More snowshoeing
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Posted:Feb 4, 2015 7:00 pm
Last Updated:Nov 8, 2015 8:31 pm
16706 Views
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Yesterday we had warm weather- twenty seven degrees- and we snowshoed again at Al Sabo. We hiked our favorite trail, the circuit through the meadow and then north to Portage Creek, then back south alongside the marsh. There had been a bit more traffic, quite a few skiers and a lot of other snowshoers, and even some hikers. The creek is till flowing downstream from the landbridge, and there is a small open pool upstream right at the culvert, but out in the open marsh it's thinly frozen over. Gracie was on her best behavior. We were out two hours, starting at around three. She got even better behaved as we got further up the trail. We were tired and I think for once she was actually tired herself! We finished off the lasagna when we got home. There's nothing wrong with lasagna three days in a row, right? Two hours on the snowshoes wore us both out and we each hit the sheets early. I was asleep before two AM.
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Our groundhog day
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Posted:Feb 2, 2015 4:59 pm
Last Updated:Nov 8, 2015 8:30 pm
17241 Views
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It snowed all day yesterday, tiny fine dry flakes and the wind blew like hell wouldn't have it. By two in the afternoon we had a foot and I went out to plow the drive. I figured we'd go snowshoeing afterward, but it took a long time to move all that snow, since I was too cheap to buy tire chains for the Ford tractor and I kept getting stuck on the ice underneath.
By three I could see we weren't going to make it so we propped up a couple of low spots in the fence and released the beast into the back acre. PD brought her jolly ball- it's a ball about the size of a soccer ball with a handle on it, for horses to play with. By that time I think we had sixteen or eighteen inches of snow in some places and Gracie was loving that, bounding and plowing through the drifts chasing that ball and then shaking the hell out of it when she caught it.
It kept on snowing til after dark and there were four to six more inches in the plowed drive. There was a travel ban in some of the counties around us but I didn't hear of one here so I fired up the pickup truck, in case the lot at the preserve wasn't plowed, and we loaded up our snowshoes and coaxed Gracie into the truck. She didn't much care for it, and I don't blame her. I've had a lot of trucks and this one hates me. Ever since I bought it it's fought me tooth and nail. It'll drive through anything and I've hauled five thousand pounds in the box but it seems like it's alway broke. Gracie knew enough not to trust it, but she finally jumped in. I wish I'd had her the day I bought it.
It was sunny, sixteen degrees and a magnificent day. There were at least ten cars in the parking lot so the trails had had some traffic, but we still needed the snowshoes. All that packed ice has been buried under the new snow and the trails will get a new dressing with a foot and a half of snow on them. The Poop Walk is like new again, and Gracie had to dig to find turds, but she managed to find a magic spot anyway. I gave PD some poles for balance and I used Gracie's long tether- it's easier than the short leash because I've got some warning when she bolts and I can get ready for her. And she does still bolt from time to time. For the last week we've been having a contest of wills over it. I'm going to win, she just doesn't know it yet.
PD did real well on the snowshoes and didn't fall once. They take some getting used to- you have to pick up your toes when you raise a shoe, to keep it from shoveling snow. You want the toe of that shoe to rise first. You can't turn on a dime with shoes on. You have to crab walk around like skis, and be careful not to cross shoes or you'll be eating snow. Poles help, but they aren't necessary. I've never snowshoed with poles and I do fall now and then but I want my hands free for other things, in this case Gracie.
Gracie met a new boyfriend in the meadow and we had some trouble separating them - it looked like they were planning an elopement. She only partly responded to my whistle, running back half way and then remembering virile young Harley back there, and then turning and running back to him. His owner and I had to meet in the middle to corral them. (She was a cutie!) I didn't punish her or even give her an ass chewing. She loves meeting other dogs, and she did TRY to come when called. She's getting there. She needs more practice, and some age on her.
We stayed out about an hour and a half and had a great time, and took a few pictures. This is the kind of wintertime I love. Sunshine, new snow and cold!
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An Expert Opinion
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Posted:Feb 1, 2015 10:24 am
Last Updated:Nov 8, 2015 8:29 pm
17587 Views
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kzoopair- judged one hundred per cent effective* by an independent Lab.
*He can be a bit pigheaded and stubborn at times.
