Lift Up Your Hearts!

The Franklin Insitute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

I don't remember my first visit to the Franklin Institute; I believe it must have been on some visit to Philadelphia when I was very young; all I remember was walking through the heart.  Later, however, we moved to the Philadelphia area, and were regular visitors.  For two summers I worked in the Franklin Institute Research Labs in the building next door, and even more important to me than my paycheck was the ID badge that allowed me to take the tunnel between the buildings and spend most of my lunch hours in the museum.

After he retired, my dad became a Franklin Institute volunteer, and it was natural for him to take his grandchildren there when they came to visit.  By that time, the museum had grown an addition, with new exhibits that made it look like any modern science museum, but the kids' favorite, and my own, was the old building, with its greater educational content and more detailed, written information with each exhibit.  Now Dad's grandchildren have children of their own, and on our recent visit to Philadelphia we all looked forward to watching them delight in our old favorites.

The great-grandkids were happy enough, but the rest of us were somewhat disappointed.  To our delight, the heart is still there, as is the train that Dad used to drive as one of his docent duties (it's easier to keep a 350-ton locomotive than to get rid of one) but the "new building" style has now infected the old building, too.  Many of our favorite exhibits are gone, replaced by displays designed for shorter attention spans and lesser literacy.  The math room that had kept our kids entranced for hours was nowhere to be found, and when I finally asked a docent, "Excuse me, it's been a long time since I was here last, and I can't find the math room," he replied, "It has been a long time since you've visited; they took that out years ago."

It took a bit of effort, but we did find Newton's Dream, the kinetic sculpture that so entranced Heather as a child.  It's in a different place now, and has been cut down in size, but that didn't stop the children from following it with the same fascination.  Also riveting was Der Lauf der Dinge, a Swiss-made movie of a 30-minute Rube Goldberg setup with lots of pyrotechnics and impressive chemical reactions.  Thanks to the magic of YouTube, you, too, can see this amazing performance, albeit broken into three segments.  (Here are the links as well, since I note that embedded videos don't always show up in feedreaders:  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Lest I be seen as a totally hopeless conservative who never likes anything new, the museum's newest exhibit, Amazing Machine, is also excellent, and we could have spent much longer playing with its cams, gears, pulley, and linkages had we not been nearing the end of our visit.  (Heather:  That's what I want for Christmas.  You can turn a mechanical engineer into a joyful homemaker, but the engineer is still there.)

 

The American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York

On my first visit to the American Museum of Natural History I was probably about as young as when I first encountered the Franklin Institute, but in this case nearly half a century elapsed between visits.  The AMNA, however, shows more respect for its old exhibits, and the wonderful dioramas that are all I remember from my first visit are still featured, with all their high information content and long descriptions to read.  I could easily have spent the entire day among them.  Porter found one, the African buffalo, that was sponsored by George Eastman, and remarked, "He sponsored the Buffalo because there is no animal named Rochester, but he should have sponsored the Kodiak bear."  Yes, we're still married; I happen to like that kind of humor.

The museum has several new exhibits as well as the old, most of which were quite good.  There was a bit of a "politically correct" feel in a few places, but it was not unbearable, and in general the educational value and written descriptions were sufficient.  Despite my primary concern for material to read, I am also particularly sensitive to the layout of displays—color, font, background, use and placement of images and other media—and this, too, the AMNH exhibits did well.

One disappointment was the Hall of Minerals, chiefly because whoever is responsible for lighting must have been on vacation.  For several months.  It was dark.  At first I thought the gloom was meant to provide contrast to the brilliance of the minerals and gems, but many of the lights that should have been highlighting the rocks were also out.  We very nearly missed the famous Star of India because it was in the dark.

In addition to the old favorites, we signed up for several special exhibits and shows.  Traveling the Silk Road was disappointing, but only because I had expected the most from it.  It was well done, but crowded, with not as much information as I had hoped and not enough time in the crowd to do justice to what was there.   The best part was the section on silk making and sericulture.

I believe Journey to the Stars was a better-than-average planetarium show (more information, less mindless entertainment), but unfortunately I responded the way I always do when faced with a movie or movie-like substance in a dark room, awakening only at the end.

The Butterfly Conservatory was interesting, though I think I've seen more fluttering in the butterfly garden at our own Leu Gardens.

Frogs:  A Chorus of Colors was great; Heather would have loved it.  Except the part where we learned about the devastation being wrought by the chytrid fungus.

Where Bd [Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis] thrives, generally in moist cool habitats, 50% of amphibian species and 80% of individuals can be expected to disappear within one year.... Currently it cannot be stopped in the wild and a minority of species seem able to survive with a Bd infection as larvae or as adults and these animals likely serve as a reservoir and vectors for future outbreaks. Notable among resistant species are worldwide invasive pest species including marine toads, American bullfrogs and African clawed frogs.

