Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Funniest tweet of the day

From Glenn Greenwald: 'Great way to start the day: "Maureen Dowd and Thomas L. Friedman are off today." Almost better than coffee.'

You'd need to be familiar with Greenwald... Occasionally Dowd can be pretty funny, but she causes more trouble than she helps on balance. And I used to like Friedman a lot. I still like him most of the time, even though he went all neo-con about Iraq (and his recent torture apologia was horrendous). I have his book From Beirut to Jerusalem from years ago. I thought it was very illuminating when I first read it, and he still seems to have quite a bit of insight into the issues of the Middle East. But a lot of people don't seem to think much of him.

Greenwald himself is not an easy guy to read on a regular basis, but he is essential. He's one of those guys out there on the fringe keeping everyone else honest, at least to some degree. Sort of a Wellstone.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Canoeing picture


Here's a photo from our canoe yesterday.

Time to go home

Another beautiful morning today. As we've always noticed in the past, on the last day of the weekend (Sunday on a normal weekend, Monday on a holiday weekend such as this one), everyone gets up, has breakfast, packs up all their stuff and leaves. We can never quite understand this, it seems to cut your weekend short by a whole day. I guess I can understand where you might want to get home and do some laundry and mow the lawn, so you don't lose your entire weekend at home, but we've always felt like we would rather be away as long as possible and let the other stuff get crammed into the weekdays instead.

There is the matter of checkout time, however. I looked it up on our paperwork, and it turns out that it is noon. The staff is already tipping picnic tables up on top of fire pits getting ready to mow the grass. We decided we could pack up and drive down to Harmony to look for some Amish furniture stores (the one in Lanesboro seems to have closed).

It's kind of sad to watch the campground empty out. I took the dogs out for a bit of a leg stretch before we get in the car, and we took one last walk down to the river. The stretch of rocks and sandbar next to the campground had been packed with people fishing, kids grossing out over a dead fish, and labs retrieving their toy out of the river, as well as canoers in the water and bikers zipping past on the downhill trail on the other side. Today it was empty. Instead of seeming like a relief, more of a "'back to nature" kind of experience, it just seemed lonely and deserted. Scarlett walked into the water and took a drink, and I put my hand in. It feels just like the stuff that comes out of the tap at home, but hearing the sound of the water on the rocks and touching the cool wetness was like making a little connection with someone you've had the pleasure of visiting for a short while.

As we were walking back I saw the sight in this picture. Except you have to imagine an eagle gliding above the top of the cliiff. I thought, that really is Eagle Cliff Campground all in one picture. I came back with the camera but of course the eagle didn't make another appearance. This campground is situated on a large bend in the river, so the river wraps around three sides of it. The campground side of the river is low, but the other side is all tall cliffs. It is one of our favorite places to camp. Not only is the campground really nice, but there are so many things to do: visit downtown Lanesboro, bike, canoe, tube. We did everything but the tubing this trip (a little early yet for tubing).
Here's another picture of our camper, with some tents in the background which are right along the river. Everyone else had left, this area was packed with campers a few hours previously.

Camping Sunday

Got up this morning to a clear blue sky and sunshine. Yesterday it wasn't completely overcast, but it was cloudy, and it dripped rain periodically, sometimes when the sun was shining. Last night the skies cleared, and we're far enough away from light centers that we could see lots and lots of stars. It was so humid that a thick fog formed which mingled with the campfire smoke around the campground. With the camper light strings glowing through the eerie fog making strange shadows, it slightly resembled that camping scene out of Harry Potter, except no one conjured a Dark Mark.

Today has just been crystal, so after we had breakfast we signed up for a two-hour canoe trip. The river is very low, and he said the two-hour trips had been taking three and four hours, and the four-hour trip took you up to where the river was so shallow you had to do a lot of portaging. It was perfect for canoeing. The air was still a little cool so we didn't bake too much in the sun, and the water was also still cool. We had to pay attention and choose our spots all along the trip to avoid the shallows and the rocks. There were little baby rapids all down the way, nothing that ranked as adventurous, but still fun.

We saw schools of brown trout, spotted shadows over the rocks (they seemed to like the river bends with rocks and rapids). We saw a bald eagle, and an immature eagle of some unidentifiable type, and two Baltimore orioles fighting over a tree. We rode up the river with three large van-loads of people from our campground, and there were lots of other people out on the river from other outfitters, but it was still so lovely and peaceful. We looked up at the bikers on the bike trail, whereas yesterday we had looked down from our bikes to the canoers. We passed (or were passed by) some kayaks (these seem especially favored by preteen and teenage boys). They looked like fun but I'm not sure you could fit a dog in there with you.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Biking with dogs

Have you ever had an idea, and then wanted to try it out to see if it would work, but for one reason or another you can't quite do it? Today we tried something that I've had percolating in my thoughts for a couple years.

