Winter Starts without the Car

Sometime in December, the car which I don't myself drive but share with the Co-Habitant, announced to us that it needs some work. It's not a big problem, but it's quirky. Unable to agree on how to go about getting it resolved, our solution was to put off the decision until we have more time and can think clearly. In the meanwhile, we have been automobile-free for about three weeks - just in time for the snow!



As far as everyday necessities go, we have felt no adverse effects so far from the lack of car. The Co-Habitant typically cycles to work anyhow, and I always cycle to my meetings and errands. We can (though normally don't always) go grocery shopping by bike. And other crucial destinations - post office, bank, hardware store, art supply store, etc. - are within manageable distance as well. When the streets were un-cyclable during the blizzard, we worked from home andwalked to the grocery store. If anything, not having a car feels liberating in this respect.



The problematic aspects surface when it comes to long-distance trips. For instance, our photo studio is 14 miles away. It is accessible via the subway system, but the T stop is a considerable walk from our house. That is okay, except that sometimes we transport huge and fragile objects to and from the studio - and that cannot really be done properly other than in our car. We also travel to remote places for photoshoots - and those trips will be suspended until the car is available again. There are other things, like not being able to go to specific supply stores that are in bicycle-unfriendly locations, as well as trips that involve large and heavy cargo. So far we have dealt with these things by either finding alternative (but not ideal) solutions, or postponing them. And while so far that's been fine, I wonder how we will feel about it after several more weeks pass.



At the heart of my transportation preferences is a need to feel independent, and most of the time cycling fulfills this need for me better than other options. But sometimes the car is the appropriate tool for the job, and I have nothing but respect for the automobile in that context. I am hoping this carless period will clarify for us, what it is that we actually need from the car given our current lifestyle.

Gaylord Michigan to St. Clair Michigan

Today we headed south to St. Clair Michigan. We had Ashleigh and Elijah with us, so it made it a bit harder than normal because it was crowded and we were all tired. Overall, it was a very smooth day though.



We are at the Thousand Trails in St. Clair. This is our first visit here and we think we'll like it.

I'm a ;

Lori Thornton started this little meme off with her post Which Punctuation Mark Are You?

You Are a Semi-Colon

You are elegant, understated, and subtle in your communication. You're very smart (and you know it), but you don't often showcase your brilliance. Instead, you carefully construct your arguments, ideas, and theories – until they are bulletproof. You see your words as an expression of yourself, and you are careful not to waste them. You friends see you as enlightened, logical, and shrewd. (But what you're saying often goes right over their heads. You excel in: The Arts You get along best with: The Colon

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

Red Herring

As the trail grew tricky, I was about to turn around. And that's when I saw it in the distance - a tiny patch of red deep in the thick dark woods. I could not tell how far away it was. No doubt it was just someone's barn, but from a distance it looked mysterious and full of promise. It could be anything. As the sun began its afternoon decline, instead of heading home I made my way toward the red shape flickering in the dappled light.




Back in junior high, we had this scary patch of woods behind the school yard. They said an abandoned shack stood there, where in the '60s a serial killer had taken his victims. Children would go missing from the neighbourhood, and it was not until decades later that their disappearances were solved. Only the killer's remains were found in the shack. An old man by then, he must have died of natural causes. Or did he? Everyone knew there were thingsin the woods where we lived. The kind of things that made ordinary mortal serial killers the least of our worries. This was what we 12 year olds thought about when a ball would fly over the chainlink fence at recess. We dared not go into those woods.




Cycling along the narrow trail, the memory of all this popped into my head, as did the horror flick Don't Look Now - where Donald Sutherland's character pursued what looked like a girl in a red coat only to find something dark and sinister. Did I really want to reach that red object deep in the woods? I laughed to myself, at myself. This was evidence of how unaccustomed I'd become to riding alone. I would not be having these thoughts with one of my cycling buddies around. It was the silence and the lack of any sign of human activity on the trail that lent itself to being shaped by my imagination.