The American Museum of Natural History is well worth visiting more often than every 50 years.  The dioramas alone are a homeschooler's paradise.

I briefly reviewed the wonderful Claude Moore Colonial Farm back in 2005.  It's time for an update, because there's a great article about the place and its people on Slate.  Don't miss the video, which I can't figure out how to imbed here since it's not YouTube or a similar site.

After all the travelling we did in the last quarter of 2008 and in January of 2009, I, the homebody, was really ready to enjoy a few months with nowhere to go. But "the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley," and in this case I'm thrilled.

Ever since we moved away from Boston, I'd been waiting for Porter to get a job assignment back there so I could stay with him while doing research at the New England Historic Genealogical Society Library on Newbury Street.  He's been all over the country, but never to Boston...until now.

Last week there was an important class being held just outside of Boston, which Porter wanted to attend.  Unfortunately, IBM has had a freeze on educational travel for quite a while.  There's a way to appeal for an exception, but the process can take time.  In this case, Porter learned at 5:00 on Friday afternoon that if he would take care of the airfare and car rental, and do what he could to save money on hotel and meals, he could go.  That meant leaving in less than 48 hours!  He's used to travelling on short notice (though not usually that short), and I guess it's a testament to how much more travelling I've been doing myself recently that I was able to manage it as well.  Those of you who know me know that flexibility and decision-making are not my strong points, but how could I pass up a trip to Boston (even mid-winter) when I could fly on his Southwest companion pass, stay in his hotel, and spend a week at my favorite library?

We even managed to fit in our weekend commitments, such as dinner with friends (Friday), a gardening class at Leu Gardens (Saturday), and church (Sunday), without panicking over preparation time missed.  We managed to get two of the last seats on the one Sunday flight still available, and were winging our way to Providence while most of the rest of the country was celebrating Super Bowl Sunday.

One friend asked if we purchased our winter clothes for the trip.  We didn't, but it was fun remembering that both the boots and the gloves had come from Boston in the first place.  :)  Despite the heavy clothes, we still managed to fit everything into carry-on luggage only—further evidence of having had more air travel experience.  We're not up to Rick Steves' standards yet, but much better than we were.

I've used this post as an opportunity to learn a bit about making my own interactive Google maps, so you can see some of the locations and travel routes here.

View Larger Map

Porter's class was in Bedford, which turns out not to be convenient to any part of Boston's good public transportation system.  No hotel approved by IBM was within walking distance of a reasonable station, so Porter graciously braved the Boston rush hour traffic to transport me to and from the Anderson/Woburn RTC station on the Lowell line.  The Anderson RTC is relatively new—too new to be on any of the maps we had from when we lived there—spacious, pleasant, and warm. The last feature turned out to be particularly important this week, for although the temperatures had moderated from the bitter cold snap of the week before, this Florida girl still finds below-twenty temperatures a bit nippy.

On our way from the Providence airport to Bedford, we drove through Norwood, checked out our old apartment (they've built a whole new house in the formerly-vacant lot next door) and other landmarks, and ate at the Thai Thani restaurant:  it's small but pleasant, and one of our favorite in-town places to eat when we lived in Norwood.  Because of the Super Bowl we were the only customers.

Our first hotel, a DoubleTree, was only a few minutes from the class site, but Porter found a Radisson in Chelmsford for $50 less per night.  For Diamond members like Porter, Hilton properties often provide enough gratis food for both breakfast and dinner, so we had thought we might justify the more expensive hotel by saving on food expenses.  However, this was definitely not that kind of DoubleTree.  The breakfast was okay, though nowhere near the sumptous fare of the DoubleTree we stayed at in Scotsdale, Arizona.  But dinner?  We made one meal out of the potato chips, cookies, and oranges that were provided, then packed our bags and moved to the Radisson.  As it turned out we also saved a little on meals there, though the hotel provided nothing, because from then on we skipped breakfast in order to get me to the train station before the notorious Boston rush hour traffic became totally unbearable.

Monday—while we were still at the DoubleTree—I spent in our hotel room, because the NEHGS library is closed on Mondays.  True, there's plenty more I could have done in Boston, but it was good for Porter to be able to concentrate totally on preparing for his class instead of driving me around, and good for me to have a full day to prepare for the rest of the week.  I spent the day glued to the computer, flipping between my database and the NEHGS Library catalog, making a list of the resources that I thought might be helpful.  Having neglected genealogy for the better part of the past year—and knowing that even with four days ahead of me there would never be enough time to begin to cover all I wanted to—I needed to maximize my efficiency.  Besides, the intensity of diving into my work as soon as Porter left the hotel and not coming up for air till he returned was good preparation for the following days.

