Redemption

I have decided that there haven't been enough ride pictures on my recent entries to this blog. Consequently, here are some I prepared in New Zealand...






Hopefully I'll get the tour journal completed this weekend, if time constraints allow.

One perfect day

What can be said about today, other than beautiful, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

"It's a place I've been before, a place some say I should go more,
but every journey just leads me to far away" -- Sarah Blasko.

It had been six months since my last visit to O'Reilly's, the western gateway to the magnificent Lamington National Park. I excused myself from a Binna Burra ride with Martin because I knew this was the day I had to return. For most of the last six months I've been exploring new roads or trails in the Tweed Valley, and following dreams in other parts of the country, but in doing so I may have neglected one of the great rides of my recent past.

After escaping suburbia (which doesn't take as long when you're heading west), I rode through the magnificient, forested and very green gorge country to the town of Canungra. This is where the ride starts. Ups and downs southward bound into a headwind (which kept the temperature to a very pleasant 21 degrees C to date), before starting the climb...



It's a long, gradual winding climb up to Kamarun lookout, a spur on the eastern edge of the range



Surrounded by beautiful rainforests



Which occasionally give way to stunning mountain views.





The temperature at the top was a beautiful 17 degrees C. The only downside is the long, gradual, winding descent -- especially as my brake pads are close to the scrap heap. I'll be putting on the new ones I bought this week. Descending to Canungra bakery, and climbing out of the town after re-fueling, but this ride wasn't over yet. I headed back toward the Gold Coast through Clagiraba, where there is one steep bugger of a hill. This hill always takes a lot out of me, but today it was inspiring as much as draining, now I had 1,900 metres of climbing on the altimeter, and I wanted to really make a statement with this ride.

A deviation to Hinze Dam, where Gold Coast cyclists go looking for quick hills followed, then a southerly procession through the ups and downs, into that monster of a wind, which couldn't get me because of the hills. Mudgeeraba, then (alas) Robina -- finally the wind got a chance on the first flat, treeless stretch of road for virtually the whole day. It took a shot, I took a shot back, then negotatiated the multitude of roundabouts to get out of there.

Beyond that, there is little to tell. I took some suburban detours to make the ride into an imperial century (number two this month already), but they were neither here nor there. I now felt unstoppable. Even now I still have that feeling of elation that only comes from a special day in the saddle. One perfect day? Maybe I'll try for a few more. Either way, I know I'll have to return to O'Reillys soon.

Welcome to Mid-Bay Shores

Mid-Bay Shores, Maxwell-Gunter Rec Area — Niceville, Florida
Temps: Lo 65F / Hi 78F (18C / 25.5C)

We’ve been musing about our rather sedentary life since retiring six months ago. It’s a surprise to us.

By sedentary, I mean that we aren’t going out and exploring the areas we’ve been staying in.

Everywhere we’ve been to so far this year has been new to us, and I would have thought we’d be digging into every nook and cranny, leaving no stone unturned … everyday. Sure, we fit in plenty of walking and triking into our days, but exploring … not so much.

That we’ve had some great campsites is, of course, part of it. A nice site with plenty of outdoor living space invites us to stay “at home” … no doubt about that. But I think the main reason we’ve been taking it slow and easy is that this is our year of getting used to retirement.

Not that you’ll see us hopping all over the US when we do get going. We’ve always been “quality, not quantity” travelers. We expect that to continue in this gypsy lifestyle we have chosen for ourselves. But I think we’ll pick up the pace of exploring as the newness of being retired wears off. Looking forward to those days. For now, though … enjoying staying put more than we used to.

Enough musing … on with the blog post by stepping back a bit to the beginning of the week.

Monday, 6 May …

As the weather at Gulf State Park started to turn nice, we found ourselves packing to move onto our next campground. At least we enjoyed two nice — if windy — days before we left. And we arrived to great weather here in Niceville, Florida — just 91 miles (146 km) away. Where is Niceville? It’s just a few short miles north of Destin.

