old haunts, we stopped a lot, we talked a lot and reminisced even more.

The fields beyond saw my brother and I doing fieldwork 50 years ago.

State horse trails now.....if only the equine folks knew how much fun a couple of kids use to have here on a small Honda and Yamaha!

Something new to me on this our 4th Minimum Maintenance Road of the day. A farmer's runoff dam/pond now has a Glastron and fisher person. It was some distance away, I only had my phone but even from this vantage point, you may be concerned about this person's need for sunscreen. My concern is for the dangerous situation that is sure to occur when the sunshine finally reaches the bursting point....this person has an air valve doing its best to contain PSI.

Lunch stop in Red Wing at The Bayside....Jen always takes good care of us.

Fish at The Bluffs, Hager City Wisconsin

Here's the more fun part.....

Garden update....

And finally, Peg's first loaf of Shokupan....toast this morning that would make a freight train take a dirt road for.

4 comments:

mohessianMay 30, 2022 at 10:42 AM
Wow. Kevin pulled the plug, huh? Good for him. Say hi from me next time. So he rides down, does 115 miles o' gravel, and then rides home? What an Iron Butt.
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PiccoloponyMay 30, 2022 at 11:09 AM
This looks like so much fun and the garden is looking awesome!
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"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)