After breakfast on Tuesday Porter took me to the station, where I bought my tickets and climbed aboard the commuter train to Boston. Natsukashii!  When we lived in Norwood I would take the Franklin Line into Back Bay or South Station, but the Lowell Line into North Station was similar enough.  There have been some changes since our time, however: the subway tokens have given way to a more modern, card-based fare system.  At North Station I purchased a 7-day unlimited subway pass; for the number of rides I actually took I didn't quite get my money's worth, but the flexibility made the $15 purchase worthwhile.

The Green Line T was always my least favorite of Boston's subway lines, and that's one thing that hasn't changed.  But my first ride was pleasant enough.  As I exited the Copley station I was blessed by gently falling snow.  By evening the snow was not such a blessing, but it made for a very pleasant walk to the library.

It seems incredible that it was four years ago I wrote the following:

[Li'l Writer Guy] rather likes to imagine he’s seated in some academic cloister, inhaling the intoxicating scents of polished wood, leather, and books old and new. On the table before him are the paraphernalia of his profession: stacks of books, pads of paper, writing implements, bookmarks, his laptop computer. Lost in thought, he stares out the window, but he’s not seeing the cityscape. Now and then he rises, and paces between the table and the stacks. At the end of the day, he reluctantly packs up, puts on his coat, and steps into the outside world, blinking owlishly and realizing dimly that time has not stopped for others as it has for him. (Any resemblance of Li’l Writer Guy’s fantasy land to the New England Historic Genealogical Society Library is not coincidental.)

And yet my return to that fantasy land might have been after an absence of a mere week, had not the photocopy system changed in the interim so that my card was no longer good and I lost whatever value had been stored in it.  I'm sure it was less than $5, however, so I wasted no time on regrets but set right to work.

The above description pretty much covers it.  I set up my computer at a desk on the sixth floor, now thoughtfully equipped with surge-protected power strips and free wireless internet access.   Occasionally I stopped to admire the falling snow out the window, but mostly tripped back and forth among the desk, the stacks, and the copy machine.  The main difference between imagination and reality is that in the fantasy version there is plenty of time and I'm not desperately scooping up as much data as I can carry.  Someone asked me what, in particular, I was researching.  The answer is, nothing in particular—and yet everything.  By virtue of the power of exponential expansion, a mere 10 generations back gets one person over 1000 ancestral lines to investigate.  Perhaps someday I'll come to the library for the purpose of doing an intense investigation of one or two questions, but for now I'm still at the stage where there are hundreds of books that might shed light on my family.

At about 4:50 the lights began to flicker, and I realized that I was off by an hour in thinking the library closed at 6:00.  I sent Porter a hasty Pidgin message and scrambled to pack up.  Reversing my morning's travels, I ended up back at the Anderson station where I had a fairly lengthy wait for Porter to arrive, as the beautiful snow had turned into a storm sufficient to snarl the already dense rush hour traffic.  Since by the time we arrived at our new hotel Porter had been driving in the dark and the snow for over an hour, we elected to eat dinner at the hotel dining room and then crash into bed.  It was a portent of things to come—so much for the plans I had had to accomplish things unrelated to genealogy in the "off hours."

On Wednesday we wasted no time on breakfast, but went straight to the train station.  The traffic on 495 was fine, but we weren't on 93 very long before it slowed to a crawl.  I made the 8:30 train, however, and was soon picking up where I had left off so hurriedly the day before.  Most of this day was devoted to one particular line of Porter's, and I believe I made an interesting and exciting discovery, but I'll say no more yet because there's still work to do before I'm satisfied of its authenticity.  The library is open till 9:00 on Wednesdays, so I stayed late, though not till closing.  The traffic was much better, due to both the later hour and the improved weather—although it was quite cold (in the teens), the roads were clear of Tuesday's snow.  We ventured across the street from the hotel for some decent, though not spectacular, Chinese food at Hong & Kong's before collapsing into bed once more.

Thursday we left a little earlier, and the traffic was so much better I caught the 7:38 train.  A good thing, too, as the rest of the trip was delayed, first by the breakdown of a train ahead of us, then by multiple breakdowns on the Green Line.  By the time a Green Line train came there were so many people waiting that the trip would have made a sardine claustrophobic.  As we approached the Arlington station I remembered having looked at the map and wondered why the NEHGS travel directions specified going to the Copley station instead of Arlington, so I happily exited the car one stop early and found that it was, indeed, a better choice.  I walked into the library two minutes after it opened and once again set to work.  The day was pretty much the same except that I didn't even notice this time that I'd missed both breakfast and lunch, I was working so intently.

