Check out my ride on Strava.
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Minnesota North Shore Tour
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Strava Link Test
Check out my ride on Strava.
https://strava.app.link/SnsWfnxcJqb
I’d set up my Ride with GPS app to automatically synch a ride to my Strava app.
So far, so good! Now I wanted to know how to put a Strava Activity link into my WordPress blog post. I tried sharing directly from Strava to WordPress and that didn’t work. So I asked my son Brian to show me. It didn’t work for him either. But he showed me a simple copy-and-paste workaround.
And the Strava Link below the map at the top of this post is the happy outcome! Click it and you’ll be able to view my route for that day, key stats, photos I took, and comments I added. That way you can stay up-to-date on where I am and how my bike tour is progressing.
Enjoy! Even post a comment to the blog post if you feel so inclined. We’re all in this together!
“Dad, what else would be like this?”
That’s the question that started me thinking. We were in the midst of bike touring the Natchez Trace Parkway in October 2020. While I prepared for the adventure, I’d read A Way Through the Wilderness: The Natchez Trace and the Civilization of the Southern Frontier by William C. Davis. I wanted to know more about the history and culture of the region and the ancient route we’d be following. And I became especially interested in the Native American aspect of the story.
So it was from that perspective that I briefly pondered my daughter’s question. “You know, for a bike tour,” I said, “I think the Erie Canal would be a lot like this!”
Months later, I launched Google Maps, clicked the cycling icon, and set about drawing a route map for a new adventure. I started in Albany, NY and mapped the Erie Canalway Bike Trail all the way to Buffalo. It seemed a short hop to Cleveland, OH, so I added a second destination: my birthplace Berea, OH. Then a third: my alma mater MSU. And a fourth: Mackinac Island. A fifth: Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. And finally: Grand Marais, MN, site of North House Folk School, from which I took a web-based course in Boat Design last year.
In a single Google Maps session I had sketched a mammoth, 1500 mile bike tour of the Great Lakes!
And I’ll be riding it this summer, in some sections accompanied by friends and family members. You are cordially invited to join me on this 7-week adventure through this blog.
P.S. My grandchildren know me as Papa E and I designed this map to show them where I would be going on my Big Great Lakes Bike Tour.
Cheryl McGovern Mowris
December 21, 1947 – May 26, 2020
Cheryl’s Alzheimer’s Journey came to an end peacefully at home on May 26, 2020.
We were married for 52 bountiful years.
of our 50th Wedding Anniversary.
Birthday Math Fun
Today is my daughter’s birthday. Happy birthday, Elisabeth!
Awake in the wee hours recently, I got to thinking about birthdays. Birthday math, actually.
Like a few years ago when my wife Cheryl and I celebrated our 100th birthday together! We were born in the same year, just over six months apart. So I realized that somewhere between our 50th birthdays there would be a day when the sum of our ages equaled exactly 100 years. I calculated the date and we went out for a special dinner that night.
Another time just a couple of years back, my friend Brian and I went for a “ride your age” bike ride. The year prior we’d gone riding together on my birthday and he’d laid down the challenge. When we got together for a “birthday ride” one year later, we agreed that neither of us was ready to ride 64 miles that day. So we rode 32 miles and added it together!
My daughter and my mom both have birthdays in August and this month mom celebrates her 90th birthday. So – back in the wee hours – I got to thinking about “when would Elisabeth be half her grandmother’s age?” I started plugging in numbers in my head and wasn’t getting anywhere. Then I saw that it’s a simple algebraic equation, so I set it up in my mind and worked the numbers to calculate the value of X. I’m not about to give away my grown daughter’s age, so I’ll just leave it at that …
But that thought stream led me to another birthday math challenge, which I can share. My grandson Ransom celebrated his 21st birthday on February 2nd this year while studying in China. I celebrated my 66th on June 14th – and “rode my age” in the Cartersville Century bike ride just two weeks later! So, here’s the puzzle. On what date will Ransom be exactly half my age?
Father’s Day Reflections
To celebrate Father’s Day yesterday my son Kevin invited me to ride bikes to Stone Mountain. While on the ride I received phone calls from his siblings Brian, Elisabeth and Philip, as well as my grandson Ransom. Wow! Happy Father’s Day!!!
I cannot recall ever riding bikes with my father, but he was central to instilling my love of cycling.
- When I was eight my dad presented me my first bike, a classic American cruiser with coaster brakes. It was green and white when he purchased it from the thrift shop on Barksdale AFB. But he totally dismantled and refurbished it. I remember the parts hanging on the clothesline – frame, fork, fenders – as he spray painted them bright red. I rode that bike everywhere for the next four years.