We got our dog Scarlett in the spring of 2000 (Scarlett is a miniature poodle). She was 10 or 12 weeks old, so by the time we went on our first camping trip of that season, she was only half grown. We had had a camper for a couple of years, and had taken to camping at places on bike trails and spending a good deal of our Saturday at least out on our bikes. So our first trip to Lanesboro that year, which is on the Root River bike trail, we had to figure out how to bring a dog along on a day of biking. We went to the bike store in town, and found a mesh basket. We put a towel in the basket and put Scarlett in the basket. It turned out that she felt that under extraordinary circumstances she ought to jump out of the basket. So Tom hit upon the idea, undoubtedly not approved by the SPCA, of threading a bungee cord through her collar and around the handlebars of the bike to cause her to stay, at least to some degree, attached to the bike. (Yes, there was one instance where she wound up dangling from the handlebars. Usually she'd just make to jump out and get tugged back in.)

As an aside, you know how you wind up giving your pet at least 12 names. Scarlett was already PupperDog, SweetieDog and CamperDog, now she also became known as BungeeDog.

The next summer she no longer fit in the basket, and that autumn we acquired a second dog, Tucker, who does not care for heights. I am quite certain that he would not like to be bungeed to a bike basket. He is also considerably more barrel-chested and denser than Scarlett (full grown he weighs more than she does, even though she's taller). When we biked, we would leave the dogs in the camper and bike for a couple hours and come back.

But I had this idea that we could get a bike trailer, the kind meant for small children, and trailer the dogs while we biked. I had seen other people doing it, usually with dogs a good deal larger than ours. I looked into the trailers, but they were rather expensive. It seemed like a lot spend on biking your dogs, especially if it didn't work out. Then Tom "rescued" one from the dumpster behind Goodwill one day. It sat in the garage for a couple seasons--occasionally I'd get it out and try to figure out how to make it work, but it became apparent that the trailer was in the dumpster for a reason. It was broken.

As I may have mentioned, we have a new camper. We managed to get a campsite at our favorite campground in Lanesboro for Memorial Day weekend, and I found myself thinking about the bike trailer again. It's pretty hilly on the Root River bike trail, and although I've never been in particularly good shape, I'm not in good shape now, and I'm a few years older than I was in 2001. I wasn't sure I could pull 35 pounds of dog and a trailer up a hill behind my bike. I'm usually doing well to get myself up hills. This is a problem with a lot of my ideas. They sound good on paper, but in the real world there are issues. (Earlier this year I thought it would be great to try biking to work one day, which is about 32 miles by car. Then I remembered wind.)

So we went into town this noon in the truck to get a bratwurst at Arv's, and we stopped at the bike store. They had a used bike trailer they were selling for $40, so we bought it. This afternoon we tried it out around the campground, with Tom pulling it and the two dogs inside. Things were going pretty well, one thing led to another, and we were out on the bike trail. The trailer is a nice light one, but even so I could tell that it was considerable work for Tom to pull it. I was wondering if the first bike trailer trip would be the last. We went from the campground to Lanesboro with one stop along the way, and about halfway back Tom stopped for a rest. So I said how about letting me try it? As it turned out, there weren't really any hills on the way back, so I was lucky there. We stopped in Whalan for some fabulous pie and made it home in one piece. I have to say, that when you're pulling a dog trailer downhill and into the wind, the wind hurts you a lot more than the downhill helps you. (What downhill?)

And how did the dogs do? Well, all right mostly, although Scarlett didn't like it much. She likes to be near me, touching me if possible but at least in sight. So she kept finding cracks and crevices where she could force her nose and head out to look back and see if I was there. (And possibly get out while she was at it.) But they stayed in and Scarlett only cried about it about a third of the time. (Tucker was mostly fine. I had a pillow in there, so he was happy. But the trailer bottom under him was only about an inch off the ground.)

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Camping update

The camper is back and parked in the driveway for the first time. (The camper went directly to the shop when we returned from Michigan, because the oven became detached from its moorings and the pocket door to the bedroom came off its rails.) It certainly takes up more driveway than the Dutchman did. I wanted to go out and just hang out in it for awhile but I was so tired when I drove in that I just wanted to head straight for bed.

