4 days of riding in Otter Tail County, MN

M & I headed south for a bit of r'n'r - riding and relaxation. On Tuesday (Aug 16) M found a b&b called Xanadu Island run by Bubba and Margie! (I kept waiting for Olivia to show up and starting singing!) Their resort also had 3 cabins for rent, so we booked cabin #3 for 4 nights, packed up some food and the bikes and headed for the colonies.

M's brother, MH, had recommended Otter Tail County as a great place to ride, and that Fergus Falls, MN was a kind of central hub. The web-searching we did revealed mostly trails - paved and off-road -  which seems to be the preferred way of using a bicycle in these parts of Minnesota. Once we got there we picked up what maps we could, and decided to explore a bit.

Day 1 (Aug 17)

Although we road a good part of the Central Lakes Trail (a well-paved trail on an old rail bed) on this day, and it was in fact our longest day of riding, it was the least interesting and rewarding. This is not to say that it wasn't a good day, but the other three days were significantly better.

  

You ride past a few nice towns.

We stopped in Ashby at Ruby's for lunch ...

... where I had this fine mushroom and swiss burger. Americans know something about burgers!

So, I rode from Battle Lake (where the b&b is) to Fergus Falls, and then we rode the Central Lakes Trail from there to Melby and back - 110 ks total for me, 83 ks for M.

Day 2 (Aug 18)

We decided to see what the real roads would bring us, and Bubba and Margie suggested we head over to Phelps, to see the Phelps Mill, an old flour mill that's been preserved and is open to the public. So we mapped out a route that included it. We drove to Glendalough State Park and road from there.

The roads went up and around and down, like this one.

While riding around Otter Tail Lake there was the obligatory flat to be fixed.

Phelps Mill (in Phelps, MN - where else?).

More Phelps Mill

By the end of the day we'd ridden a 73 k loop, which was a bit longer than expected, but the roads were excellent.

Day 3 (Aug 19)

We thought this might be a bit of down day - a bit cool - so we decided to drive the car around and check out Inspiration Peak, a place we hoped to ride to the next day. Well we got there, and this is what it looked like:

The hike up the trail was not so much a hike as a  steep walk. 

Since we had our bikes along, we decided to ride a short loop the guy at the bike shop in Fergus Falls recommended. Another great ride (37 ks). One of the roads looked like this:

Day 4 (Aug 20)

Having taken a bit of a break, and explored the territory with the car we, with confidence, drove to the small town of Vining (pop. 211 - Today was their Watermelon Day - free watermelon, a parade, and LOTS of really large Minnesotans lumbering about.) and set out to ride, and then enjoy the free watermelon (sorry, no pics of this extravaganza). This 65 k ride began and "middled" very well, but ended superbly as we met Sue from Minneapolis along the way - the first road rider we'd met actually riding on these fantastic roads - and she (being the 50ish in great shape mother of three that she was) recommended a lovely little 20 k in and out between two lakes. It was a great way to end our time out there, along with the free watermelon!

A good climb.

A fine descent.

One of the many Lutheran churches you get to ride past out here.

So it was a fantastic 4 days of riding quiet, hilly, winding roads, past lakes and resorts and fields and through woods and small towns. I highly recommend it, if you like to ride road, and you're tired of flat and windy.

A big day

What happened:

Sitting in the great outdoors.

Up the aisle into the west!

Making it real.

Great cupcakes!

Eating together!

Playing together!

Dancing together!

What M said:

When you name a child, it is amazing how often a child takes on (reflects) the meaning of that name. Genevieve means “white wave”, and dad and I have from time to time reflected over the past 21 years how you are our “white wave”.

As a family that has many memorable moments canoeing, it is fitting to use the analogy of canoeing and our “white wave”.

When you were just over a year and on your second canoe trip, you experienced your first thrill. As parents we were perhaps fool hearty as we crossed the lake in high waves too eager eager to get to our favourite camp spot. You were not only trusting, but laughing and leaning over the canoe trying to catch the white capped waves.

Some years later you joined Sara and I and a few other  women on a canoe trip. It was a tactical error , not understanding weight distribution and the wind and waves that send you and another  person flying into the water startled and shaken.