At closing I took a different path, walking to the Back Bay station where I caught the Franklin line to Norwood.  That would have been really natsukashii except that the train was so crowded I had to stand up the whole way, making it impossible to look out the window and wax nostalgic as we passed the old, familiar stations.  The reason for this trip was to visit some friends from our Norwood church.  Porter joined us soon after I arrived, and we had a great time re-connecting.  If I have any regret about this trip it is that we did not have time to see several other people we would like to have visited.  Guess we'll have to come back.  :)

Friday was the last day, and a short one as Porter's class ended at 3:00.  Although the Green Line was still delayed, I arrived at the library before it opened, so I ordered a cup of tea at TeaLuxe across the street, which our friend Madeline had introduced me to at one of my first visits to the NEHGS.  After that it was full speed ahead once more.  There wasn't enough time; there never is.  But I was ready to leave, feeling saturated with data and having $46.75 worth of copied pages to digest upon returning home.  (My original plan had been to enter the newly-acquired data each night after dinner, but that went by the board the very first night.  I have many weeks' worth of work ahead of me.)

If my goodbyes to the NEHGS were a bit on the sentimental side, my Green Line farewell was made with much less reluctance.  At least on my part—the T itself was perhaps unwilling to let me go, as five trains came in the outbound direction before one going my direction.  At least that one was going as far as North Station.  Part of my quarrel with the Green Line on previous days was that most of the rush hour trains went only as far as Government Center, two stops before North Station.  I never did see a train that would have taken me beyond that; what those going to Science Park or Lechmere were supposed to do, I don't know.  At any rate, this one—so crowded I rode just inside the door, well in front of the while line everyone is supposed to be in back of, and hoping no sudden jerk would impel me out of the car—did get me to the station, where I caught my final Lowell train.  This time when he picked me up at Anderson, Porter took 128 to the Mass Pike, thence to 395 and 95 and finally to Old Saybrook for a delicious dinner with PJS and B&A.  If the primary purpose of this trip was for Porter's class, and the secondary for my genealogical research, the most important one was to visit family.  We spent Friday night in Granby with DSTB, where we delivered a box full of the most amazing and diverse collection of bottle caps that ever thrilled a nine-year-old boy.  We all had fun sorting them on the kitchen table.

We were joined Saturday by PJS for a day of game playing.  Of course Uncle Porter and the boys played PlunderChess and Lord of the Rings Risk, but I really enjoyed Hoopla.  Another highlight was attending a Suzuki cello group lesson at the Hartt School of Music. After dinner we headed for Salem, where we really had time for nothing but a night's sleep, going back to Saybrook early in the morning for the 8:00 service at Grace Episcopal Church.  We checked out a few things related to our upcoming marriage celebration, and truly enjoyed meeting and hearing the rector, Father Charles.  It's a beautiful church.  We had chosen the 8:00 service because it was Rite I, and because we had a brunch date at 10:00, but unlike our church's Rite I service, this one had no music at all, which made it feel a lot less like worship.  Perhaps this summer we can attend a later service.

I loved experiencing the cold and snow of Boston, and I loved even more the weather gift of this day: a touch of spring.  The sun was out and the temperatures above freezing, so ice was melting and the ground gave out the most delicious scent of warming earth.

After brunch and some more visiting time—though again not with everyone we wanted to see—it was time to drive back to Providence and catch our Southwest flight home.  We walked in the door about 8:30, exhausted and happy.

Many people travel on business.  It's not an easy life, and different people have different strategies for coping with the stress and boredom.  Some appreciate the opportunity to explore new cities; some enjoy the perks of nicer hotels, restaurants, and even golf courses than they would otherwise be able to afford; some accumulate airline and hotel points and use them to provide their families with otherwise unreachable opportunities.  There are also those who take advantage of the relative anonymity and distance from home and family to indulge in wanton behavior.

Some businessmen, however, wax poetic.  Don't miss this offering from our favorite thduggie.

The life of a travelling businessman is not easy, but rain brings rainbows, at least if you look from a favorable angle.  My recent trip to Phoenix was such a rainbow. You'd think that an introvert like me would not be eager to leave home so soon after having been away for a month, but this was the time that was available—and it turned out to be perfect.

Fly Southwest airlines in the middle of the week, and you can get away with forgetting to print your boarding pass until four hours after check-in opens, as I did once and still got a boarding slot in the A-30's.  Fridays, however, are filled with savvy businessmen anxious to return home; Porter still snagged an A-30's number for me, but had to check in during the first couple of minutes to do so.  Due to his many flights on Southwest, his own A-list number is guaranteed.  Southwest is currently my favorite airline, they having so far been able to resist charging for normal luggage, drinks, and snacks.  Little things, I know, but their value in generating positive feelings toward the airline is disproportionate to the cost, at least in my case.  Conversely, I feel a lot worse about USAirways than their extra charges would actually merit.