We have a campsite for Memorial Day weekend at our favorite campground, Eagle Cliff in Lanesboro! I think it's a good site too, down the hill near the river. One thing I really like about Lanesboro is that there are so many things to do--biking, canoeing, fishing, innertubing, eating bratwurst at the Wurst Haus...

Instead of going to bed I collected a little box off the front step and got out the laptop. I ordered a mouse for it on NewEgg because the touchpad thingy is pretty flaky and the mouse keys on the laptop seem to click or double-click when I swear I'm not even touching them. Plus I just hate mousing with the touchpad, and I have apparently become dependent on the mouse wheel. This mouse arrived in record time, I swear I just ordered it last night. (Oops, I just checked my invoice, and the flaky mouse key must have selected some superfast delivery when I wasn't looking because I paid something like $19 in shipping for a $9 mouse.) Getting the mouse installed took longer than one would expect (according to Vista the CD accompanying the mouse was suspect and possibly dangerous so I had to download software instead), and then of course there is the black hole of the internet, so I have still not gone to bed.

Instead of Bible study and choir tonight we went to Buca in Minneapolis for our last Bible study meeting. Wonderful dinner, really quite fun. Home just after 9pm which is early for a Wednesday. My Wednesday evenings are now officially free for the summer, yay! Weather the last two days is suddenly and inexplicably in the upper 80s to low 90s. (Minneapolis St. Paul airport recorded 97 yesterday, but Anoka airport said just 91. Very strong winds from the south--Tom said that when he picked up the camper, a pontoon boat at the boat dealer next door was upside down on highway 65.) Supposed to be more normal starting tomorrow I think.

Think I am going to have to order one of those laptop "chiller" things, the bottom of the laptop is uncomfortably hot. And one really does want to rest the laptop on one's lap. I guess there will be two streams of brown boxes appearing on the doorstep now--the stream of computer stuff Tom orders online, and the new stream of computer stuff I order online. Or I suppose I could begin frequenting the Best Buy down the road, up until now I haven't had any real reason to go there. The laptop is beginning to seem like a dog or a child, as Tom would say, a gift that eats.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

The Mozart was good

Wild spring weather this weekend--cold windy lower 40s yesterday afternoon, lovely afternoon today and they're saying 80 tomorrow. If this keeps up, we're going to have weird weather this summer.

The Mozart Grand Mass concert went well today. It is always so much fun to sing with an orchestra. I thought the choral parts went quite well. The solos were just plain crazy--if I hadn't heard them myself I would have said they weren't humanly possible. Mozart apparently wrote one of the parts for his wife, she must have been quite a singer. Shari and Kathleen were fabulous. If I had one quibble it would be that there was only one part for Mike, our baritone soloist. After all the high As and Cs his voice sounded impossibly low on the Benedictus--it was cool, and it would have been nice to hear more of it. I will have this stuck in my head for weeks (plus now I just want to listen to the CD again for some strange reason).

After the Mozart we went on to a meeting of a group of people from church called "change agents," people interested in pursuing advocacy to change the system to advance social justice. We decided that for our first area of pursuit would be the proposed budget cut of medical care for people receiving general assistance. For our first meeting we talked about our own interests and ideas, and agreed on our first subject. We'll see where that goes next. I have absolutely no background in anything of any usefulness to this project, but I'm excited about it--I think this is definitely a good thing to be doing.

On another note, I'm entering this post on a new laptop computer. I've thought it would be nice to get one for Tom for years now, but I wouldn't have known what to buy. I recently received a very generous award at work (pretty sure I didn't deserve it), and Tom said NewEgg had a good deal of the week on a laptop. So now we'll have a computer to take camping with us, which will be nice. On a couple waiting lists for Memorial Day weekend, we're still waiting to see if/where we'll be camping.

Friday, May 15, 2009

Lovely Friday off so far

What a beautiful day! So far the sky is blue and cloudless. All the spring things are blooming, and things have greened up almost fully (some later trees still coming along). I got up with the dogs at 6:15, and since it was so early, I went back to bed. You know what happened next, neither Tom nor I woke up until 8:15. So, instead of the 8:30 step class today, the dogs and I had a long walk this morning and then I went to the gym to work out for the first time in months. I was surprised, it went pretty well.

So I have walked, ellipticalled, lifted a few weights, and now I'm ready to go out--having a bite of lunch before going to get my mop cut. (Even took my Mozart score to the gym with a recording to listen to and played through that while I was on the elliptical. I still want to sing it with a piano nearby to check notes today, but I have done something with it already.)

