Drivers who honk

Really the act of honking at a cyclist is just a warning that the driver wants you out of their way and off their roads. I got honked at twice on today's 26 miles ride, once was a full blaring long honk the second a double beep. The result was the same, two unsafe passes by inconsiderate drivers, one on a small rise in the road the other on a tight curve. Neither driver gave me the required 3 feet as they passed.

The standard response is that we cyclists don't follow the rules. Really I'm suppose to follow all the rules? How about the drivers go first! When I stop getting buzzed and honked at I'll start making complete stops at all the stop signs, oops cars don't always follow that one either. On to my solution to help car drivers see the light.

What I'd like to have happen to all the drivers that pass too close is they get buzzed by a tractor trailer. Sound unfair or maybe you think that isn't the same thing. I weigh in at 200 plus my bike is 23 pounds, the mini van from today weighs in at 3,900 plus passengers, a loaded semi 80,000 pounds. As you can see I'm about 5% of the weight of the van which is 5% of the weight of the loaded semi. So who wants to be the one to have a semi drive past even three feet away at two to three times your speed? Sound crazy, unsafe, you think the driver of the semi is an a**hole, while if you pass cyclists like that it's the same thing.

Just to be fair only two of the 10 or so vehicles I saw on the road today failed to give me at least three feet and most gave more. Oh well at least I got a great sprint giving chase to the mini van in hopes of "thanking" them at stop sign. I'm still wondering if I should have called the police on the van or the Village office on the utility worker in the pickup. I do however live where a hit and run on a cyclist was only investigated until the driver said "I didn't" then it was dropped. Maybe I should try a video camera to document the close ones?

Weekend recap

Coming into this weekend I had one thing I wanted to do: Go to the Farmer's Market downtown. Last time we were there was much earlier this season. We had been to a smaller farmer's market but not the "big" one. I didn't have anything in mind, but the scenery and choices are more plentiful downtown. This meant of course that we were limited in our other activities like biking and kayaking that we might have done if we had the whole day available. The weather was due to be great, almost like the beginning of fall. Chad said we could go, and we were also going to check out a restaurant in downtown Madison that is run by the couple who ran our local coffee shop years ago.

No alarm was set for the morning, to allow us to sleep in, yet whenever we plan for that it never works. Kevin opens the door early and asks what the plan is. He was awake and figured the rest of the house should be too. Chad and I went out for one of my 15 minute PT run/jogs. I'm now up to 3 minutes running and 2 minutes jogging. He went out ahead of me to put a little more time in and swung back past home to pick me up for the 15 minutes. The weather was nice, sun out and slightly cool.

After showering and a small snack, we headed for downtown. Thinking we were late getting there I was worried about what would be left, but the square is even more crowded than the earlier time we usually shoot for. The walk was slow and we got some fresh veggies, and the typical cheese curds and beef sticks for the boys. Looking for some particular home grown hot peppers, all I kept seeing was jalapenos and Anaheims. Chad had started to comment that I could grow different varieties and make some money selling them. Then we came across a vendor with multiple kinds and my profitable business ended there. Five peppers for $1, not going to retire on that. Good deal for me, I found what I was looking for to make my fresh salsa.
After the long walk around the square he headed straight for Argus Bar Grille. They had a great menu. I ordered a Fat Tire pint from New Belgium. I had been wanting to try it and they had it on tap. Chad ordered a wrap with some spicy cajun fries. The rest of us had sandwiches. We got a tour of the building from the owner. It is the oldest commercial building in Madison complete with tile floor and decorative tin ceiling. Nice place. Zack was excited about the pool table in the basement.

We ran a ton of errands and were trying the kids' patience but a stop for some ice cream towards the end of the trip revived them. We then stopped at Brennan's for some cheese and they were sampling ice cream sodas with Sarsaparilla soda and cherry vanilla ice cream, very good. The soda was from Jackson Hole Soda Company, and they had a Huckleberry soda too, so of course we had to get a four pack of assorted sodas to have later at home.

For dinner Chad grilled some steaks and some sweet corn we picked up at the farmer's market. Grilled sweet corn is the best, especially the way Chad cooks it. The cobs are laid right on the grill unhusked so the kernels get brown were they lay on the grill. It gives the corn a caramelized flavor and it was so sweet you don't need much butter or salt on it. And the pulled back husks leave a nice handle to hold onto when eating.