Be that as it may, I enjoyed the flight, as I usually do.  You can tell I'm still a novice flyer:  I love observing the ground and the clouds; I love having an extended time when I can pull out my World of Puzzles magazine without any guilt feelings.  Well, not many anyway.  I know there's work I can do sitting in an airplane, but I generally give myself permission to ignore it when I'm flying.  After four hours in my seat, however, I could see why these little perks don't have the same thrill for those who fly frequently on business.

Our flight landed about 7 p.m., but as Arizona is a "free" state—refusing submission to Daylight Saving Time—my first ride through Phoenix was in the dark.  Despite the darkness, navigation to our hotel in Tucson was a piece of cake, thanks to the Hertz NeverLost GPS system in our rental car.  We had come prepared with physical maps from AAA and Google Maps printouts, and indeed they were also useful at different points during the week, but the NeverLost was a very helpful—not to mention fun—toy.

Porter had chosen to stay in Tucson to give us a head start on the drive to Saturday's destination:  Chiricahua National Monument.  One doesn't normally associate Holiday Inns with luxury, or at least I don't, but having frequent-stayer status hath its privileges, and we had a nice little suite—not that we had time to enjoy it much.  Jet-lag was making its presence known, and we had a big day planned for the morrow.

While waiting at the computer, and feeling a little nostalgic for Basel, I found this, which I post for those who wish to see a bit of where they will be in a few months.  Be sure to show Jonathan the Hammering Man.  If I don't look at the feet I can imagine the runner is Janet.  :)

Last Saturday we returned to the Van Fleet Trail and rode the second third, from the Bay Lake Trailhead to the Green Pond Road Trailhead, another round trip of about 20 miles.

As we were riding on the straight, flat, paved trail in the middle of nowhere, no motor vehicles to worry about and almost no other bicyclists, I laughed a little at our habit of wearing bike helmets.  When we began the practice, wearing a helmet was awkward and several times we forgot to put them on; now it's nearly as automatic as buckling our seatbelts in the car.  But a trail like this is safer than just pedaling down our very safe, isolated, residential street.

Or so we thought.

Along the way we met another couple of very fit and active bicyclists about our age.   The wife was building herself back up after a very bad accident on that very trail.  She was tooling along at about 18 miles per hour when suddenly a raccoon charged out of the grass and banged headlong into her front wheel.  What happened to the raccoon after he sped off across the trail they never learned, but she crashed full force into the pavement, splitting her helmet wide open.  She regained consciousness after about five minutes and the ambulance came about half an hour later.  (It shouldn't have taken so long, but they had trouble finding a 911 operator who had any idea where the Van Fleet Trail was.  Pretty odd, considering Google finds it immediately.)  She's doing fine now, but was in the hospital for three days.  From the state of her helmet, I imagine the outcome would have been quite different had her head hit the pavement unprotected.

One interesting wildlife note:  On the return trip we saw nearly two dozen tortoises, including a few big ol' granddaddies.  Going in the other direction we had seen not a one.

We ventured further last weekend, driving to Clermont and the General James. A. Van Fleet State Trail.  Porter was all for doing the whole 30 miles from one end to the other, but I voted for going in stages.  This time we biked about a third of the way, 19+ miles, from the Mabel Trailhead to the Bay Lake Trailhead and back.

The Van Fleet Trail is straight and flat, and apparently popular with those who want to race and time their biking, so it is well marked in miles and tenths, much more reliably than any other trail we've been on.  Thus I was able to check the calibration of my odometer, and was pleased that it appears to be off by less than half a percent.

This is one of Florida's most rural trails, and thus a pleasant ride.  We were not there at the best time of day to see wildlife, but the sights did get better after the dead rat in the parking lot.  A rabbit bounded across the trail in front of us, we saw a few tortoises, and heard innumerable birds.

We were exhausted after our return from Switzerland, and our trip was a lot shorter and easier than Janet's will be, so I'm sure she'll appreciate your prayers.  She has four flights, ground transportation between two airports in New York, long wait times, and about 24 hours of travel—if all goes well—to look forward to.  Good thing she's younger than we are.  :)

It sure will be good to see her!

Yesterday we thought we'd do a few short stretches of trail to cover the northernmost portions of the Cross-Seminole Trail and the Seminole Wekiva Trail.  We thought it would be shorter than it turned out to be, and before we were done I was regretting not having been more generous with the sunblock, but we managed to avoid sunburn anyway, despite the unshaded nature of much of our ride.

We parked at St. Peter's Church, which is located adjacent to the trail and provides a convenient rest area with tables, bike parking, and potable water for weary travellers (a generous interpretation of Matthew 10:42).  We headed north briefly, soon coming to the end of the line and turning around through a cemetery.