I will update this with a few backyard photos when I get back.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Calendar Shock

I left work tonight before 6:30 (yay!), the sun was shining, it was the end of my week this week (tomorrow off! yay!), I had finished one of the tasks I was supposed to get done at work today, and I was unaccountably happy. An impossible amount of work to get done in the next two weeks, followed by more impossible schedule after that, things that were supposed to get done that didn't, but I couldn't help but feel good.

Now that I've watched two hours of angst and trauma on the season finale of Grey's Anatomy, and my head is hurting, I'm not so happy. I'm going to take some ibuprofen and go to bed. More unfinished things--supposed to read John 21 today (and I shouldn't put that off, because Bible study is imitating work this week with impossible reading schedule) and practice for Sunday's concert, didn't do either one.

Once again looking forward to the concert on Sunday. Still could use more preparation, but I think it will be mostly OK.

Did not realize until today that Memorial Day weekend is only one week away. Still no camping reservations. (Hopefully will have a camper back.) Want to go see the Star Trek movie, and the Caroline or Change show at the Guthrie. Seems like there was something else I wanted to do that needs to be done in the next couple weeks. Phantom is also here (don't know if you can get tickets though). Managed to get Mother's birthday box in the mail today. Time to start figuring out what to get daughters for their June birthdays. How can it be almost June already?

Monday, May 4, 2009

Back home

Days don't really come any nicer than today (and I was not at work! Bonus!). It is just wonderful out.

We drove around the Dells today just so we could see all the fuss. Zowie Batman. I can say this for sure, I think the Wisconsin Dells have to be in the running for best mini-golf courses ever. I want to go back and ride the Ducks and hit some of the mini-golf. I'm thinking the water ski show is probably pretty good, too. There's also an amusement park/water park called Mt. Olympus that looks quite awesome. We did stop and buy some cheese, which is think is pretty much required when you visit Wisconsin. (There are also a lot of fiberglass mice. I figure there's a Wisconsin business somewhere that just cranks out the mice. And maybe swimming pool slides with dolphins jumping next to them.)

I had a shower in the camper this morning, and all I have to say is I could get used to this. Its not the full-blown stand under the hot water for 10 minutes thing, but it is darn convenient and mostly lacking in sand underfoot. (At least so far.) The camper mattress is dreadful, as expected. Tom was talking about replacing that right away, and I must say I would have to agree. Sleeping on the air bed that pulls out of the couch sounds better.

We did like the campground we were at last night, the Sherwood Forest. Huge campground--went on and on and on. (But in different sections, not one big humongous lot.) I'm not sure we even saw all of it. It was largely empty--not very many lifers--so it was us and a few other campers and the trees. I suppose it will be a completely different scene during the season, a veritable Mardi Gras of kids on bikes, TVs with a game on, cheese curds and beer. (The only other Wisconsin campgrounds we've stayed at have been on lakes, so they had a distinct fishing and boating ambience. I'm thinking that may be less here.)

At any rate, here are some photos of the new toy.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Exit 87

I'm sitting at the picnic table of our campsite at the Sherwood Forest Campground at the Wisconsin Dells. It is a beautiful evening. The sky is clear, it must be about 70 degrees, and there is a light breeze coming and going. A forlorn dog is crying a few campsites away--its people must be out having dinner. (Tom is inside the camper now whipping up a little Chicken Helper for us. Last night we had blueberries and pound cake for dessert, which was very tasty, so I'm looking forward to a reprise tonight.)

We were debating where to get off the freeway to look for a campground. I was driving, and Tom was googling on his phone. From the billboards it appeared that Exit 87 was ground zero for all things Dells. I remembered that when we were driving the other direction, one exit had a sign devoted to camping destinations at that exit with about eight choices on it.

So we got to exit 87, and there were only a couple camping places listed. Tom had identified one on google that sounded pretty good, but we hadn't seen any signs for it. (Tom didn't go so far as to check on exactly where it was.) We'll probably pass it right after we leave tomorrow at exit 86. But I grew up going on driving trips with a dad who was always going to see what was at the *next* exit, so by golly, I was getting off.

Exit 87 may not have been the place to get off for camping, but it was clearly the place to get off for everything else. I didn't know you could achieve the billboard density that we found in the few blocks from the exit to our turnoff two traffic lights later. It was sort of like a birch forest, except instead of trees it was signage. I wish I could remember some of the stuff to report here, but it was too overwhelming to take in.