A few years ago, and with more experience behind you, you paddles hard as our two canoes made an attempt to cross open water with strong winds and high waves that threatened to capsie our boats or crash them into the rocks. You had no choice but to listen to the voice of experience sitting in the stern, and in listening, you and dad and Lauren brought your boat safely to the nearest island.

You also know the thrill of riding with the waves and letting them carry you across the lake. Or to swim beside the canoe as your canoeing partner keeps pace with you.

You have also experienced calm waters, and there are two kinds of calm. In the middle of the day a lake without a breeze or a ripple on the water is a dead calm. As your paddle dips into the water, it is heavy like pudding, and you feel like you are going nowhere.

Then there is the calm that sets on the lake in the evening. After a hard day of paddling and portaging, it is a wonderful feeling to go back in the canoe for a short evening paddle around an island or in a bay.

Genevieve, your “white wave” experiences in life have profoundly shaped you into a woman who now desires compassion, sensitivity, forgiveness, and above all love. You are still a “white wave”, and will be and should be. Justin, you are the calm waters, and just as waves need calm, so calm needs waves.


May God, who is the author of love and all that is good, bless your marriage, and may your life husband and wife enrich others around you in the way you listen, talk, work, play, and grow together.

What PauPs said:

I cannot resist giving some advice. Sorry. When Margruite and I met, got engaged and then married, we were significantly different people than we are today. Some people that you haven’t seen for years may come up to you and say “Hey, you haven’t changed a bit.” but they’ll be wrong because they don’t know you anymore, and you have changed a bit. Probably quite a bit. This is not a bad thing. Who wants to be stagnant as a person? Who really wants to hear that “you haven’t changed a bit” thing, unless of course you really loved high school and still want to call that time the best time of your life.

I am not the same person today, that I was the day I got married. Of course many of my personal and physical traits are very recognizable, but the way I think about and interpret my world has changed because of my experiences. If I could do a “freaky Friday” experiment with myself take the mind of the me that is me today, and put it into my 22 year old just-about-to-get-married body, and have that hybrid me meet the Margruite of that time, I’m not sure that our relationship would happen, and last. Outwardly these two would still recognize and be attracted to one another, but the “hybrid future me” might not have the same vibe for Margruite as “young boy in the past” me.

Though I’m stating the obvious, I’ll still say it, time and experience changes you, but those changes are not immediately obvious. The more visible things that we tend to pay a lot of attention to – hairstyle, height, weight, eye colour, skin colour, even economic class – Freud called “the narcissism of small differences.” When you fall in love, these visible things play a major role in determining your interest in the other person. We amplify the significance of the unimportant features, while overlooking deep differences. You cannot worship yourself, as Narcissus did, and stay in a marriage for long. Even if your partner worships you too, your little “church of you” will eventually lose its appeal and you’ll be left with disputes over toothpaste, toilet lids, cleaning the kitchen, credit card spending, and bad driving habits.

Genevieve, we have, together with you, experienced things that have changed us in ways that most people cannot see. We are not the same people today that we were when you were reaching over the gunwale for the waves on Lake Manomin. We have had to confront ourselves and each other through some pretty intense stuff, which has helped us understand our small differences and rely on our deep similarities.

Lately we’ve started riding bike together (Justin too) and through cycling I can see how you’ve changed in deep ways. Last week we rode from here to Emerson and, though you hadn’t ridden much this season, you wanted to take a regular turn at the front on the way out (That’s the determination of the “same-old” Genevieve. By the way, it’s an amazing thing to have your daughter set the pace for you, and to ride in her draft!). On the way back home though, you realized that you hadn’t ridden enough to keep the same pace, so you gratefully accepted my lead – all of this without frustration or anger.

Biking alone can be hard hard work. There’s always a wind to fight. Biking together makes the work so much less hard, at least if you work together on it. There are days when you’re strong and you pull your partner along, and days when you’re weaker and you let him face the wind and you follow his draft. But you have to work together to realize that advantage. A bicycle built for two, which you have invoked on your invitation, makes that working together “trust” thing really obvious. 

…

Recipes will follow.

CanAm 2011

It's become a wandering tradition that the MIT folks from Steinbach head over to YantSeid for a ride into North Dakota. Last Friday 11 of us rode from the Gretna water station to Walhalla and back, via Leroy and Leydon - 95 kms. We stopped for lunch at the Sanctuary Guest House and Eatery in Walhalla. There's a lot of draft available in a group this size. We averaged over 30 k/h for the ride with an age range of riders from 15 to 67 years! Good times!