Then straight south for a while, crossing Lake Mary Blvd. on the new overpass, and taking the tunnel under Greenwood Blvd.  This trail will eventually connect to the section of the Cross Seminole Trail we traversed two weeks ago, but for now ends abruptly at Green Way Blvd.

We reversed course back to St. Peter's, from which we crossd over I-4 on the pedestrian bridge that connects to the Seminole Wekiva Trail.  We've done the route south of the overpass many times, but our goal today was to get to the northern end, which actually involves going more west than north.  After reaching the Markham Trailhead, we turned back and took a detour to Sylvan Lake Park, where we walked to the fishing pier and saw a bird that may have been an eagle—or maybe an osprey.

Porter is ever adventurous, and I follow.  Accordingly, we veered off the trail on onto Markham Woods Road, thence to Lake Mary Blvd., intersecting the trail again at Panera Bread.  Perhaps Porter was less adventurous than hungry.  We enjoyed a chicken tomesto sandwich from Panera accompanied by a Vinnie del Rocco from the nearby Planet Smoothie, then somewhat stiffly remounted our steeds and returned over the bridge to St. Peter's.

The total trip was 22.4 miles by my bike odometer.  Thanks to Gmaps Pedometer, you can follow our path.  Zooming in and out, and turning the mile markers on and off will make it clearer.  This was my first time playing with Gmaps Pedometer, and I'm quite impressed by the accuracy of the mileage measurements, given the inaccuracies inherent in the data entry procedure.

Tropical Storm Barry brought us a night's worth of good, soaking rain, our first significant rain in many months and much needed.  The forecast was for rain all Saturday, too, but the radar looked reasonably clear in the morning so we paid another visit to Leu Gardens.

The effect of just one night's rain was amazing.  Already the plants had lifted their hearts to heaven, puttin out new growth and blossoms.  Except for a wedding party, I think most people were kept away by the forecast, because we had our own private garden for most of the time.

Later, despite a still-iffy forecast and a high wind and tornado watch, we biked the last leg of the West Orange Trail, from the Bo An Buddhist Center to Apopka and across the new bridge over Route 441.  We didn't have high expectations of a trail that goes through some of the more run-down parts of Apopka, but there was very little city biking and much of the trail was shaded by an oak canopy.  The sky was overcast and kept threatening to break into storm (courtesy of Tropical Storm Barry), but we stayed dry and enjoyed the relative coolness.  The headwind on the way back was sometimes hard to fight, however!

The trip was just over 13 miles and easy going in most places, but I was really glad to note that my problems from last week must have been un-recovered muscles rather than sand in the bicycle works, as I felt fine and had no trouble at all keeping up a good pace.  Muscles heal themselves, given time and good treatment, but bikes rarely do.

Before I write about today's bike ride, I have to clear the backlog and tell you about last weekend's.

The Cross Seminole Trail is not yet complete, and voters defeated the minuscule property tax increase that would have paid to purchase environmentally sensitive lands and built recreational trails, so we're not waiting for its completion to do what we can.

We parked at the Black Hammock Trailhead near 417 in Winter Springs, and headed east towards Oviedo.  The map shows the completed trail ending in the center of town, but the trail maps are often out of date and we were hoping more had been finished.  In that we were disappointed, as the trail ended without so much as a "Trail's End" sign.  After casting about for a continuation, we turned back, passed our starting point, and took the trail westward.

The trail has a couple of incomplete places in that direction, but thanks to our recent off-road adventure, we were not intimidated but plowed right through them.  Note that this was a mere week after we had unanimously determined to stick to paved bike paths....  But at least these were relatively short interludes with most of the trail paved.

The trail ends at Layer Elementary School (I thought I knew all the elementary schools in Seminole County; this must be new).  Before reaching the end, however, we passed through Central Winds Park and took time to park our bikes and enjoy the nature trail.  I can't pass a playground these days without thinking how much the grandkids woud enjoy it.

It was another good 18-mile ride, even though I discovered that either my body or my bike had not yet fully recovered from the previous week's exhaustion.  Riding, even on the flat, was a lot harder than it had been.  Maybe there's sand in the works....

I think I would have been fine if I'd just gone home and rested.  But there was a lot to do to prepare for having Memorial Day guests.  The worst was a long shopping trip that turned out to be a bit longer than planned.  After buying some plants at Home Depot, I decided to take them home before going to the grocery store, so they wouldn't bake in the hot car for so long.  (If it's not safe for kids and pets, it can't be good for plants, either.)

Click.

Click.

Yes, the car is in park.

Click, click, click. 

We just got a new battery in December!

Click.

Call Porter.

