Sunday, August 10, 2008
Rain in the Morning
There is nothing better than rain in the morning. It has been dry and we have been hoping for a nice shower, it seems like it has rained all around us, finally it was our turn. The tail end of the cold front was just what was needed.
It started about 6am so we got up and went out to enjoy it. Carrying water from our rain barrels to give those plants under the eves a shot of rain water and wading in the gutter along the street. It rained for about an hour and we were soaked and smiling when we came it for a bowl of oatmeal and fruit.
Nothing can beat a summer rain on the plains. We only heard one rumble of thunder during the whole time. What a special treat on my parents 72nd Wedding Anniversary.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Tourism shouldn't be passive
I have been looking at some rural tourism sites and most of the activities don't expect much out of visitors except eating, sleeping, and looking,or don't forget a pool so kids have something to do, which says something about the typical view of what constitutes a family vacation.
Here is this rural area with miles upon miles of uncrowded vistas disected by grass and gravel roads just waiting for bicyclists, but no mention of active creation of your own entertainment. Put the family on bicycles. Go for a walk.
Come on rural areas sharpen up your hosting skills, put out a country welcome and get people involved, there must be 100s of projects that need doing that teach skills and are fun if you have the right attitude, such as: tree planting, song bird banding, planting wild flowers, bird watching & identification, fence mending, weed pulling, picking sweet corn, gardening, building shelters, ...
Sorry suckers, we are not consumers. We don't want to attend, "festivals throughout the year feature demonstrations that show how things were done down on the farm in the good ol' days" when there is a countryside out there to explore, people to get to know, and lakes to wade.
Shut off the TV, forget the boring professional sports teams with the beer sponsors, get out of air conditioning, get up early and take a ride down a country lane. Believe me it beats the heck out of knocking a ball in a cup. Warning, there's no coming back.
Oh yeah. Don't confuse bicycles with something that needs a motor, petroleum fuel, and noise to make an impression. The only thing a motorcycle shares with a bicycle is that both have 2 wheels, after that the routes diverge. Read Robert Frost.
Here is this rural area with miles upon miles of uncrowded vistas disected by grass and gravel roads just waiting for bicyclists, but no mention of active creation of your own entertainment. Put the family on bicycles. Go for a walk.
Come on rural areas sharpen up your hosting skills, put out a country welcome and get people involved, there must be 100s of projects that need doing that teach skills and are fun if you have the right attitude, such as: tree planting, song bird banding, planting wild flowers, bird watching & identification, fence mending, weed pulling, picking sweet corn, gardening, building shelters, ...
Sorry suckers, we are not consumers. We don't want to attend, "festivals throughout the year feature demonstrations that show how things were done down on the farm in the good ol' days" when there is a countryside out there to explore, people to get to know, and lakes to wade.
Shut off the TV, forget the boring professional sports teams with the beer sponsors, get out of air conditioning, get up early and take a ride down a country lane. Believe me it beats the heck out of knocking a ball in a cup. Warning, there's no coming back.
Oh yeah. Don't confuse bicycles with something that needs a motor, petroleum fuel, and noise to make an impression. The only thing a motorcycle shares with a bicycle is that both have 2 wheels, after that the routes diverge. Read Robert Frost.
Labels: bicycle, fun, gravel, prairie
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Sunday ride to Oakwood State Park
Click here for an interactive map
What I like best about this ride is the gravel roads on the return. The gravel surface reminds me not to hurry or see how fast I can go. The gravel is a subtle reminder of why we bicycle in the first place, it's not about getting there, it's about the here and now and world around us. Motorists may crave the roads and the speed, for us the road is just tool that blends movement with experience and not getting there which just ends the pleasure.
The state Park has cabins and camping so it is a nice place for an overnight or longer. There are several lakes and communities within 10-20 miles so it is a nice place to spend some time and be free of petroleum powered transport.
Go online and make reservations and check out other information.
Labels: bicycle, prairie, zero carbon emissions
Friday, May 30, 2008
Wild Wales Road in Eastern South Dakota
I went to a meeting for Safe Routes to School (btw, it's about bicycling and walking). Jen went for a bicycle ride from LaFramboise Island to Farm Island.
