The downpour

I'm late on this post, but such is life. At the end of last month, we received the first decent rain in five months, a freakish downpour that lasted several days. Of course, I rode in the rain everyday, even though it cost me a camera. Due to time constraints, most of the rides were 100km "training rides" rather than epics, so I didn't see the point of typing out massive ride reports. Instead, I'm just going to post a heap of random pictures from the various rides in the rain, just to show why rain is the ideal cycling weather -- and indeed the ideal weather for general existence.

Mango Minster Entry - Me, Sammie...

Who doesn't know, by now, that the MangoMinster is now in progress? Time to get your entries in - we are so excited! For your viewing pleasure, esteemed Judges, I present you with my submission!
Since I don't understand the concept of moral (is that a mushroom?), I will proceed with what Mom labels as my "shameless" (immoral) behavior. Yes, I am a shameless dog. Above, you see that I am furry happy and not at all unashamed to display my fine self with furs and scars alike.
I have no compunctions (is that a word?) about counter-surfing, whether I go after a full pan of gingerbread, half of our doggeh Christmas cookies, any and all hooman foodables I can lay my paws on, or even Ozzie's food, as shown above. I am profoundly proud of my excellent skills.
I bark at dogs and/or hoomans with abandon, particularly at those I don't recognize, and also including balloons and giant "stuffie hoomans" anywhere I see them.
I am totally and most easily flattered by praise and treatables, except when Momma or Pa run out of them, as in the above pitchur, when I was chasin' after a marmot - wouldn't have come back fur anything. And even when Ma HAS cookies, I distinguish myself with absolutely awesome work - see movie, below.

Don't ya think I am a great spokesdog for the title of "Shameless Dog?"

Recap of the Past Four Days

Continuing Saturday, August 31...

Bob had a good time volunteering at the car show. He sold scrip tickets for food and drinks and registered the car show exhibitors. Here are a few photos (taken with an iphone...not high res). Thank you to my step-son, Randall, for taking these.

Face painting

Bob at the volunteer table with another volunteer.

Live music.

Beer garden

Car show.

Car show

Sunday: For the first time in weeks, we slept in on a weekend! Yeah, baby, yeah. Love it. For breakfast, I made gluten-free pancakes which are usually pretty good and cake-like; however today they seemed undercooked and like lead. Yuck. I must have made a mistake in proportions.


In the afternoon, we went to see "In a World..." a movie about voice-over artists who make a living doing voice-overs on movie trailers, etc. What an excellent movie. It's not only about voice-over work, but also about relationships, voice work as art, and the pride the artists take in sounding unique. It's not a movie like any other we've seen. It is surprising when something new and unique plays at the movie theater. The critics loved this movie too with an average score of 80 out of 100. Worth seeing.



Monday: Both of us were out the door early - Bob went running for 10 miles on the RiverWalk bike/walk path into downtown San Antonio. I drove to Braun Station neighborhood and did a 10K (6.2 mile) Volksmarch by myself through nice neighborhoods. It took me two hours, including stopping for photos.



Braun Station Volksmarch photos. If anyone can help identify the birds below, I'd be most grateful. (Judy?)

Yellow warbler? Anyone know?

Blue jay

Lesser goldfinch??

Blue jay.

Many streets in Braun Station have to do with the Middle Ages: Knighthood, Dragon, Chivalry, Heraldry, Tourney, Kingsway, Beowulf, Queen Heights, Pendragon, Brigadoon, Honiley (as in Puff the Magic Dragon, I think). The sign below made me think of a knight slaying a dragon (especially with "Dead End" on the Dragon sign).

Light and lines - trees as art.

The trees are awesome - they're like art.

Rough-legged hawk?

A rough-legged hawk?

Look at the spines on this edges of this cacti!

Beautiful flowers.

Yard art (?)

Sunday afternoon, "The Lone Ranger" was on our list for a 12:30 showing at the cheap theater in San Antonio. Ummmm....no. We got there at 12:28 and three blockbuster, 2nd run movies, had "Sold Out" signs on them: The Lone Ranger, Pacific Rim and Turbo. Really, sold out? I guess $1.25 for a movie on Labor Day with outdoor temperatures at 101 degrees was too much to resist. We bought tickets for the 3:30 show.