Oops.  He's outside pressure-washing the pool area and can't hear the phone.  Call his cell phone.  Intelligent man that he is, he doesn't wear his phone when near the pool and spraying high-velocity water around.  Call a neighbor, hoping she will yell over the fence and get his attention.  Not surprising, she's not home on a Saturday afternoon.

I could call AAA, but they usually take forever to arrive.  I'm only about a half hour's walk from home, so that's what I do.  It's a nice walk.

Porter sets aside the pressure washer long enough to come with me to Home Depot.  Yes, we have jumper cables.  Yes, we know how to use them.  Yes, our other car has its battery so deeply buried in the engine you can't attach jumper cables to it!

We go home, taking the suffering little plants with us.  Our neighbors have returned!  He has a truck wtih an accessible battery.  We all head back to Home Depot and the car jumps easily.

Drive to Batteries Plus, where they replace the battery for free, since they were the ones who sold it to us just five months ago.

Then, at last, I'm on my way to the part of the shopping.  Did I mention that I find shopping nearly as exhausting as off-road biking?  :)

Two weeks ago, after our exhausting off-road biking adventure, we paid a visit to Fort Christmas.  We went there several times when the girls were young, on our own and for Indian Princess outings.  But that was a long time ago.  The girls have grown a lot since then, and so has the fort.

They now have a large collection of old Florida houses, and we enjoyed a trip back in time as we wandered from one to another.  Bear in mind that Florida is a young state, even if it does have our country's oldest city.  Sometimes it seems more like the Wild West than the East Coast.

Here's a somewhat random assortment of pictures.  I love my digital camera.  (Thanks, Janet!)

The fort as we remembered it

Even the 50's count as historical here.  This house is only slightly smaller and actually has one more bedroom than the house where I spent the first nine years of my life.  I didn't think it small then!

 

Florida's equivalent of tapping maple trees for syrup.

 

Smokehouse from 1900.  Smoked meat hanging from the roof.  Did you ever wonder where smokescreens come from?

These pictures from the 1900 house are for my friend who works in a living history museum and has her own spinning wheel.

 

And this one from the 1915 house is for my other friend who is a master quilter—just in case she ever reads my blog....

From the 1870's—mosquito netting a must-have

From the 1927 house.  My mother grew up about 60 miles from here.  Even though her family kept a hotel, not a farm, I couldn't help thinking of her when we toured this one.

  

When you think cowboys and cattle drives, do you think Wild West?  Florida was the land of the open range until 1949.

  

If you look closely at this fur animal license from the 1930's, you'll learn a few things.  That the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission, which runs the camp Heather attended when she was nine, has been around a long time.  That nutrition probably wasn't the best for these pioneers and their children.  That this 33-year-old example of these tough, hard-working farmers, ranchers, and cowboys was only 4' 10" tall and weighted 85 pounds!

This ranch house came from what is now the Tosohatchee State Reserve, where we were biking earlier in the day.

  

Hey, wait a minute!  I grew up with that sink!

Porter put the bikes on the back of the car again this morning, and we headed off to the Tosohatchee State Reserve near Christmas.  That's Christmas, Florida—we're still much nearer Memorial Day than Christmas.

We knew this would be a different kind of ride.  We knew it would be on unpaved trails through a wilderness area, and we thought we were prepared.  We had sunscreen and bug repellent, emergency bike kit (tube, CO₂ cartridge for inflating same, patches, wrench, and those little thingies for helping you put the tire back on the rim), water to drink, and cell phones.  Knowing we'd be in a game preserve, we also had a monocular and a camera.  We had a change of clothes and a picnic lunch waiting in the car for our return.

"Unpaved trails."  I was expecting something like the crushed-shell-and-sand trail at our local park.  Silly me.

Everything went pretty much according to expectations at first.  They do have an interesting honor system for the park entrance fee:  You put your money in an envelope, slip it through a slot, and don't forget to sign in so we know where to look if you get lost.  We drove a little along a very washboard-y road, and parked the car.  (Florida sand roads develop a series of "washboard" ridges that can shake loose anything not firmly attached:  exhaust pipes, dental fillings, whatever.)

It was after we parked that things began to go not quite as planned.  The trail was wide and inviting, but certainly not crushed-shell-and-sand.  This was more like riding over a not-too-well-maintained lawn.

Make that not maintained at all.  Both of us have all-purpose (cheap) bikes, so they were built to take the abuse.  My body may have originally been built to take it, too—but it hasn't been all that well maintained recently itself.  Although the trail was flat, it required the work of a signficant uphill grade, with no hope of a corresponding downhill.  The really fun parts were where we had to put on a good burst of speed to build up enough momentum to get us through the soggy, wet parts.  You don't want to come to a dead stop in the middle of a boggy place.