Today I rode the long way to faspa at Elizabeth's gazebo(to the 75, then to Letellier, through St. Joseph, and then Rosenfeld) - 48 ks. Averaged 34.8 k/h with a little help from a 10 k SSE wind.

After that we went home to wedding plan with P & D, and that wasn't too bad at all. We may get through all of this relatively unscathed!

International soccer night in Altona

Ten years ago would this have happened in this peaceful Mennonite community?
At 7 pm some guys got together to play some soccer in this peaceful Mennonite community. Three of those guys were born in Russia, but came from Germany, one of them was from Palestine, but came via Iraq, one of them was from Burundi, one of them was Rwanda, one was from New Brunswick, one was from Altona, and one was from Neubergthal. They played for an hour and fifteen minutes and through trickery and deceit the old guys won.

The day of the place

At 8:30 am I call Redi-Mix (not the dance club). "Concrete," the guy says. I say,

"I need 3 yards of 5 inch slump for this afternoon." He says,

"What strength do you want?" I say,

"It's for a garage pad." He says,

"So 3500 (something or other I didn't catch) and 5 yards?" I say,

"3 yards." He says,

"Right. What time?" I say,

"2 o'clock?" He says,

"It'll be there." That was the most fun conversation of the day.

After that I got in my truck and headed for Rite-Way in Stinkler to pick up the bull-float and the power trowel. While there I was propositioned to sell my truck. It would be easier to sell myself, I tell the guy. Probably more moral too. I love my truck. There's no two ways about it.

Coming back through Altona I pick up the angle iron I ordered from Allen Penner (I phoned him at 9:30 pm last night to ask for it, and he had it ready for me by 9 am this morning! Can you beat small town service?!) at Sunland Steelworks, which I've devised to use as helpmeet for skreeding. That might have been the best purchase of the day, because I don't know how we'd have skreeded the pad flat without it as a guide. Allen's a great guy who lives in the village and works in town and goes to the Holdeman church. He's a good welder too. If a guy can weld, he can go to any church he likes, if you ask me.

Back at home we do the final preparations for the placement: level up and fasten the angle iron; prepare the 2x4s to use as skreeds; generally get psyched. Then we have lunch.

At 2 pm the truck arrives, and we're off. I'm not going to say it was easy, but I am going to say it went better than I expected. GeeVs, M, and I worked well together. We didn't get pissed off at each other (much). We worked steady for about 2 hours, and then the concrete was placed, skreeded, and floated, and looked like this:

GeeVs, wary of the stalking wheelbarrow.

Then we waited. But not really long enough, because when we thought we could get on it with the power trowel, it was a bit wet, like this:

Notice all the footy prints. Too deep. Too wet.

So we cut our losses, took care of the footprints, and went in for supper. At about 7:20 I got back out there, fired up the power trowel and power trowelled away till about 9:30 (had to add a spritz of water now and then to make things work) . Then fiddled a bit with hand trowel, and we ended up with a garage pad that looks like this:

Not bad. Not perfect, but given that I place about 1 pad of concrete every 7 years, I think I've improved. I'd say that pretty thorough planning, thanks to little-big bro T for all the oral help (heehee), and more tenacity with the power trowel made all the difference. 

People, we have a garage pad!

Tomorrow, we place

Some people say that you pour concrete, but I have it on decent authority that since concrete is a solid, even if there's water in it at the beginning, you place it. So tomorrow, if all goes according to my will, we will place concrete here, in what will be a warm garage this winter:

Who knew there was so much to think about in order to get a floor in right. There's making it level (at least around the edges). There's the slope to the drain - if you're going to have a heated garage you're going to need to collect and get rid of the snow that melts off of the car, and a drain is the ideal place ... as long as the concrete is evenly sloped to it. There's the beast known as the power-trowel that, operated correctly, will make your floors smooth and shiny.

Anyway, I have aspirations here to achieve a level, flat, evenly sloped placement of concrete. I do not necessarily have faith in myself to be able to do it. It's not like I place concrete everyday, and GeeVs, who will be my assistant, hasn't worked with concrete before either.

Let the placement begin.