Of course none of us had ever seen the abandoned shack. We knew there was a spot in the chainlink fence where you could lift it up and crawl under. My friend and I had been brave enough to do that - though once we did, we just stood there, too paralised with fear to venture furtherinto the woods. But 12 is an age of dares, pacts, and acts of courage. And one day we decided to find the shack. After school let out, we waited for the yard to clear. Then we ducked under the fence and kept walking before the fear could get the best of us. It was hard to know where to go. The woods were unkept and there were no trails to follow. Eventually we spotted what looked like a narrow overgrown path.It was late September, and the dry leaves made crunching sounds under our shoes. We heard no other sounds, not even birds.




Now too the woods were quiet as I rode through them. Where were the birds, the squirrels, the dog walkers? There was only the soft sound of my tires rolling over roots covered with a blanket of pine needles. I kept the red object in sight, but somehow it was no closer after 15 minutes of cycling. In fact, now it began to seem as if I had passed it. It occurred to me that it wasn't along the main trail, but deeper in the woods. And then I saw a path that seemed to lead toward it. It was overgrown. Covered in roots. Barely a path. But I saw no private property signs, so I turned and followed it.




That day after school we walked for what seemed like forever, though judging by the actual size of the lot it could not have been more than 5 minutes. We gasped when we saw it through the trees: A dirty white wall, surrounded by a heap of bricks where the rest of the structure had once stood. And we gasped once again when we heard footsteps behind it. My friend grabbed my arm, and we began to tremble, not sure whether to run or hide. And then they came out: A middle aged woman in overalls carrying a rake, and a teenage girl, a few years older than us, following her with a large burlap sack. They said hello and warned us about the poison ivy. "It's all over the place, girls. Do you know how to identify the leaves?" They were from the land preservation society. Cleaning up woods, labeling trees. We would have to wait until 8th grade to join. And the white shack? I looked it up years later. It was once a shop selling European auto parts, built in 1982 and abandoned after a fire. It could not have possibly been the hideout of a serial killer in the 1960s.




I knew I was on the right path, because the patch of red grew closer. The path became muddy and difficult to ride through, which only made my journey feel more important. It was damp here. Mosquitos circled and I could see a small bog through the trees to my left. The vegetation was mostly moss, ferns, and poison ivy. The latter slapped my bare legs, but, knowing myself to be resistant to it, I paid no attention. Now and then I dodged low-hanging branches. The mud thickened. Churning through it, I felt like a determined explorer - until finally, there it stood in front of me: A small red tool shed. No more, no less. Seeing it up close - a generic, prefab thing - even my overactive imagination had to acknowledge the complete lack of anything mystical about the structure or the atmosphere surrounding it. I was at the back of someone's property. And now I had to hurry back before dark, cycling through all that mud again.




How funny we are, with our love of setting goals, solving mysteries, inventing worthy destinations - when in actuality what we are after is the experience of the pursuit itself, the goal being just an excuse.

Whoa... A cabin had to be built

As I understand it, the mountain has often been shrouded in clouds, rain and snow over the past few weeks. But how would you know unless you came here for yourself? Certainly I've done little to keep you informed through this blog... But what can I say? This ranger/blogger needed a vacation and along the way, I caught a batch of writer's block.

Thankfully an ultra-reliable IBM oriented PC is at my finger tips with MSFT software gliding me happily towards another post. I know - Mac's are cool and all, but I needed some sort of flimsy excuse to avoid another post while building a cabin in Alaska for Ted (the Camp Muir guru). BTW, I really appreciated all of the nice Mac folks who took the time to defend their product and offer help. I hope you'll still read this blog knowing that's it's driven from a virus prone, often crashing, operating system. ;)

So what's shaking on the mountain? Well, a few roads have re-opened, and a few ranger stations have closed. September turned out to be a very quiet month for independent climbers. Many (I suspect) gave up on the super-dooper extra long DC climbing route. Thankfully the guide services successfully kept it afloat when most of us would have gone home empty handed. But the past 2 weeks of inclement weather really shut things down on the upper mountain. As the snow settled in, the DC and other "kicked in" routes finally disappeared for 2007.