Tom said he doubted the duck boats would be running on a Monday morning in early May, but I would like to take that trip sometime and find out what all the fuss is about. I've never actually visited the Dells, but they must be quite something to have spawned the tourist omniverse that is here today.

Right at the moment it doesn't matter. We've got trees, a little grass, a picnic table, and a peaceful setting, oblivious to the hype beyond the campground. It is delightful to just be (although I sure hope that dog stops crying before bedtime).

We have a camper

We trekked across Michigan and back today, picked up the new camper, and right now we're ensconced at Van Buren State Park on Lake Michigan. (So far on this trip the only time we have actually laid eyes on Lake Michigan is when we took a wrong turn and drove through the town of South Haven, just up the road. It's amazing how close you can be to something so big, and never actually see it. Sounds like a good metaphor for something.) It's Saturday evening and we've had dinner (pizza in the half-time oven), and we have no cell phone service so this won't get posted until we head out tomorrow.

This campground is quite pretty but we didn't notice until we were all parked that there is no water at the campsites. If we had realized that we could have filled the tank up before we parked. But now we are stuck unable to use the kitchen or bathroom. I guess I don't get to try out the shower until Monday morning.

This camper is so much easier to use than our first one. The front jacks are hydraulic, rather than Tom having to crank it up and down by hand. The water heater is started and stopped with a switch inside, rather than having to go outside and fool with getting the pilot to light by pressing a button and counting to 45 and watching when you let go whether the pilot takes or not. It has big windows all around the rear of the unit, and we have a roof ladder!

The interior storage is not very convenient, which we knew. It's kind of funny because storage was almost nonexistent in our first unit, nevertheless you find yourself thinking how the new unit should really have this or that feature, even though you managed to get along without it before.

This one is quite a bit roomier. The outside storage is much, much better than we had before, I think. (Maybe when we start filling it up I'll change my mind. It's all in one big space on this one, the other unit had pockets of space all over.)

We headed right into a pretty fierce wind when we left the dealership. I think it handled pretty well, considering. It is definitely bigger (6 ft) and heavier than the first one. It has much larger storage for "gray water," which means we can actually use the shower. And the shower is like a real shower, not a little plastic compartment with a glorified kitchen sink sprayer in it! (I know, why even bother to call it camping!)

Anyway, we didn't bring a lot of stuff, but what we did bring is stowed in drawers and cabinets to start out with. Tomorrow we're going to get through Chicago and stop somewhere around the Dells. (I still want to know what a dell is. And do you see any when you go to the Dells?)

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Battle Creek

We're passing Battle Creek Michigan! That's where breakfast cereal comes from. I love breakfast cereal. If we didn't have dogs along, we could go see if there are any public tours. My family was always big on tours. I'm not sure if businesses do as much of that as they used to. And, you know, at the end of the tour there are often free samples. ;-)

I remember touring the Grain Belt brewery in St. Paul whenever relatives would come to visit (my uncle and my grandfather liked beer). I was not old enough to try the beer samples. I also dimly recall a Sara Lee tour somewhere. I could really go for a Sara Lee tour right about now, that would be even better than cereal.

Ooh, they must have a sports team, we just passed a sign for Kellogg arena. (What sports team could that be? Maybe college.)

Friday, May 1, 2009

Kamping in Coloma

My, my, my. We have a KOA kabin and we are housed for the evening. The kabin is one of those tool sheds you can buy for your backyard. It contains a double bed on one side and a set of bunk beds on the other. There is a low shelf between the beds that serves as a seat/nightstand, another larger, higher shelf that serves as a counter. There is a stack of small shelves in the corner, and one light bulb by the door. They gave us a space heater that is doing a good job of heating the place.

The interior is covered in particle board, but there is wood parquet flooring. There are three windows with cotton curtains. It is rather like a very roomy coffin, although I have not voiced that observation to Tom because he is claustrophobic.

The new camper is going to appear positively luxurious tomorrow. It was already going to be much nicer than the previous camper, but it's going to feel like Club Med compared to this.

Well I'm off to find a bathroom and brush my teeth.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

So far, *so* good

I was wrong. Riding in the truck with two dogs is great fun! Singing along with oldies on the radio ("I Believe I Can Fly"--there, now I've infected you ;-), a nice cup of tea at hand. Sun is shining, trees everywhere have that light, green peach fuzz of buds forming.
So far on the road less than an hour, so ask me later.