91 miles (146 km) from Gulf Shores, Alabama to our campground overlooking
the Choctawhatchee Bay north of Destin.

We are at Mid-Bay Shores at the Maxwell-Gunter Rec Area. Those who are familiar with military installations are probably going “huh” just about now since Maxwell-Gunter AFB is in Montgomery, Alabama, not in Niceville, Florida. If I understood Eggy, the woman who works in the office, correctly … this rec area was converted from a campground built to accommodate military personnel who came here to train at a facility operated by Maxwell-Gunter on land leased for 100 years from Eglin AFB. So, we’re on Eglin land, but not really on Eglin … not until the lease runs out in 47 years. Of course, what happens between now and then is anyone’s guess, especially with the current sequester. But that’s a whole different story.

Mid-Bay Shores is at the base of the Mid-Bay Connector Bridge;
we’re in site 21, overlooking the Choctawhatchee Bay.
[scanned from brochure]

There are no manicured grounds here. Nor are there any concrete pads; or any amenities other than a bathhouse and laundry. The campground is rustic — and rundown a bit. Most of the 26 RV sites are FHU; a few are W/E. Some of the sites are closely spaced together; others have a good amount of outdoor space. Site 21 is one of the latter. Lots of trees; so not all sites are big-rig suitable. There’s no wi-fi here, but we’re doing fine with our 4G Mi-Fi, which uses Verizon service. The trees on our site-give us welcome shade, but block satellite signals. No problem — working together, we set up the tripod satellite in a jiffy. There is free cable — plenty for the bedroom TV, which Mui uses at night to put himself to sleep. For $125/week not a bad deal I say.

Site 21 … and part of our view of the Bay.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the landscape is marred a bit by our proximity to the Mid-Bay Connector Bridge, but we just look the other way. We can hear the traffic going by most of the day. But we’re not bothered by that either — as urban-dwellers for so many years, we’re accustomed to the sound of traffic and have become proficient at tuning it out. I can honestly say that we are really enjoying ourselves here.

Even after we set up our 14 x 14-foot (4 x 4 m) shelter, we have plenty of outdoor living space.

No matter how short the drive is, moving day is always tiring. Once we were set up, we didn’t do much of anything else for the rest of the day.

Tuesday, May 7 …

We woke up to an eerie silence. It took us a minute to figure out that our toppers weren’t flapping anymore. No wind … not even a breeze. Such a morning called for a walk on the beach. The narrow strip of sand here runs from Lake Pippin, on the far side of the cabins on the other side of the bridge; along the campground to and around White Point; and a fair bit along the other side of the bay. Not a long walk, but a nice way to start the day. For sunrise, we’ll need to walk over to the cabin area; for sunset, over to White Point.

After taking care of chores, we headed over to Destin. There are two ways to get there: cross over via the Mid-Bay Connector Bridge — save 30 minutes, but pay $3/ for a two-axle car, plus $3 for each additional axle (we paid $9 yesterday crossing over with the Phaeton and the CR-V hooked up). Or drive around the bay. We opted for the bridge.

First stop, a late lunch at Dewey Destin — a shack of a seafood place at the bottom of the Destin Bridge (Crab Island location on the website). We had found this place, which sits on the water, when we came to Florida for our residency last September. That time, we enjoyed some of their fresh shrimp. This time, I ordered the grilled grouper sandwich; Mui got the grilled snapper sandwich. We were both pleased with our choices. Our only regret this time was that we could not sit at one of the tables on the pier outside. It was simply too windy and too cool out there. But we did manage to get a table right by the door, so we could at least pretend we were out there.

Not fancy; but good fresh seafood — in my case, fresh grilled grouper.

After lunch we ran errands and then headed over to Henderson Beach State Park. Our reason for visiting was two-fold — to check out the park for a future stay, but more importantly, to meet Sherry and David (of In the Direction of Our Dreams fame). Our paths almost crossed last December. But we ended up missing each other by just a day or two. I didn’t want that to happen this time. Although they would be getting on the road the next day, they graciously agreed to us stopping by for a quick visit. And despite the wind, they even walked us over to the wonderful boardwalk that connects the campground to the white, sugar-sand beach that they’ve not been able to enjoy much because of the winds these past days. We had such a great time conversing with them that I forgot to take a picture of the four of us. Next time.