We had set up to go mountain biking with a friend on Sunday morning. The bikes were loaded up Saturday night. I am still borrowing Kevin's mountain bike because it had the knobby tires mounted on it and regular pedals. My mountain bike has slicks for riding on the road and clipless pedals. Kevin's bike also has a suspension fork, and I think after riding with it I'm spoiled. I want to try riding my own unsuspended to see if I can do the trails, but I worry that my early 90's Cannondale that I love dearly won't get me over the rocks and roots. Chad thinks we could maybe modify it, so we'll see.

The trails at Blue Mounds State Park were pretty empty. It was still set up for a 3, 6, and 12 hour race the day before. I don't know what time that race started but I couldn't imagine those trails in the dark. I did pretty good, I was working harder to keep my pedals level so I didn't wedge them against rocks. We went a little farther than the first time I went out and I felt good after. Chad took a few pictures and as you can see by this one I was going so fast the camera couldn't capture me.

Cue sheets

If you ride you know what they are and if not you likely won't care about this post. Anyway based on the question from my Garmin post clearly finding software for making a cue sheet is not an easy task. I don't make cue sheets often since I know most roads in my area but a couple of years ago found a handy way to generate them quickly.

Here is the CueSheet program, they have made it even easier to get running since I first found it. The basics are drag the bookmark to your bookmark folder, make a Google map of the route, then open the bookmark and your cue sheet pops up to be printed from notepad or any word processor program. I just created a 70 mile route start to cue sheet in 3 minutes.

One note on the Garmin 305 if you read the information on the Cue Sheet generator program you will see it will upload a course to the Garmin as well. Now I will have to see if I can get that working for the Wright Stuff Century .

Oh no it worked I have the 2009 WSC route and will be creating and uploading it to my Garmin for the day of the ride. No I won't share route information before then since it was provided only for marking purposes.

New toy from Garmin

Our latest gear purchase was a Garmin Forerunner 305. I can't believe how handy it has turned out to be, and I have yet to read the manual which I suspect will make it even more useful. We just got two bike mounts delivered yesterday but I had used it on two rides already. Once by wearing it on my wrist the second time I just put it in a jersey pocket. I tend to look at it too often if I'm wearing the heart rate strap, maybe that will pass as the newness wears off.

I have been using Buckeye Outdoors to log both my running and cycling and the Garmin data can be synced to Buckeye Outdoors by using Sport Tracks a free program that will keep data locally on your computer as well as handle the upload to an Buckeye Outdoors account. One fault I have found is that the route maps are uploaded allowing public access so you need to make each one private if you don't want people knowing where you live. I'll be looking at this more and post an update if I find an easier way to keep things private.

Buckeye Outdoors has a sister site Go Wagon which I was using before trying Buckeye which I find I like better. If you sign up for one you can use the same name and password to sign-in to the other as well. A Go Wagon account comes in handy if you want to use Twitter, Go Wagon will update your Twitter account with your posted workout data. So what I've ended up with is a long string of programs that all work to put out info on twitter that no one likely cares about. The nice thing is so far they all work without fail and it is all free.

If anyone wants to follow Jenny or I on Twitter we can be found at @doitalloutside, and @redbaja respectively.

Going Home

It was the "what day will we be home" questions from the boys that got the crazy idea started.

Jen was hotel shopping as we relaxed in our room at the Wyoming Inn after dinner. At the time she was planning to stay near Rapid City, SD the next day. As soon as the boys asked the question I was ready to drive straight home. I was past the "let's just move out west" thoughts I'd had the day before and ready to get home. (yes mom, I even had a position with my current company located in Colorado) We didn't really set it in stone to drive straight back but would see how it felt the next day.

After a second good nights sleep we packed the Jeep, had breakfast and grabbed sandwiches for lunch at on the way out of Jackson by 8am. In Wyoming style we hit road construction within 45 minutes. We were lucky to only wait a couple of minutes, mosquitoes swarmed the Jeep the minute we stopped. Once clear of the construction we were flying towards Casper. We managed to only get stopped at construction once more where we sat for a couple minutes and then bailed up a side road after consulting the map.