What started out with the bird watching ride on a bicycle in the Pierre area turned into a unique view of an area of Eastern South Dakota that is easily missed if you're in a hurry. I started traveling this road many years ago before it was even paved, but I had never done it in the kind of weather we experienced on May 29, 2008. Oh yeah, I wasn't in a hurry either.
I will call this the 216 Steet road as it begins on that county road that about 50 miles East of Pierre on SDHY 34 and heads nearly straight East and after a few jogs you finish up on 214. Most people would not think of a straight road as scenic and maybe the weather did have something to do with it.
But let me say that no road is scenic regardless of how many twists and turns it may have. On the contrary, it is the topography and ecology through which it passes, although many motored vehicle drivers might disagree, in my opinion they are missing the point. They are not alone most map makers make the same mistake. Perhaps it is simply the pervasive influence of cars that go where roads takes them. Maybe that is the point after all.
It was cloudy and the wind easterly,the fog was occasionally dense enough to bring the visibility to less than 1/4 of a mile. The sloughs and pot holes all had water and ducks, the prairie sounds of meadow larks and red wing blackbirds was ever present. Sun peaked through once in a while and the views changed from mile to mile. It was a great experience resulting mostly from PDL (pure dumb luck).
I would encourage anyone heading to the river or returning on a day of "bad weather" to take their time and enjoy this special glimpse at a scenic part of South Dakota that does not appear on the tourist maps. I am guessing sunrise and sunset would be good times to go in even in sunny weather and those scenes could be captured with a camera.
It would take a more talented photographer than me to capture the feeling of this place at this time. The best I can do is an abstract view of a crumbling barn taken a couple of years ago not far from the WWR .
Why do I call the Wild Wales Road? Even though there are cattle instead of sheep and it is in South Dakota instead of Great Britain, there is a remote wildness about it that made me think of the wilderness area of Wales and a trip we made across that area in 2002. Amazing what can be found in our own backyard.
It would make a great 3 day bicycle camping trip with an opportunity to camp out in the Ree Hills, say by the Spring Lake WPA, and another night along the the Missouri River. There are no services for about 100 miles along the 216 route, the towns are along both US14 to the North and SD34 to the South. Ames and Danforth persist as place names but the services are gone. Carry some food and water and enjoy the Wild Wales Road, the remoteness makes it special.
More detail? Check the Pierre to Huron via Wild Wales Road Interactive Map and plan your own trip. Take your time. Go slow. Ride a bicycle. The planet depends on your actions.
What started out with the bird watching ride on a bicycle in the Pierre area turned into a unique view of an area of Eastern South Dakota that is easily missed if you're in a hurry. I started traveling this road many years ago before it was even paved, but I had never done it in the kind of weather we experienced on May 29, 2008. Oh yeah, I wasn't in a hurry either.
I will call this the 216 Steet road as it begins on that county road that about 50 miles East of Pierre on SDHY 34 and heads nearly straight East and after a few jogs you finish up on 214. Most people would not think of a straight road as scenic and maybe the weather did have something to do with it.
But let me say that no road is scenic regardless of how many twists and turns it may have. On the contrary, it is the topography and ecology through which it passes, although many motored vehicle drivers might disagree, in my opinion they are missing the point. They are not alone most map makers make the same mistake. Perhaps it is simply the pervasive influence of cars that go where roads takes them. Maybe that is the point after all.
It was cloudy and the wind easterly,the fog was occasionally dense enough to bring the visibility to less than 1/4 of a mile. The sloughs and pot holes all had water and ducks, the prairie sounds of meadow larks and red wing blackbirds was ever present. Sun peaked through once in a while and the views changed from mile to mile. It was a great experience resulting mostly from PDL (pure dumb luck).
I would encourage anyone heading to the river or returning on a day of "bad weather" to take their time and enjoy this special glimpse at a scenic part of South Dakota that does not appear on the tourist maps. I am guessing sunrise and sunset would be good times to go in even in sunny weather and those scenes could be captured with a camera.