Oh and yes … we’d stay at Henderson Beach SP should we find our way back to Destin. We loved the totally secluded sites. And the proximity to the beautiful gulf waters and white sand beach would make it a no-brainer. In fact, we would have stayed there this time, but we couldn’t get in for two weeks and didn’t feel like park-hopping.

We wrapped up our day with dinner at Panera, where we finally used the gift card Mui had been carrying in his wallet for nearly a year. We each tried one of their new pasta bowls. Tasty to be sure, but at

A marine layer veiled Destin and part of the bridge from view for a while (top left);
but soon the air was crystal clear.

Right: There’s not much of a beach here, but the strip of sand does run the
length of Mid-Bay Shores, and around White Point.

Wine and snacks for dinner wrapped up the day.

Back to today …

We were both lazy this morning and it was just past 6:00a when we finally got up. Too late to enjoy the sunrise from the other side of the Mid-Bay Connector, but not too late to wander over to that side of the beach and keep company with a great blue heron fishing in the mirror-smooth bay waters.

No photoshopping here … the rising sun bathed the water in a golden hue;
zooming in from a distance simply enhanced the color.

Convincing Mui to put his morning coffee in a to-go container, we went for a short walk on the beach. It would have been longer, but I found the packed sand very hard — and I mean rock-hard — on my bare feet. Next time, I’ll take a page out of Mui’s book and wear shoes.

The walk was not for nought, though. In addition to a second great blue heron at the far end of the beach (B&W shot at the beginning of the post), there were whelks and hermit crabs in the shallows that provided entertainment for us. Oh, and an osprey that was fishing — unsuccessfully — gave us a couple of pauses along the way as well.

Hermit crab clinging to an oyster shell at the edge of the water.
(note the legs sticking out of the shell.)

Left: Whelk with an occupant, so we put the shell back in the water.
Right: hermit crabs; the one on the left was pushed off by the one on the right (top),
but as soon as it could, the one that was toppled got right back on its perch.
(Water wasn’t very clear in this spot; sorry.)

24 seconds of hermit crabs in action.

Returning home after our walk, we had breakfast and went about business as usual — Mui doing a few more projects; me enjoying the screen shelter. Hey, it’s not like I’m hogging the shelter, I invite Mui to share it with me, but once he gets projects on his mind, there’s no stopping him.

My second favorite part of today was watching the brown anoles that live amongst the rocks that make up the sea wall. I was quite surprised when they tolerated my presence so well and stayed out to give me plenty of photo ops instead of scampering into the crevices between the rocks. One male, in particular, was so busy displaying to the gals that I was able to track him for quite a while

Displaying his brilliant red dewlap, this male was hoping to get lucky …

… while this male did attract a mate for a bit of “love in the morning.”

I took way too many photos of this brown anole (male); what can I say … I’m easily entertained.

Mui drove into Niceville yesterday to go to Cool Fish, a fresh seafood monger recommended by Eggy (at the campground office). He came back with some great salmon fillets, which he grilled for lunch today. Yumm! Afterwards, he tore himself away from his self-imposed chores list to join me in the screen shelter before going out to reconnoiter the neighborhood by trike. He invited me to go along, but I had blogging on my mind. I love it when I have a strong enough wi-fi signal to do my blog writing out in the screen shelter.

Dinner was a simple affair. Afterwards, we walked along the beach to White Point to wrap up the day with a sunset. It was a rather pale affair, but I did what I usually do — zoomed into focus on the colors.

My reward … well you judge if it was worth the walk.