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25
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Mid Winter
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Posted:Jan 29, 2015 5:58 pm
Last Updated:Nov 8, 2015 8:28 pm
17245 Views
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We've been hiking every day but I haven't seen a lot to photograph. We've been in a freeze-thaw cycle, hanging around twenty to thirty five degrees and haven't had a lot of snow. It hasn't been warm enough to melt the ice in the driveway or the rough and packed ice in the trails at Al Sabo. Those trails are getting treacherous. They're hard ice pockmarked with foot prints and it's like walking on slick rocks at the beach. You have to walk the line along the edge of the path. It's no good striking out on your own off trail because the snow got crusty in the thaw and it's tough enough for Gracie to walk on top of it in places but PD and I crunch through.
Monday we walked the Portage Creek Bicentennial Trail instead, heading south. They plow that trail and it's paved for bikes. We had a sunny day in the low twenties Monday and we hiked all the way to the Celery Flats. Ninety per cent of the trail is marshy or swampy, or at least quite damp and the Dutch settlers started cultivating celery here in the nineteenth century. The roads were lined with houses built high off the wet ground, on narrow lots, and the celery plots strung out behind each house. Those houses were perched up six to eight feet above grade on stone and block foundations. Any deeper and the basements would have been indoor swimming pools. Many were flooded anyway.
Celery thrives in salt marshes. There's no salt here but there was a lot of wet ground with gummy black marsh soil and the farmers added salt in the proper ratio to grow here. Failure to rotate crops resulted in a celery blight in the 1930's and with a water table lowered by all the paper mills in the area celery farming died here and moved west. Kalamazoo, once known as Celery City, had to find a new nickname.
The city of Portage built a Celery Flats Interpretive Center to preserve the memory of the early days of farming here- many of the old families were Dutch immigrant celery farmers. Some of the names are still common here- Boven, Dykhouse, OnderDeLinde, VanDenBerg, Wenke. Eppie Niewoonder. Eno Bolhuis. Den Adel.
Oddly enough we see more wildlife here then we do in the forest preserve. A blue heron that I couldn't get a shot of- that one hurt. He waded out into the creek and I didn't even have my camera out of the bag, and as soon as I got it turned on he flew. The trees were too thick to see him, let alone get a picture. But we did see turkeys and lots of deer. The deer were not frightened- they know they're safe- but one was a bit peeved that we didn't keep moving, and walked toward me stamping his foot. He kept his eye on me as I moved around trying to get clear of the brush and get a clear shot. He never charged but he did keep walking in my direction and stamping, hoping that would impress me and scare me off, so we left them alone and moved on.
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Wear Comfortable Shoes
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Posted:Jan 23, 2015 9:09 pm
Last Updated:May 10, 2018 12:43 pm
21301 Views
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The One Piece of Advice Id Give Is The Topic For The Fourth Virtual Symposium
Wear Comfortable Shoes, or, the Joy of Proper Footwear, by Bill
Few things are as debilitating as sore feet. They can make the legs ache and the back clench up in pain. This in turn might well give rise to a throbbing headache mounted on a tightly bound neck. In the words of one Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, writer, “A man's subconscious self is not the ideal companion. It lurks for the greater part of his life in some dark den of its own, hidden away, and emerges only to taunt and deride and increase the misery of a miserable hour.” So too, are tight shoes a poor companion, but they commit their atrocities in the full light of day, not lurking but glaringly obvious just as one is attempting to put one's best foot forward, flaunting the pain they inflict and calmly not to say brazenly undermining one's underpinnings.
When I was young I could put up with any old slab of hide wrapping my soles. I was also content to be shod with canvas and rubber or even unshod at all- it made no difference to me. I recall using milk pails at one time when still quite young. I stepped into the pails and grabbed the handles and lurched and clanged through the barn laughing at the joyous racket I made. I was the only one celebrating. The pails now needed to be cleaned again and I was cautioned to keep my goddamn feet out of the freshly washed milk pails henceforth, otherwise I would be furnished with a warm reminder.
The point of course being that young people care very little for the utility of their footwear and even less for its comfort. They will eagerly lace on any ridiculous contraption. If it has batteries and lights and perhaps an air pump, so much the better. The price of course is of importance- the more it costs the more coveted it will be. If one's friends have them then one must possess such a shoe oneself. In my own youth when I mentioned with longing to my folks the treasured belongings of a friend I was invited to leave, sooner rather than later, because we were having spaghetti and meatballs for supper and it would be of course more cost effective if I were to make my departure prior to dining.
As one grows older fashion in footwear becomes even less practical and even more uncomfortable. It has been common in the past to see young men in sharply pointed and very narrow half boots, and even elevated heels, a sort of unholy and Mephistophelean half breed between a cowboy boot and what is commonly referred to as a fuck me pump.