- Dad got transferred to Germany and for some reason chose to move the Phillips 3-speed he’d been riding to his work as a meteorologist on base. In Wiesbaden it became my bike and I rode it all over the city. It had a Sturmey-Archer transmission and one tiny internal hub part kept breaking. I located a bike shop in town near the old Roman wall that stocked the part. The owner had a cousin who lived in Texas and that connection became the basis for our many conversations about America. I subsequently commuted on that sturdy English bike throughout four years at Michigan State University.
- Shortly after Cheryl and I moved into our first house with our two young children, I expressed a wish for a “10-speed racer” and Dad again came through with a spiffy Japanese model that featured Sun Tour components. I joyfully rode it on countless excursions of purpose and pleasure until trading it for a Japanese upgrade in 1980.
I never rode with my dad, but I think I somehow got from him my love of cycling. Here’s a bit of what he wrote about cycling adventures from his youth.
I became a bike enthusiast and with a school friend covered many miles of country roads within a thirty mile radius of Bushnell, Illinois. The roads for the most part were graveled and were not the easiest to ride on. We frequently spent a day just riding. On one Saturday we packed lunches and other gear and road some 30 miles over to the Spoon River during the morning. We stopped at the river, had lunch and rested. The afternoon was spent pedaling home.
Summer nights provided opportunities for more pedaling adventures. The state roads were paved and were very lightly traveled. On several occasions, we biked south for seven miles, west nine miles to Macomb, north six miles and then nine miles east to Bushnell. It was a pleasant, easy ride with a minimum of changes in the grade.
I went riding yesterday with one of my children and – in a way – with all of my children and grandchildren. I also went riding with my Dad. Happy Father’s Day!
Cultural Crossroads
“Could we get an egg with that?” I asked our server as she placed the loaf of freshly baked bread on our table.
My daughter Elisabeth and I had backpacked into Nantahala Outdoor Center the day before and were resuming our southbound hike on the Appalachian Trail that morning. But not before enjoying a hearty breakfast at Slow Joe’s Riverside Café!
Over the past few days we’d steadily honed our camping and cooking skills – seemingly in direct proportion with increasing stamina and appetites – as we made our way southward from the very edge of Great Smoky Mountain National Park. The moment we’d arrived at NOC we’d leaned our backpacks against a tree and fished out a credit card to rent a pair of inflatable kayaks called “duckies”. We’d changed boots for sandals, stashed our packs behind the rental counter and – within minutes – had boarded a bus to take us upriver to the put-in point.
We spent a few hours in sheer delight splashing our way through rapids, taking occasional swims, relaxing in the sparkling sunlight – and letting the river do the work instead of our legs! After we each successfully maneuvered through Class 3 Nantahala Falls, we turned in our boats and crossed the footbridge to Slow Joe’s for a late lunch. That’s when we’d ordered the loaf of bread for pickup the next morning.
“How would you like your egg?” our server wanted to know.
“Raw!” I replied.
Looking concerned she exclaimed, “We can’t serve raw eggs!”
“But we don’t want the egg to eat now!” I explained. “We want it for making French toast tomorrow morning.”
Now she looked genuinely perplexed. “Huh?” was all she could say.
Elisabeth chimed in, “We backpacking the AT and ordered the bread to use for breakfast and lunch tomorrow on the trail.”
“Oh!” exclaimed our server. “Let me find out …”
From our table we could barely hear her end of the conversation.
“They want one egg.”
Something unintelligible …
“Raw – still in the shell.”
Something else unintelligible …
“They’re hikers!”
Moments later she returned and placed a single egg next to our loaf of bread.
“Enjoy your French toast,” she smiled, “and … have a good hike.”
“It would appear,” I speculated, looking at Elisabeth, “in a community of paddlers, hikers are weird!”
Kite Trials
I attempted to fly a home-made cloth kite yesterday.
Cheryl and I are vacationing at Amelia Island, Florida this week and I had decided to mark the occasion by constructing a green-and-white “Block S” kite in honor of our alma mater Michigan State University. (A previous vacation trip to Michigan’s Mackinac Island had turned up kites for other Big Ten powerhouses but not for MSU and I was determined to remedy the oversight …)
Our kite didn’t fly very well. Even in a stiff breeze it merely floated above the ground for a few moments before laying down on the job.
“Not enough lift for the weight!” I reasoned.
The kite’s edges were cut on the bias and had stretched a bit when we stitched the hems on Cheryl’s sewing machine. They were loose and floppy and curled backward in the wind. What should have been a crisp diamond had more the shape of a lumpy cross.
“Design flaw” was my conclusion.
And abruptly I was reminded of a kite flying contest I’d entered when I was about nine years old. My vision had been of a beautiful kite decorated like a stained glass window.