To kill time we had lunch at Wendy's, then Bob wanted to shop for Skechers Shape-Up shoes. There was a Skechers store down the street. Unfortunately, according to the salesperson, Skechers no longer makes Shape-Ups. Bob was devastated. They're his favorite shoes and his foot doctor in Hawaii recommended he wear them to help his Achilles tendon. Since that was a bust, we found a shopping mall where Bob searched for Skechers Shape-Ups that might still be on the shelves. No luck.



At 2:50 p.m. we headed back to the theater. What a zoo. The lobby was about as crowded as Grand Central Station at rush hour. The building has 13 theaters in it and it seemed like half of San Antonio was waiting for one movie or another. Wow. That's the most crowded I've seen a theater lobby in forever.



Bob enjoyed "The Lone Ranger" way more than I did. He said it was a good escape. I thought it was okay and laughed in a few places. It seemed like the movie relied on Johnny Depp's facial expressions to carry the plot along. While I like Johnny Depp, this just didn't appeal to me much.



Tuesday and Wednesday: Snelling placed me at the insurance company as receptionist again for two days at the request of the owner. What a great place to work. And because I'm traveling to and from work in the opposite direction of rush hour traffic, the commute (even though it's 20 miles each way) is a breeze.



Thursday, Friday and Saturday, I'll be working in the RV park office. Normally I don't work Saturday, but the park manager who works Saturdays is on vacation for a couple of weeks.



Whew. We sure have been busy.



And, our refrigerator still isn't working right. It's been five or six weeks since a new thermistor was installed. However, we have a big crack in our gasket which we've been trying to get our mobile repairman to fix. He's very uncommunicative. The interior temperature of our refrigerator is 50-60 degrees. We can't really keep anything in there, so we've been eating out a lot.





Welcome to new follower, Eileen, who writes the blog A Journey to Health - One Step at a Time. She is a mom to four daughters, and a grandma to 10 grandchildren, who loves to explore the world.



Travel Bug out.

Field trip to Snapdragon headquarters

We've long been fans of Snapdragon spray skirts. We still have our first skirts from years ago; they show their age, but still work well. Since then, we've purchased more Snapdragon skirts as our various boats with their many cockpit sizes have called for new ones.

So when we had a one-day layover in Seattle, we decided to visit Richard Wilson, the founder and owner of Snapdragon Design, at Snapdragon World Headquarters.

You are here! Snapdragon World Headquarters!

OK, so it's a small shop in an industrial strip mall, where five long-time employees and Richard himself produce about 5,000 to 8,000 skirts per year. The air smells like adhesive and neoprene, and the shelves are chock-a-block with the raw materials. This is hands-on, small-scale manufacturing of the most earnest and endearing sort. "We're the small guys," he says.

The shop is small; every inch of space is in use.

Richard began sewing skirts in the 1980s, when he got into paddling and couldn't find a skirt he liked. He's still at it, making skirts for whitewater and sea kayaks as well as new products for recreational boats. He also makes neoprene hatch covers and poagies. But the economy has taken a toll. Boat sales are down, and with them sales of spray skirts. The booming part of the paddling world--Stand-Up Paddling (SUP)--doesn't require any neoprene. That's been tough. "Right now, it's about survival," he says. That plus a commitment to avoid laying off any of his employees.

Patterns hang behind a sewing station after the employees have left for the day.

But look around the shop, and it's just exciting. Richard is willing to make a custom skirt for just about any specific purpose. On one table, a couple of splash jackets are being retrofitted for integral spray skirts. On another, kevlar decks await their tubes. He's also recently come out with a sun deck for warm-water paddlers who just want sun and splash protection, and a breathable fabric skirt--both with pockets. "We're always building stuff," he says.

Skirts in the production process, with one of the seam-taping machines standing by.

Richard is a living piece of paddling history in the Pacific Northwest. He has watched the business boom, from the 1970s, when he and his friends had to make their own boats, through the 1990s, when paddlesports were flourishing and business was booming, through today's contraction. He's still in business because he believes in quality and customer service. "We do everything here in our shop and we stand behind it," he says. "If there's ever issues we can deal with it, and we use the best possible materials."