It would take a more talented photographer than me to capture the feeling of this place at this time. The best I can do is an abstract view of a crumbling barn taken a couple of years ago not far from the WWR .
Why do I call the Wild Wales Road? Even though there are cattle instead of sheep and it is in South Dakota instead of Great Britain, there is a remote wildness about it that made me think of the wilderness area of Wales and a trip we made across that area in 2002. Amazing what can be found in our own backyard.
It would make a great 3 day bicycle camping trip with an opportunity to camp out in the Ree Hills, say by the Spring Lake WPA, and another night along the the Missouri River. There are no services for about 100 miles along the 216 route, the towns are along both US14 to the North and SD34 to the South. Ames and Danforth persist as place names but the services are gone. Carry some food and water and enjoy the Wild Wales Road, the remoteness makes it special.
More detail? Check the Pierre to Huron via Wild Wales Road Interactive Map and plan your own trip. Take your time. Go slow. Ride a bicycle. The planet depends on your actions.
Labels: prairie, Ree Hills, SD
Friday, May 23, 2008
A Life Worth Living
My travel goes beyond business & pleasure
Oh sure I do both when I am in Europe. I am a poet and direct experience is the key to authentic expression, but partaking in the street scenes of the European city is a real part my life. I don't go there to get away from the prairie but to compliment the rich experience of this North American rural setting. European cities are much more to my liking than the sprawling megalopolises that US cities have become.
Use a bike to get around Chicago. Great idea if you are already on Lake Shore Drive but the buses, trams and trains hardly offer the kind of mobility that Berlin does, and Chicago is an exception at that. Davis CA? Hardly a large city. Portland? I love it, but most people still find cars essential for everyday life.
Restuarants that have people sitting outside when it's 52 degrees and slowly sipping a 3oz coffee while watching life in the street and chatting with me in their 3rd language (English) after it is obvious my pidgin is not up to the task. At 21:00 (9:00 pm) in downtown USA, wherever, forget it.
One example of the street life is checking people riding Velib bicycles that are found all over the city of Paris, not just Paris they are in many of the cities. They ride for free or a nominal cost and drop off at some other station near their destination. Let's see it took 20 minutes to go from Shakespeare's Bookstore right across from Notre Dame Cathedral to the Eiffel Tower. What a nice complement to watching migrating shore birds in a flooded soybean field in the Big Sioux River Valley that less than 2 miles on a bicycle from my front door.
It makes me want to push harder for Safe Routes to School so my grandchildren can do it here in he USA without the carbon emissions of international air travel.
Labels: bicycle, Paris, prairie, SLOW_bicycling, travel
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Today we heard the Brown Thrasher sing
Full moon, cool dry air, before sunrise.
Took Nickel out with our bicycles to our favorite Birdwatching area to see what happening. We saw the Brown Thrasher the first day. The guide books say "Brown Thrashers are able to vocalize 3000 distinct songs," but we never really have seen them performing, they are always just flying way ahead of us. but today was different. From a perch high in a cottonwood tree he sang and sang, each trill another new sound. On the way back to town about an hour and half later he flew low across the road in front of us showing his brown back then hopped up the tree and began singing once more.
The sedge wrens were and common yellow throats were all along the route and we saw a yellow legs for the first time this year although I am sure they have been around. Meadow larks and bobolinks were in the fields and on the fence wires, plovers and dowitchers in the wet fields plus teal, mallards and geese everywhere we looked.
We are so glad we didn't miss the spring migration. We are on the lookout for a Kingfisher and maybe we will check out the orioles at the lake this afternoon. The weather is jus too nice to stay inside.
No Kingfisher, but the yellow and yellow-rumped warblers, orchard and Baltimore Orioles, and song sparrows were out and putting on a natural vocal performance while the Kingbirds keep us company on the way home.Of course there are always the Yellow head and Red wing blackbirds that I enjoy hearing as I ride, which proves that I am no birder after all.
Labels: bicycle, birds, prairie