Lunch was eaten at a wayside, a good breeze made it bearable but hard to keep wrappers under control. With lunch over we headed to get gas as we passed Casper and continued towards Mount Rushmore. Up until Casper there had been mountains to see in the distance to the north and south, now we were back to nothing. We did hit a dust storm that even got the boys attention. The temperature had been climbing all day and by the time we turned north it was 98. Twice we hit a bit of rain and I'd watch as the temperature outside would drop. When we finally got to highway 16 we stopped for gas and snacks before heading into South Dakota.

Our next stop was Jewel Cave. Unfortunately all the tours were sold out for the rest of the day, Kevin stamped his passport and we headed down the road. Custer State Park was up next, it looked nice and might be a future vacation spot.

Highway 16A is known as the Needles Highway and is it curvy. I would have enjoyed the road more in my Subaru but the Jeep was faster than those in front of us anyway. Once the two drivers in front of us decided sightseeing shouldn't be done in traffic at 10 under the speed limit we had a nice ride through the curves, tunnels and corkscrew bridges. In order to get the boys to look out the windows I offered $5 to the first person to spot "the faces" as Zack referred to Mount Rushmore. Jenny won and told the boys they could split the money.Looking back we should have spent more time at Mount Rushmore, not only are the faces impressive but the whole area is quite impressive. Since this was it for visitor center stops and the boys had put up with the long drive so well they got pretty much whatever they wanted. Kevin had not asked for much the whole trip and here Zack said he wanted a puzzle because "mom and grandma like doing them". Yeah either I've got really good kids or they play me like a violin. Two coins featuring Mount Rushmore for their collections added to the pile before checking out. We walked around a little to shoot photos which all were overexposed in the sky, next time I'll get it right.

Back on the road we passed through Keystone which looked like a very lively tourist trap on our way to Rapid City. We grabbed dinner at two drive-thru windows and continued on. The rest of the trip was a blur of drive, sleep, refuel, drink coffee and drive some more.

We got home by 9am or 24 hours after we left Jackson. The Jeep was emptied and gear was lined up for washing or to be repacked for storage until the next big adventure.

Time for the real vacation to begin

Until arriving in Jackson "vacation" had seemed like a lot of work. Constant driving or setting up and taking down camp plagued us. We were tired from miles in the car and poor sleeping at night due to worry of bears and waking to the sun rising. We eagerly awaited the town of Jackson and watched for our hotel. We were a bit off the downtown area at the Wyoming Inn, but it was a beautiful place to stay. On checking in, the staff let us know there were still pastries, ice tea, lemonade and coffee in the dining area, and told us of the fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies starting at 6 pm. Ooh, nice! The magic words for Kevin then came, "there is also wifi throughout the hotel" His eyes lit up, Chad's too. As soon as we entered our room, the kids were instructed to ready for showers. We all took turns showering, putting on clean clothes, and throwing the dirty in a pile. That pile went straight to the laundry facilities in the hotel. It felt so good to be clean again and soothe the mosquito bites and sit still without worry of more attacks.

The hotel had a nice menu guide to local restaurants and we picked the Snake River Brewery for dinner that night. The food was good and we caught a glimpse of the tv in the bar showing the Tour de France coverage. I had a great beer, an OB-1 Organic Ale. After dinner we headed out to check out Jackson. Thinking of doing some shopping, but didn't find much in the windows that interested me. We wandered to the downtown square where a crowd was gathering. I had read about the gunfights every night, so we staked out a spot to watch. It was a funny show and Kevin enjoyed it. Zack didn't like the noise of the gunfire, so he and Chad hung back a bit. The downtown area was packed with people and we barely got a picture by the famous elk antler arches. I think everyone was just done in, so we headed back to the hotel. Fresh chocolate chip cookies were waiting for us.