Which, going with the flow, brings us floating smoothly downstream to fuck me pumps. At least we are seated in a canoe and not hiking in those pernicious torture devices. None of the insanely stupid things which young men have ever fastened to their feet can rival fuck me pumps for sheer derangement of the senses and the nerve endings. It has been said that a four inch heel will make a woman's buttocks protrude as much as an extra full quarter inch- 0.635 centimeters. Women persist in inflicting these pumps on their feet and legs in the hope that men will notice those minutely projecting butt cheeks and wish to mate with them. Wishing to entice men to want to mate with them is common among females and wearing fuck me pumps is like towing a giant LCD screen behind them that reads "I am at the height of my cycle- copulate with me NOW! See my buttocks?"
And of course, that men notice that posterior and follow its curve down a shapely leg terminating in a fuck me pump will make a woman deleriously happy….unless he should rashly choose to say so, or, even worse, email her a photo of his engorged penis, aroused of course by the bunched and flexed gluteus maximus of his quarry. A bunched gluteus maximus is one thing, nude or clothed, but an engorged and inflated penis is an entirely different matter, even if the first contributed with purpose to the latter. Control youselves you heathens!
We have seen how the choice of painful footgear in the one sex can alter the distribution and allocation of blood supply in the other. We have also seen that women can sometimes be perhaps a bit coy, or shall we say coquettish about how and with whom and why they have chosen to interfere with the physiology of random males. Before we move on, and to assist us in the transition, let us remember Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Often when it was remarked that Fred Astaire was a good dancer, it was pointed out that Ginger Rogers was a better one- she did everything he did, but backwards and in heels. I will be the first to admit that Fred Astaire was a slimy haired death's head in funereal attire who appeared convinced of his own suavity, and debonair beyond compare- what was known in pre-revolutionary France as a Nancy Boy. But giving up on Fred as a lost cause, I would have said to Ginger Rogers- put on some sensible shoes and find another dance partner. The poor woman was born in the wrong time frame and found herself stuck with propping up and dragging around a mannequin from Fifth Avenue- and not a very lifelike one, at that.
A shoe must be roomy without being too large for one's foot. You don't want to be sliding around in there and bouncing off the walls. For walking it should be supple while still giving support. It must flex and protect at the same time. It should provide improved traction on a variety of surfaces and impart confidence to one's stride. It must not be so heavy that one grows weary of picking it up off the floor step after step, hour after hour. It would be nice if this shoe were water repellent and kept one's feet warm and dry, and at the same time not oppressively hot and damp in warm weather. That it can breathe and expel moisture would be grand. A shoe should feel good. The foot should feel better than being bare. Safe. Protected. As if it could go on forever.
I have not always purchased the best footwear. I didn't have the money. In my twenties I was wearing cheap steel toed boots winter and summer alike. They're cold. Granted you can prop a two hundred pound slab of limestone sill stock on your toe, to get your fingers out from under it prior to loading it in a pickup truck, but your toes will still be freezing. After I discovered insulated boots I looked for a chunk of four by four to set the stone on and saved my fingers and had warm toes to boot.
Following the insulated boots I learned that there were wool socks, not the cheap cotton tube socks that a lot of workmen wear- and all I thought I could afford- and on the heels of that, I found that if I wore a polypropylene liner, or even a nylon liner, inside that woolen stocking, the moisture would wick out to the outer sock and keep my feet dry and thus warm. It's a small thing, but a revelation. Cold wet feet are not just part of living in winter. One can do better.
I bought my wife one of the best gifts I could imagine shortly after we met. It was Wigwam hiking socks, and a decent pair of hiking boots. I wrapped them together because they belonged together, pampering those delicious feet of hers. She wore high heeled everything before we met. Even her sandals had heels. Hell, she even dated heels. That Christmas morning she was somewhat underwhelmed by my gift- there were others that captured her imagination- but the boots and socks seemed perhaps unromantic. We had begun hiking in a botanical garden and wild preserve in Niles, Michigan and I was appalled at the cheap and shoddy crap that she affixed to her feet for these walks. Shortly after the holiday we were about to go for a hike and I admonished her to use the presents I had given her- they weren't meant to be thrown in a far corner of the closet. You were supposed to WEAR them, and get them dirty. I'll never forget the look on her face when she first slipped daintily into that first pair of fifteen dollar stockings. "Oh, shit!" she said. "This is almost as good as sex!" The boots got a good review too. She had never owned footwear that cost more than a Big Mac.