The weather is forecasted to take a turn for the worse starting tomorrow. Not sure what we will be doing, since we might not be able to enjoy the patio. Maybe I can get another post or two done for my trip to Turkey last October … yes, still trying to wrap that one up ;-)

Riding to the Root: Maiden camp stove use unsuccessful

Well, I guess I couldn't count on ALL my equipment working according to plan. I just figured it'd be my bike to malfunction first.
After setting up camp in Grand Meadow last night and NARROWLY beating the heavy rain that hit the area, I figured it was as good a time as any to test out my new camp stove. I got it for Christmas from my dad and at first glance, the thing was pretty much designed to be a backpacker's best friend. It's lightweight and packs into an area no bigger than a cell phone.
I brought along a package of Tuna Helper to test it's mettle, and as the water slowly approached boiling point, the stove seemed to work quite well. It started up easily and the flame was pretty easy to adjust.
However, a combination of winds and a faulty spot welding job on the stove conspired to do this:As you can probably guess, a camp stove doesn't work so well when it's in two pieces. The water spilled everywhere and the Tuna Helper has been discarded as dead weight. Hopefully I can send the stove in to get it fixed when I get home.
In the meantime, I guess I'll have to live off restaurant/gas station food for the rest of the trip.
Time to head out to the Mystery Caves. I'll check back in later.

Boggy Draw Trail

Saturday, I was up early and ready to ride! Decided to go up to Dolores to ride Boggy Draw. I was told it is a flowing, easy trail. And so it is. Really nice, relaxing ride. Only one section (marked as "blue", where I had to walk - steep and rocky.
The photo here is one of the nice, flowing sections of the trail. Really enjoyed the ride.
Showered and checked out of the room and headed to Four Corners. (At least what USED to be the intersection of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona).
From there up to Bluff, Utah on to Mexican Hat, UT. Drove over to check out Goosenecks State Park. While in the area, went on over to Valley of the Gods. Made that gravel drive. Beautiful valley will rock formations like Monument Valley.
Early to bed.

Ocotillo Skies

A leafless ocotillo bush contrasted against the Arizona sky.

Bike trip destinations: Trail Blazer Bar & Grill

Distance from downtown Mankato: 14 miles from downtown if you're sticking with bike trails.
Route I took: Pretty easy route to navigate, just stick to the bike trails. After hopping on the Minnesota River trail in town, you follow it until it turns into the Sakatah Trail by Riverfront Drive and then take Sakatah all the way to the restaurant in Madison Lake. Fair warning: Part of the trail is ripped up just outside of Mankato by the railroad tracks for road construction. There is still gravel to mark the trail, but the pavement ends for a few blocks.

General ease/challenge of ride: You'll have to climb hills to get out of the river valley, but the grade is so gradual that you'll be able to do it without shifting gears much. Once out of the valley, the hills are very moderate and there's a decent amount of shade from trees planted around the trail to keep the sun from bearing down. Distance-wise, at 14 miles one-way, it's a decent trek, but nothing too crazy. Besides, there's plenty of park benches to stop at along the way if need be. The biggest challenge of the ride is avoiding the bumps and cracks on the trail along the way, as several areas of the Sakatah Trail are in serious need of resurfacing.
Safety of the ride: Aside from having to cross 3rd Avenue and Riverfront Drive in Mankato, there really isn't that much traffic you have to worry about. Most of the intersections on the trail are either low-traffic roads, or are visible enough from a distance to see whether or not a car's coming. You'll also have to be careful crossing the final road before the restaurant, as that happens to be the Main Street of Madison Lake.
Appeal of the destination: As far as convenience goes, it doesn't get much better for bikers that the Trail Blazer. The restaurant is literally right on top of the Sakatah Trail. It's also happens to be at a convenient central location for surround towns: 10 miles out of Mankato, less than 30 miles from Faribault.
Aside from it's convenience, the characteristic I found most appealing about the Trail Blazer was the relatively cheap price of food there. Nothing on their menu totals much more than $10 and their food selection covers a wide variety of dinner fare, from appetizers to burgers, sandwiches, walleye and steak. The chicken sandwich and fries you see in the picture only set me back $7.50, definitely cheaper than most of your average sit-down establishments. The best bang-for-the-buck item on their menu is easily the Red Eye Special breakfast combo (served until 1 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays), which includes three eggs, three slices of bacon, hashbrowns, toast and your choice of either a Bloody Mary or a screwdriver all for the price of $6.95. I'm getting hungry (and thirsty) just thinking about it.
Atmosphere-wise, it may be a restaurant on a bike trail, but it's definitely geared toward fisherman, which makes sense since Madison Lake is a fairly popular fishing hole in the area. Novelty fishing lures hang from the rafters and antique angler artifacts hang on the walls, as do pictures of some of the behemoth fish caught in the area. The restaurant also has a thing for wooden statues, some of which can be seen on the left-hand side of its website. Live music has also been known to perform there on weekends.
Another appeal of the Trail Blazer isn't even in the restauarant itself, but in the campground located right next to it. There's nothing all that special about the Sakatah Campground; it's basically 25 RV rest areas with a shower building and a fire pit. But for any cyclist carrying a tent, it makes for a nice secure location to set up for the evening if it starts getting too dark to bike. The rates ($25 a night for an RV site, $15 a night for a tent camping area) are also pretty reasonable.
The only real bad thing I can say about the Trail Blazer isn't even all that bad: The food was relatively forgettable. The fries were very bland (I'm kind of a french fry connoisseur, don't ask me why) and the chicken sandwich was in the good-not-great range. However, I can forgive the food being average for three reasons: the prices are reasonable, the beer selection is very good, and the restaurant has free popcorn available to patrons. Trail Blazer also scores bonus points for having a "Welcome Bicyclers" sign on their building. It's the little things that win cyclists over.