On asking the kids what they wanted to do while we were there, they decided ski hill stuff sounded best. That meant alpine slides or lift rides to the top of mountains. We headed out the next day to take the tram ride at Jackson Hole Resort. Zack had seen an inflatable toy tram in a store window and he was promised one if he rode up and down. To get there from Jackson we took the long way back through Grand Teton National Park so I could have one more chance to see a moose. It was also our 15th wedding anniversary, so we had Kevin take a picture in front of the Chapel of the Transfiguration. After another stop for Kevin at Jenny Lake for a park stamp in his book, we headed down to Moose Wilson Road to leisurely drive to Jackson Hole. Down the road a few turns there were cars parked alongside. Chad pulled over into a gravel pull off and I hiked up the road to see not one, but three moose hanging out in a pond. It looked like a mother and two older moose calves, because they sure were keeping an eye on her as she ate from the pond and walked on into the woods. On arriving at Jackson Hole, a parking attendant gave us a map and brochure and told us parking is free and that's the last time you will hear free while you're here. Nice guy, honest I guess. We were really just there to ride the new 100 passenger tram to the top. It's a 9 minute trip to the top, and our tram operator was from Madison and we talked with him about local Tyrol Basin skiing. We heard on the tram about the famous waffles on the top of the mountain, and either Chad or the kids remember seeing them on a tv show as well. Exiting the tram and walking towards the building it smelled like fresh cooked waffles outside. We considered hiking a ways for Zack to have a chance to see pikas, since they live at the higher altitudes, but we weren't dressed for hiking so we gave up and ate waffles. I spotted a professional photographer taking family pictures on top of the mountain, and I talked with her a bit while the kids were eating. Being a girl and into all that "lets take a family picture" stuff I encouraged the boys (or maybe Chad threatened them) to have some pictures taken. These are the same photographers that ski the mountains in the winter and take action shots so she had lots of good stories. The pictures turned out really nice, and are already spread around the house.

Just before leaving, the photographer gave us a tip on a cool milkshake place across the border in Idaho. She said they have the biggest straws you would ever see and big chunky shakes to match, just look for the red and white awning in Victor, it's about the only thing there. Not wanting to miss a local recommendation, we headed for Idaho. Crossing over the Divide again, and through some road construction we came into the town and spotted the awning with little problem. They were what I would call pea-graveling the downtown area, spraying tar down and layering crushed rock over it. It was really smelly, but we were certainly in the most happening place in miles. Nothing else in town and we had to wait in line for shakes. The shop has t-shirts, tourist goods, fly fishing supplies and more with an ice cream counter in the back. The girls behind the counter had nonstop shakes mixing on the old fashioned machines. And the straws were huge. I had one of their famous huckleberry shakes and it was excellent. Chad had a shake that was chocolate with peanut butter and that was great too. After a little shopping in the front of the store we headed back to Jackson.

We stopped off for a rest at the hotel and Chad checked with the front desk about places for a nice anniversary dinner with the kids. The staff was always very helpful and friendly even on the phone when Chad initially made reservations. They recommended a nice place and offered to make reservations for us. All Chad said was a time and they said you will have a table, without even checking with the restaurant. With dinner plans made, we headed out for the alpine slide at Snow King Resort. We took one trip down the hill. Chad and Zack on one sled took off after me on the same course and caught up with my cautious ride down the hill. Kevin was across on the other course. Once was enough of that, although Kevin wanted another trip. Dinner was just down the street from the hotel so we walked to the Gun Barrel Steak and Game Club. We had an excellent table right in front of the huge fireplace. I had elk, and Chad had bison. It was nice to try these new things and the meal was very nice. After dinner I realized that we never encountered any geocaches yet on the trip and the boys had their bugs to release. I took them over to a travel bug hotel, a cache for dropping and picking up bugs, in Jackson. It was a little tough to find, as I had the location mapped and had a clue but the actual coordinates were not saved in our gps. The kids and I did find it and dropped the bugs.

Next morning was time to pack up and leave for home, unsure where we would stop along the way. We picked up sandwiches at Backcountry Provisions in Jackson on the way out of town. The menu was too tempting to pass up but we hadn't squeezed them in for a meal while we were staying there. We packed the sandwiches in the cooler and were on our way home.

Off to meet friends and donate blood

So back on the road we headed south to the Colter Bay campground in the Grand Teton National Park. We were meeting friends who were also camping there.

Our first stops were the visitor center and lunch. The visitor center was tiny compared to what we had seen in Yellowstone. Jenny got the maps she wanted and we went to find some lunch. The concessions in Teton NP are run by Grand Teton Lodge Company and the food at Colter Bay was pretty good. None of the concession run food service could be called cheap but it could have been worse at least the food was well prepared. Where GTLC failed according to what Jenny experienced was in the shower building. Her report was enough to keep me from even bothering to shower, I could wait until we got to the hotel in Jackson on Tuesday.