My beloved still looks great wearing nylons with seams, lacy tops and garters, and a pair of spike heeled fuck me pumps. But I don't ask her to wear them. Instead I always recommend something flat and wide and comfortable. Converse All Stars can be incredibly sexy, and if a woman is wearing them, I'm going to look twice, because it's smart.
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Free Advice
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Posted:Jan 23, 2015 9:03 pm
Last Updated:Jan 26, 2015 7:29 pm
18139 Views
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The One Piece of Advice Id Give Is The Topic For The Fourth Virtual Symposium
Free Advice, by PD
Free advice is worth about what you pay for it, or so the adage goes, but maybe you shouldn't listen. I mean, isn't that a bit of free advice too?
Most people who like to hand out free advice seem to be talking to themselves, so choosing and writing about the best advice I ever got is kind of tough. It's almost an oxymoron: Good advice.
Really?
Have you ever noticed that many of the pithy advice-bytes banging around out there are on some level completely batshit? Sometimes it's right out there, but sometimes it takes an analyst to point out the stupidity therein; an analyst like, say my eldest at eight.
This was over 25 years ago, way before Facebook routinely flooded us with shitty advice memes, usually with illustrations of kittens or sunrises or Einstein in the background.
My was complaining about something or the other that all the other supposedly had but she did not. This is what eight-year-olds do, it's their job, and if you can't take it, that just means you are a parent. Not 'apparent'--no, eight-year-olds are already beginning to suspect you make no sense, ever, and are completely obtuse--but 'a parent', as in, a person who is raising, or has raised . My sympathies.
After I'd had enough of this whining, I tossed off this bit of familiar free advice for my dissatisfied : "I once complained that I had no shoes, and then I met a man who had no feet."
Without missing a beat she countered, "A man with no feet doesn't need shoes."
How can you argue with that?
It reminded me of this friend I had for awhile who was fond of saying, "They can kill me but they can't eat me."
He said this when he wanted to show that he didn't care about the consequences of some minor infraction or bit of rudeness that he was about to commit or had just committed. Every time he said it I thought, "But if they kill you, they can eat you. They can do anything they want with you, actually, including breading you and saute-ing you in butter."
As a sociopath motto it struck me as exceedingly lame.
I never said that to him. But it always bothered me.
It bothered me so much that I never married him, even though my mother and grandmother thought he was wonderfuckingful, and this is saying something, because back in those days I married everybody. You know what they say, "Never a bridesmaid, always a bride."
When he said he wanted to marry me so we could live in a trailer in his parent's backyard in the back country of Arkansas, I broke it off and took a shitty job in a factory that made camera bags. I operated an industrial sewing machine and never once made piece rate, but as one of the few white people at the factory who wasn't a "hill person", I was kind of an oddity and allowed to just be my weird self in peace, or piece. Whatever.
They all called me, "hippy chick."
Everyone had their own tribe there: The blacks were at the top of the food chain and were the fastest workers and the only ones who made money by sewing faster (sorry if that interferes with beloved stereotypes, but they were). The hill folk were second from the top and these two groups (blacks and hillbillies) got along great, proving that if you just get to know people you don't have to be a dick anymore.
Then there were the Mexican girls. They kept to themselves and I mean seriously, no eye contact, no chatting, no mixing, nothing.
Finally, there was a small group of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees who sat on top of the lunch tables cross-legged to eat, and who were mercilessly teased by both of the top two groups. I say teased but it was worse than that. No they didn't understand what was being said but they got the gist of it.
I befriended one of the Vietnamese girls named Celia Ju. Celia would call me at home and chat at about 90 words a minute, and I could understand none of them. I figured the least I could do was listen.
While I was working there my latest boyfriend got into the FBI and decided to marry me before we took off for D.C. To my surprise everyone took up a collection for me, and brought cake and free advice.
The free advice was two fold:
1) "Make sure you get yours first (orgasm), because once he has his it's all over," and 2) "Save a couple hundred bucks or so but don't let him know about it in case you need to get the hell out of there fast."
These were good bits of free advice. I advise all of you follow them. Did I?
No of course not! But those are good ideas, especially for women.
But I think the best free advice I ever got was something that was given to me fairly recently.
"Learn when not to give a fuck."
It took me way too long to learn that. I made every mistake in the book, lots of mistakes that aren't in the book, and mistakes that are so far out of the realm of cognitive cohesiveness that they can't be properly expressed or understood without hallucinogens that are only found in the depths of the Amazon forest.