If you're a downhill oriented person, this sort of news has you jumping for joy as ski season is descending upon us rapidily. And after reviewing the current weather forecast for this upcoming week, Mount Rainier is going to see a lot of snowfall! Sharpen your edges, wax those boards, pack your backcountry avalanche gear and check out the Paradise and Camp Muir telemetry sites for updates on how much snow you could be playing in this weekend.

The first post back might be the hardest, but now that I've broken the bubble I intend to publish more information this fall. There has certainly been a number of neat events that should be shared... And hey, I mostly want to follow up on Maria Cantwell's visit! That's largely because we climbing rangers were star struck by the Senator, as she turned out to be quite hip and very down to earth. Who would have imagined such coolness in DC? Maria Cantwell with Jeremy Shank and me, photo by Mike Heavey

In the meantime, send me your thoughts and comments, and I'll try my best to kick this blog back into action. Photo above: Jeremy Shank cabin building on Bald Mountain near Talkeetna AK, image by Mike Gauthier.

Fun in the Winter Sun

I have bragged in the past about the Co-Habitant's wonderous winter commuting skills. But truth be told, is that really so impressive to accomplish on a cushy modern Pashley? Yesterday, he tried riding Rodney - his vintage Raleigh DL-1 with rod brakes - and reports his experience:

In a vintage bike, the freezing temperatures can really effect the brakes and steering. The cold stiffens the grease in the headset, making the steering extremely stiff. Of course you can rebuild the headset, but this takes either skill and time, or money to spend at the bike shop - so it is yet another issue to take into consideration when buying old bikes. Similarly, old brake pads tend to harden in the cold, compromising braking performance considerably. On regular caliper brakes, the brake pads can be replaced with new salmon KoolStops to remedy the problem. But rod brakes are incompatible with the KoolStop pads, so there is not much that can be done really.
So there you have it: a vintage bicycle with rod brakes is great in the snow... unless you need to stop or safely turn. Of course none of that prevent the Co-Habitant from riding it around the neighborhood - though thankfully, he does not plan to commute on it to work.

And we're out there having funin the cold Boston winter sun

St Patrick's Day Weekend Fun

My schedule has changed so I now have one weekend day off each week. That has been a wonderful thing and it worked out very well this past weekend where we had lots of things scheduled. Saturday night Rich and Donna invited us over for dinner. Tom and Karen joined us. Karen brought the shamrock above.



I thought I had pictures of the food, but somehow I don't. We had chicken kabobs, potato salad, another salad that was a slaw salad, potato skins and dessert and Margaritas. Everything was delicious!! Along with the great food, we had fun getting to know each other better. I loved hearing more stories about how each of us met and became engaged. We had a great time!



Sunday Nathan and I slept in and then took one of those Sunday drives and this is one of the things we saw:





It's hard to see exactly what it is from my pictures but it was a truck with a seat like they have on the airboat rides on the back. Too funny!



After our Sunday drive, we stopped and picked up pizza and headed to Rene and Mira's rig where Bob and Vicki joined us. They added Ceaser salad, drinks and strawberry shortcake to make it another great dinner.



We went to see some of their Alaska trip pictures. We always love spending time with both of the couples and to get them together is a double treat. Their pictures were incredible and the scenery they captured was amazing.



We left in the middle of this to go and see Mike Thomas perform here at the park. I have been to one of his shows before and really enjoyed it. This was Nathan's first time seeing him perform. He enjoyed it too.



We then went back to see the rest of the pictures and chat for some time afterwards. Weekends like this are perfection for me! Loved all that we did and hope to have more time with our pickleball friends before they all head out.