Visiting Richard reminded us of what a small world kayaking is, and how the businesses that supply it frequently are owned by people who have long been a part of the community. We would buy Snapdragon skirts even if we didn't know that doing so supported a small business committed to the sport. But knowing that makes us even more happy about closing that circle.

Completed skirts, ready to ship.

Richard, seeing us off.

This Is A Bike Rack???

During my preparations for attending the American Trails Symposium,I contacted the group to inquire about a secure bicycle rack during the symposium. I am visiting friends in Little Rock and planned to bike the 2 miles from their home to the convention center.
The first response was: "No one has ever asked for that - we'll get back with you". A week or so later they told me they will have bike racks.
Today, a day before registration starts, I rode over to the State House Convention Center to check out the bike rack. What they showed me was not a bike rack, but crowd control fence sections - see photo. The person with the Convention and Visitor's Bureau told me that's their bike racks (or what the use as bike racks).
Now, I can understand the real bike rack may not important for many conventions like the VFW, or garden show, or an auto show but this is the American Trail Symposium. There are bicycle rides during the function.

Hiker's Heaven

Enjoyed a beautiful hike this morning along the Superior Hiking Trail near Lutsen, MN. The colors along the ridge between Lake Agnes and the Poplar River Overlook were AMAZING! This is my favorite time of year to be out walking in the woods :-)


Above image: Poplar River Overlook
Last week I hiked the Superior Hiking Trail past Lake Agnes and was intending to hike as far as the overlook of the Poplar River. Unfortunately, there was an error in the communication about how far it was to the overlook, and I didn't make it (I thought I had missed it, so ended up backtracking then ran out of time). This week I went back and hiked to the overlook. As it turns out last week I was very, very close to the overlook (that's the way it goes!). It definitely is an overlook that you can't miss! The view of the Poplar River is incredible. I was hoping there would be a bit more fall color in the view, but even without many colors the view is one you have to see to believe.

Ice-Covered Shores

Here is a recent shot taken at dusk looking east along the Lake Superior shoreline in Grand Portage. It was a wind-stricken shore with big waves on this particular evening of January 3rd, . The lines in the foreground ice are what really caught my eye here, but I think the frothy waves in the background add a lot to the image as well. Enjoy!

Hallaton - Slawston - Cranoe - Keythorpe Lakes Farm - Hallaton

Thursday 26 May . just under 2 hours and a half walking time - around 8 miles. Up to 600 feet. With Eddie and Barry. A 12 stile walk.

Opposite the village centre with the war memorial and butter cross, a path leads through an archway between the houses. You cross a footbridge and make your way up 'Hare Pie Bank', across the track used on Easter Monday by the Hare Pie and bottle-kickers. Continue along the path, passing the splendour of Hallaton Manor Rest Home on your right. Across two fields and a stream, then another field into Slawston.

Turn right and walk along the main street until another footpath is marked to the left.Across the corner of the first field, then along the edge, a (long) zig-zag round two edges of the next field, through a hedge on the left and over a plank bridge, straight on then right until you reach the road to Cranoe.

At Cranoe Church

Where's the Pink Panther, then?

A few hundred yards into the village, turn right up the hill to the church, and a few yards past it, there is a footpath sign on the right hand side of the road. Take the path up the hill and follow the wide ridge along until you reach a crossing of tracks, with signposts. Don't turn right - this takes you directly to Hallaton down a quiet road/track. Instead follow the Midshires Way, past Keythorpe Lodge Farm, then downhill to Keythorpe Lakes - a large dairy farm. When you see the farmhouse turn sharp left and follow the bridleway, and then the path. You climb gently at first, then more steeply to Hallaton Spinneys and Moor Hill Spinneys up to about 150 metres.

To you right is Issets' Lodge, a huge new house, with a mysterious array of poles. Are they lights, mini solar panels, or beacons to guide a private plane down?

From the top you walk gently descending the ridge, with wide views over rural Leicestershire, down towards Hallaton. Ignore any turn to the left, emerging opposite the Fox Inn and its pond. Just as we arrived a heron flew off. Walk through the village, past a pump, and ? village lock up, back to the central green and Buttercross.