But seriously, I don't give a fuck.
It's been a wild ride. I regret nothing.
And George Carlin didn't say that latest thing on Facebook so leave that guy alone for fuck's sake.
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Swans
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Posted:Jan 16, 2015 9:51 pm
Last Updated:Nov 8, 2015 8:28 pm
17199 Views
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At the land bridge between the east and west marshes on Portage Creek in Al Sabo the creek passes through a huge culvert, and the water here will run free into the winter because it's moving more quickly there. there will still be pools of open water and this is where the waterfowl will be.
The other day we found ducks, and they were there today, along with a pair of Mute Swans. The ducks swam off at my approach but mute swans are pretty aggressive, and they paid no attention to me at all.
Mute Swans are an invasive species. they came here from Europe, like many of us, and compete with native fowl like Trumpeter Swans for habitat. They were imported here to decorate parks and ponds and escaped into the wild. Because they're quite aggressive they drive out the indigenous birds. They are much quieter than Trumpeters as indicated by the name but do not hesitate to attack interlopers, especially in nesting season. A number of years ago a football player at the local university got himself in a world of trouble for murdering a swan on the campus with his bare hands. I'm guessing it was a Mute Swan defending its turf. In that case my sympathies were with the swan. Many of us here consider both the mute swan and the dumb football player to be invasive species.
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24
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A closer look
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Posted:Jan 16, 2015 9:26 pm
Last Updated:Nov 8, 2015 8:27 pm
17065 Views
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Today it was thirty five degrees and overcast. We started walking at about two thirty and spent an hour and a half or two in the Preserve. The snow is really setting now and forest litter is sprinkled over the snow cover, along with impact craters from falling clumps of snow, little meteorite bunches of ice crystals that are plummeting from the treetops and branches and leaving pockmarks in the formerly pristine white blanket.
Gracie ran free in the meadow and for a short way up the trail north to the creek. I only called her back and leashed her when she started ranging into the woods where I couldn't see her. It still makes me nervous when she runs out of sight.
The forest is looking more cluttered now, a little more unkempt, but there are still things to see. Tendrils of vines climbing trunks, their roots suckering out and tenaciously clinging to the bark, dried leaves on last summer's deadfalls. The little beech saplings hold their leaves all winter and don't give them up till spring when they begin to bud again.
The hike today tired us both- the snow is damp and slippery now. When you climb down the hill of the Lookout Trail and up the other side you lose your footing often. Like a boxer who throws a punch that is slipped, it wears you out just as much as a hit, and you don't score anything...energy expended for no gain.
A January thaw is common around here, usually accompanied by thick fog, but it didn't get that warm or damp today. The forecast is for more warm weather and after that February is waiting. Some of our biggest snowstorms have come in February.
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Ice
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Posted:Jan 15, 2015 4:15 pm
Last Updated:Nov 8, 2015 8:27 pm
16467 Views
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While we were at Asylum Lake I walked along the outlet creek a bit and took some pictures of it. The ice that had formed along the bank was beautiful and there were exquisite white crystals dotting the surface of the ice shelves.
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16
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Young Love in Winter
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Posted:Jan 15, 2015 4:05 pm
Last Updated:Nov 8, 2015 8:26 pm
16071 Views
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Today was thirty degrees and overcast. We haven't hiked at Asylum Lake for a while so we took our walk there. We had only been at the preserve for fifteen or twenty minutes when the sun began breaking through and it became a gorgeous January day.
We skirted the northern edge of the prairie and headed down the hill to the lake. There were seven or eight guys out ice fishing and as soon as Gracie spotted them she wanted to join them. By the time we reached the access beach there were only a few wisps of cloud in the sky and the sun was quite warm.
It was a magnificent day for a walk and we met a wonderful young couple walking along with their arms around each other. I took quite a few pictures of them and promised to print copies for them. it turns out he visits Al Sabo every night to keep track of the water level at the land bridge, and they each work at stores which we frequent, so we will see them again. In fact, we'll look for them- they were both very nice ....and she was adorable!
We spent about an hour and forty minutes at the Preserve, and Gracie hunted mice and went wild on the prairie as we trekked through the center of it headed for the car. I was a little surprised there weren't more hikers in the warm weather, but there was a breeze that had some sting in it and that might have kept people away.