- I’d carefully assembled a diamond-shaped frame of crossed sticks with string connecting the four ends.
- Then I’d cut tissue paper one inch bigger than the frame on all sides and folded and glued each paper edge over the string.
- I remember laying out a geometric design of triangle shapes separated by thick black lines and painting the triangles with vivid water colors.
- Finally I’d rigged the kite with a bow string, bridle string and tail and taken it outside for a test flight.
It flew! I can still see it going up and up and over the roof of our house! And I can still feel the lurch of anguish as the string broke and my beautiful kite disappeared over neighboring rooftops!
I ran through the neighborhood looking for it but never found it. My mom and dad encouraged me to build another and I did.
Disaster struck again as Dad and I were just starting to launch my kite the day of the contest. One of the sticks suddenly snapped. Dad splinted the fracture and we tried again. We eventually got it up in the air, but it was unbalanced and didn’t fly very well.
I was pretty discouraged.
So you can imagine my surprise – and my joy – when I won a prize for Most Beautiful Kite!
Plant Dance
My wife Cheryl practices something she calls edible landscaping. Accordingly we have three citrus trees that – normally – live on our deck.
A lopsided variegated lemon that produces yellow-and-green striped fruit that’s pink inside!
A squat key lime that contributed its miniscule-but-tasty harvest to a recent and memorable pie.
A top-heavy calamondin about which Cheryl’s Chinese friend says the abundance of its tiny orange fruit betokens imminent prosperity.
During Atlanta’s “winters” we stay alert for freeze forecasts so we can bring our trio of trees inside for the night. Lately we’ve been having awesomely lovely afternoons in the fifties – interspersed with morning lows at or below freezing. So in and out they go. I call it the “plant dance.”
Currently we’re using the garage as our “orangerie” and I just tucked the little trees in for the night.
“Whoa!” exclaimed the Lemon. “Who turned off the lights?”
“Back in the garage – again?” the Lime complained.
Calamondin just stood there quivering ever so slightly – relieved to have not fallen over yet again on the steep driveway. “W-w-w-when will it be over?” he seemed to ask.
“I know your frustration.” I reassured them. “Overnight low is forecast to be 32°. You would not be happy in the driveway at 5:30 tomorrow morning. We only do this because we love you so much.”
They seemed to be looking at me – half doubtful, half grateful – their tiny spring blossoms shivering in the gathering chill.
“It looks like tomorrow we can move you back to the deck for a long time.” I encouraged. “Maybe it’s finally spring!”
The prophet Isaiah wrote …
“For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” (Isaiah 55:12)
As I closed the garage door for the night I believe I heard the rustling whisper of a leafy ovation.
There’s Something About a Real Tree
This will be our forty-fifth Christmas together. And each Yule season it’s been my job to set up our Christmas tree. In some years it’s a fir and in others a spruce. Sometimes bought from a lot, but once in a while personally selected and cut at a tree farm. Only twice, when we moved in the very midst of the holidays, did we make do with an artificial tree. And one year, when our recently occupied condo was too small for a tree, a subtropical houseplant happened to be in blossom, so we added our tiniest ornaments and dubbed it the Christmas hibiscus. There’s just something about a real tree….
My fondest recollection was a Scotch pine we got from a tree farm while living in Michigan. It had hundreds of stubby little pine cones and, as the tree warmed in our cozy living room, the pine cones began opening up, making a pleasant crackling sound. Click – click – crack. We were enjoying the piney smell and the crackling pine cones so much that we left the tree standing there for several days without any decoration!
Then one Saturday I strung our tiny white lights and put the angel on top. And the tree was – beautiful! So we left it for several days decorated with just the lights. It was becoming part of our lives and we were gradually getting to know it better and learning what it had to teach us.
Eventually we spent a family evening hanging ornaments on our new friend, the tree. Our two children were six and four, so we had one special ornament each for Christmases they’d been with us. Plus we had collected a dozen or so hand-blown glass ornaments from our first couple of years together. We weren’t yet buying decorations by the box – just one special ornament for each child and now and then adding something homemade or that simply caught our eye. To this day, these remain my favorites….
I recall that by Christmas Day our tree had been lovingly and patiently decorated. Maybe complete with tinsel, but maybe not. All I remember is that it was still crackling, still dropping Scotch pine seeds among the assembled gifts. Still lovingly and patiently warming up in our household and giving of itself to our immense treasure of joy!
And so, most years since, I’ve taken my time with each Christmas tree, getting to know it better as I allow a few days to pass between bringing it in, stringing the lights, placing a few treasured ornaments, then a few more. For me, it’s like Advent itself, thoughtfully and reverently preparing for the joyous birth of the Light of the World into our midst.