Much Ado in the Muck, on the Mats...

Again, we were roused way too early on Sunday. Now where were we headed? (Avalon playing with Levi, her brother!)
Here, at a new place for doggehs and ducks. Avalon is definitely into those feathered creatures (as are her siblings, three of whom were there, and her Mom!), while I still have an affinity for the furred sort that dip down into burrows, or race up trees. But I will show you what I saw my sister and family do. Here's a little show all about Avalon (and her siblings' and Mom's) day in Denverton, near Suisun City.

Avalon was very happy to see her mom, Sporty (who is really good at doing this field stuff) and her brothers, who love the feathered creatures as much as Avalon. Here's a cool picture of them all - thanks, Christine of Tigana Goldens for fixing up this photo and helping my sister so much! Now... it's my turn!
Ready Ma, for my closeup heheh! I have a fun match this coming weekend, and at the end of October, there is a show that spans over 5 days near here. Mom (naively) thought it would be practical to sign up for an Open class for me on all five days, hoping that I could snag my CDX in one long weekend! Barbara rolled her eyes and told us to get ready for a full-on judged Open class, right then and there. Mom thought I was pretty ready. Here are both Sierra and I in a little show made just for our friends, so you can see that we're coming along at Barbara's school for "Finishing Dogs."

Uhhhh....ohhhhhh.

Well... all doggehs can get confused, right?
Here's Barbara making adjustments to Avalon's new bling.
And then it was time for all good puppers to play, as well as show our fabulous agility skills! See you soon again, pals!

Guide House Opening

This weekend the Guide House will be open for climbing registration. If you come up on Saturday or Sunday to climb on the south side of the mountain, please register in person at the Guide House in Paradise. We'll be open 6:00 AM till 3:00 PM both days. If you're coming up outside of that time frame the self-registration box will still be in place in Paradise at the Old Station.
The Guide House will be open everyday starting May 29th. Check out the permits, registration, regulation link to the right for more info. Also, if you're planning to climb an east- or north-side route, look to that route's condition page for current access issues.
Climbing ranger staff has still been busy in pre-season trainings. Last Monday Mark Moore from the Northwest Avalanche Center, NWAC, came up to the park to talk meteorology with us. He gave a great presentation mostly regarding the weather around Mount Rainier. The NWAC website is a great resource for all climbers thinking about climbing a route on Mount Rainier. Please make use of all the excellent online weather resources available. Check out the weather link to the right for some starters. The image to the right is from the UW's MM5 model for this Friday at 17:00.