After lunch we pulled up to the campground hut and were assigned a site on the outside of the last loop. This was a tent only loop as well. Outside, last loop, maybe you are thinking big open site with few neighbors. That was all true only problem was my brain went to bears. We were now in my mind the first site to be in the way of a curious bear, the fact each campsite had it's own bear proof storage box didn't help. As it turned out we would lose blood only to the swarms of mosquitoes, no bears sighted the entire trip.

Our friends came by as we finished setting camp up. It was really hot and a guided drive was offered and quickly accepted. We headed for a 17 mile gravel road, only a couple of spots were rough enough to require 4wd and high clearance. The Jeep has seen way worse and we rolled right back to the highway.

We had been watching storm clouds gathering and the storm hit as we headed (raced) back to camp. Our tent fly was open and our friends' camper awning was out. The wind and rain was intense and we saw 3 foot waves on the lake as we crossed the dam. Of course everything was over by the time we got back, our tent was dry but 4 of the 6 tent stakes had been pulled completely out of the ground. These were 9 inch stakes I had needed a mallet to install, I'll never skip stakes in the future. We ate dinner and then went to visit and eat smores at our friends' campsite.

Sunset was nice that evening due to the numerous clouds passing overhead.
The next morning I walked down to the visitors center to take some pictures since the boys were sleeping in as usual. The days plans were to meet up with our friends and go hike at Jenny Lake. We went to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point by way of the ferry which cuts the hike by 2 miles each way. The hike was fun and Zack walked most of the way without complaint which meant my back was mostly spared. After the return ferry ride we hung out for awhile before our families split up for lunch. We stopped by the Moose visitor center and then ate at the Chuckwagon restaurant nearby.

With lounging at camp out of the question for fear of the mosquitoes carrying us away we went off to see some other sights and to look for more wildlife. We checked out the Chapel of the Transfiguration, Mormon Row, and a nearby buffalo herd. We tried out another four wheel drive trail to Two Ocean Lake. Unusually there was construction on this road. We encountered a roller followed by a grader. Kind of ruined the scenic experience. At the lake Zack wanted to hike around it until we told him a run back to the car to get the bear spray was in order. He said "well if there are bears around here then why would we hike, lets just go". Once back at camp we headed to the beach area to cook dinner, no way I was cooking hamburger at our campsite. We had purchased some firewood and had a fire later back at camp. After eating our fill of smores again we got ready for bed. Bed time was pretty early so the boys would read every night. Kevin went through two Harry Potter books and Zack read his newly acquired wolf pup book to me.
The next morning we packed all the gear up and went hiking again. This time we walked to Leigh Lake from the String Lake trail head. The trail was flat and easy walking, the highpoint for the boys was the stream connecting the two lakes. We got off the bridge and hopped rocks for a few minutes before continuing on. We reached a canoe portage ramp and spent some time wading in the cold water. At least I was clean up to my knees. After the hike back we all went to lunch at Doran's in Moose for pizza.

Our camping trip was now over and we headed to Jackson and the Wyoming Inn.

GBOP updated

Hot day today. It's already 85 degrees after rain last night and this morning. Humidity is high and it feels like 93 degrees. Thought the kids would want to play again in the GBOP with water, Zack was a go but it was too hot and humid for Kevin.

Here's a quick video for gobucky, wondering about getting inside of this contraption.

GBOP

What is a GBOP?

The kids have had this thing on their wish list for birthdays for the last couple years. This weekend they received belated birthday gifts from Grandma & Grandpa. We were on vacation during the typical birthday party time for the boys, so it's been kind of a nonstop birthday month, a little here and a little there. Way too much cake, that's for sure. Well, they opened a joint present and low and behold, the coveted GBOP (Great Big Outdoor Playball). And Zack states, after reading the box, "Good thing, I'm 6!", as it says on the box for ages 6 and up. And up, well that means I can use it too, right?


Good thing Chad has an air compressor in the garage. The ball is like a honeycomb of individual air compartments. The first go around was a little flat and didn't roll very well, but after a little more inflation the kids went crazy, Zack especially. Technique had to be learned. seems like you can roll in it sideways down the hill, or do somersaults in it down the hill. I even tried it for a short roll, until I realized that rolling down a hill with my bum knee was a little painful.