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Lucky
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Posted:Jan 14, 2015 5:20 pm
Last Updated:Nov 8, 2015 8:26 pm
15561 Views
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We had a nice packed trail today, easy to walk on. We still took an hour and a half walking our circuit at Al Sabo. PD took the lead with Gracie and I poked along looking at the settling snow. It looks like a thick downy blanket draped over the tree limbs, soft and plump like a geisha. If you get up close and look at it you can see that the leading edge is fjord like, with outlying crystals of snow desperately clinging to the main clump. That smooth soft edge is really a bit ragged and tenuous, and the whole thing will come crashing down soon, and pack itself into ice on the ground.
We met Gracie's friend on the hike home. I had misunderstood his name- it's Lucky, not Rocky, and he's a little bit decrepit border Collie. He is patient with her youthful exuberance- for a while- and he was glad to see her. They played for a while, but he has a pretty bad case of arthritis and he got tired soon, and told her so! We let them both run loose and Gracie tore around us all in circles trying to drum up some enthusiasm for a chase but she didn't get any takers.
Gracie behaved quite well- the more I let her run free the more she earns my trust. She obeys better when free than on the lead, I think. I'll have to start giving her more off leash time. I do wish we had an old soldier like Lucky to hike with for an hour or so a day, even two or three days a week. He's very savvy and wise and could teach her a good deal more than I can. He also is quite good at putting her in her place when she goes overboard- he isn't shy about snarling at her and saying "Enough!" You might not be able to teach an old new tricks but there's no better teacher for a pup than an old dog.
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15
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Duck and mushrooms on the menu...
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Posted:Jan 14, 2015 4:46 pm
Last Updated:Mar 7, 2016 6:40 pm
12294 Views
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Well, technically, it's fungus, not mushroom.
We started our hike at two twenty today. It was nineteen degrees (minus 12 Celsius, Kinky), after rising from eight below (minus 22 celsius) this morning. It was very lightly overcast, a nearly white sky, with a few faint blue patches and the cover was so thin in places that it was the palest robin's egg blue.
We hiked at Al Sabo again- I like hiking the same route frequently and watching the changes in the forest. The snow is already settling. The breeze is clearing the treetops and the snow on their limbs is beginning to sag. We hiked north to the West Fork of Portage Creek again. The creek channel is frozen over in a number of places today but it's still open, though a lot smaller, on both sides of the culvert bridge. East of that bridge it runs open for a few hundred feet but it's getting quite narrow.
I found ducks just east of the bridge too. I got quite a few pictures of them, but they treated me like a papparazzi and flew off when they spotted me and I lost them in the trees and missed getting a shot of them in flight.
Oh! [blog LoudandOFTEN] wanted photos of skiers so I bagged one and brought him back for her.
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Portage Creek
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Posted:Jan 13, 2015 4:06 pm
Last Updated:Mar 7, 2016 6:39 pm
12370 Views
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It was cool today- thirteen degrees- and sunny again. For a change we hiked the Portage Creek Bicentennial Trail. It starts in the center of town by the city offices and the library and wanders north along Portage Creek about four miles to Kilgore Road, the northern city limit and the boundary with Kalamazoo.
We started at the main entrance on Milham Road and walked the northern half of the trail, about a three mile round trip. The trail crosses over Milham Road on a footbridge and more or less follows Portage Creek and crosses the creek a few times by footbridges.
This is right along the north south axis of the town but although there are houses and a few business in sight, it's reasonably quiet and in summer gives the appearance of being isolated in the countryside. About halfway to the northern end the trail and the creek follow the railroad tracks under I94. That section is plenty noisy!
The trailway is about eight feet wide and paved with asphalt, and plowed in winter. It made a nice break from trudging through deep snow, but we don't hike it that often. It's not as quiet, is fairly busy in warm weather...and it isn't Al Sabo. Even Asylum Lake feels more open and wild. However- in hot weather the Bicentennial Trail is par excellence for watching women! There are a lot of runners. We passed fifteen or twenty today, but only one girl, a scrumptious young blonde in tight black pants. There are roller bladers and bicycles and just plain old humdrum grey haired walkers like us.
What I like most about the linear park is that it follows and crosses and recrosses Portage Creek. The sound of the creek running and gurgling and the sunlight glaring off the rippling water are soothing and restful.
Near the northern terminus the trail brushes up against an upscale office park in an oak grove. All the offices along the trail have huge windows overlooking the creek and the trail and it was the perfect occasion for a bored and horny exhibitionist siren stuck in a cubicle to flash us as we walked by. I kept my eyes hopefully on those buildings, but my dreams went unanswered. An opportunity missed. Sigh.
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To link to this blog (kzoopair) use [blog kzoopair] in your messages.
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