Next up, thanks to Chad's suggestion, was putting water in this thing to see if it would reduce friction enough to slide sitting up the whole way down the hill. Looked a little better, but nothing like riding down a water slide. Anyways the kids have had a blast with the GBOP for days. Good thing it stores on top of our kayak trailer in the garage, it would be a pain to blow up each time. I just have to keep an eye out for any use in child bowling in the backyard, the kids were told no pushing it down the hill. I also wouldn't want to see any body parts come bouncing uncontrollably out of this thing.

One of the boys taking the GBOP back up the hill in the backyard.

Yep, that's me in the GBOP, complete with static hair.

Whirlwind Weekend

So last weekend we managed to kayak, mountain bike, and run.


The kayak trip Saturday was an 8 mile float down the Pecatonica River in southwest Wisconsin. We met a couple of friends who had camped in the area, this got me out of having to bike the shuttle route. The sky cleared just before we launched into the muddy water. I can't say the scenery was anything special, corn, weeds and muddy banks. The silence was frequently broken by ATV'ers on the rail trail that runs near the river. The need to have four wheel drive on a flat gravel path is beyond me, to be honest why they allow motorized vehicles on the trail is beyond me.

The take out is in a Darlington,WI park. The park has full facilities and camping, but no developed boat launch to be found. The park and town seem to be aimed at ATVing so I doubt we will be returning.

Sunday plans were made after watching a mountain biking video on the Fatcyclist blog. Jenny had been thinking of coming with me for awhile, and her knee has been feeling good, so we went for it minus the boys. The intermediate level trails are beyond Kevin's skill level and no way I'm trying it with the trail-a-bike.

We hit the trails early and Jenny went from nervous to clearing most of the small rock gardens and roots. I still get tripped up frequently and was shocked at how fast Jen progressed and was keeping up with me. We rode about 5 miles and headed for home with only a scraped forearm from Jen using a tree to slow down. I'm sure we will be back for more especially as the weather cools this fall.

Jenny and I wrapped up the weekend with her 15 minute running program from physical therapy.

I ran 4 more miles Monday morning just to be sure I'd be tired to start my work week off right.

22 hours in Yellowstone

It was a little past 1pm when we reached the east entrance to the park. The ranger informed us it was a free weekend and gave some maps. I tried to pay since we would eventually need to, but not going to happen here so on we went.

The road climbs over a pass then descends to the Yellowstone Lake and crosses Fishing Bridge. Jenny had a plan and guided us to the Lower Falls overlook in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. We passed through a busy bison watching area on the way, but unlike seemingly everyone else, failed to need to stop in the middle of the road every hundred feet. We made two short hikes at different overlooks, the falls were incredible and by far the biggest I've seen. When the boys had enough looking we stopped at the visitor center in Canyon, Jenny for more information and the boys for the gift shop.

Since we had a campsite reserved in Grant Village we headed that way next so we could be setup before dinner. At the check in booth the lady informed us we were in bear country now and gave us a list of things not to do while camping, then she added there had been bears in the area. Maybe it's just me but I would have liked a bit more detail on that statement. "In the area" is too vague. Is the area 5 miles or in the campsite next to mine? I didn't ask because had she said they wander through the campground I might have left for a hotel.

We setup camp quickly, tent, hammock, and even our yet to be tried slackline. Dinner was two bags of Lipton noodles to keep it simple. Our campstove is a multi-fuel backpacking model from years ago when Jenny and I considered backpack camping.

After dinner we drove a couple of miles to the West Basin thermal pool area for sunset. This area turned out to be my favorite of the few we visited. As the sky darkened the mosquitoes got worse so we headed back and to bed. I slept ok but the campground was pretty loud all night. No noises that had me grabbing for the pepper spray was a relief.

Jenny and I were up early, too early really, but I wake up once it gets light so by 6:30 we had water on for coffee. Kevin was up shortly after and back to reading his book. Zack on the other hand was still out cold as I packed all the other sleeping bags and half disassembled the tent. Once we got packed it was off to Old Faithful. At least for me the cyclists we passed as they climbed over the continental divide were more impressive than the geyser. The Old Faithful area is really busy and that detracts from the impressiveness of the geysers. The water show went as promised and with the boys declining lunch we headed for Grand Teton National Park and more camping.