Little did I know that this was the good part of the trail.

This trail map gives you a rough idea of our route.  I say "rough" for two reasons:  (1) the map itself is not completely accurate, and (2) because of reason 1 I'm not exactly sure where we were some of the time.  Location A is where we parked. (Just a reminder—the pictures are preview links; click on them for the full view.)

The trails are not well marked.  That is an understatement.  As you can see, we veered off the trail and found ourselves on the other side of the park boundary. Too bad we couldn't stay there, because the going was significantly easier on that side.  But we knew we had to get back into the park, because we could now see the trail, just on the other side of the...barbed wire fence.  Porter wasn't going to let a little thing like that stop him.  He climbed over the fence, then took the bikes as I passed them to him.  I was not at all sure about climbing the fence, so he held two of the wires apart while I squeezed through.

There!  We were back where we should have been.  But doing what's right is not always the easier path....

The grassy trail had deteriorated into a humpy, clumpy much-torn-up (by deer, possibly, judging from the hoofprints) ordeal.  At some point, Porter intellgently and kindly suggested we swap bikes.  His is enough easier to ride to make it worth putting up with the fact that I can barely sit on the seat and reach the pedals.  I was having to ride standing up much of the time, anyway.  When I wasn't walking.  Yes, sometimes I gave up and got off the bike.  Walking allowed me to catch my breath and make progress at the same time.

In choir we've been rehearsing a song that includes the words, "I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me."  It's a lively, repetitive song that's a lot of fun to sing (think gospel meets barbershop quartet), which means it's the kind that gets stuck in your head and won't go away.  This one asserted itself about 4 a.m. and didn't stop until we were on our way home.  At first it drove me nuts, but soon it became a prayer....

We began to doubt again:  Were we on the right trail?  Or was this just a firebreak along the boundary line?  Surely the real trail couldn't be this bad.  I wish I had pictures to show you, but I was incapable at that point of thinking about my camera, and anyway no picture could do it justice.  No doubt for a mountain biker this would have been a walk in the park.  No, wait.  For me it was a walk.  A mountain biker would have ridden straight through.  Anyway, we later concluded we were probably on the right trail, because we saw several others that were equally bad.

After the longest four and a half miles (give or take a bit) of my life, during which we thought we were mostly on the right trail but still had our doubts, Porter found a path that connected with a road.  (Approximately location B on the map.)  I was totally exhausted but this brought me back to life.  Here was crushed-shell-and-sand!  Here I could ride!  Suddenly I felt great!  Porter asked if I'd rather take the road back to where we had parked, instead of continuing on our planned route, but the road had inspired me and I was ready to go on, as long as we stuck to the road.  The road and the trail were one for most of the remaining trip, anyway.  We switched back to our own bikes and were on our way again.

Deceptive road!  After about two minutes of delightful riding—still quite a bit harder than paved road, but worlds better than the trail—it became all sand again. The weather has been very dry, and the road is not well travelled.  This translates to loose sand.  My cousin was a lifeguard at Daytona Beach, and he used to train for his job by running on the beach—because running in loose sand is very hard work.  So is biking in loose sand.  Not only does it require a lot of power, but if you don't keep your front wheel completely straight, you immediately go into a screeching-halt skid.

I still didn't want to turn back.  We again traded bicycles.  Sometimes the road was better, especially in the middle where a few springs of grass had grown up.  Sometimes it was awful.  Sometimes I rode—ganbarimasu!—and sometimes I walked.  Porter managed to keep riding, stopping periodically to allow me to catch up.  Here is the resting point where I finally remembered that I had a camera.  (Location D on the map.)

One of the great things about riding in a game preserve is all the wildlife you can see.  And we did, if you count grasshoppers and butterflies.  Riding took so much concentration it was not possible to look around, so all I saw was what happened to be between me and the road.  Despite the park rules that say that all wildlife is protected, Porter did make up his own real-life video game by trying to run over the grasshoppers.  There were so many he was often successful.  When I was growing up I thought grasshoppers were cute.  Now that I've seen the devastation wrought by our giant Florida varieties, I feel differently.  I did manage to see a vulture, and Porter flushed a wild turkey, but other than that all our wildlife was insectival.

It was a long haul, but we finally made it to Long Bluff road (see map).  There the way really did get easier, as the road was more travelled.  There were still bad spots, but they were fewer, and every once in a while we got up to the dizzying speed of eight miles per hour!  Though it might have been exhaustion that made me dizzy.  :)  At some point Porter also took my backpack.  Neither his pack nor mine were at all heavy, but at that point I was taking all the help I could get.  This road would have been much less of a challenge had I not been so worn out by the first part of the trail.

I'm accustomed to having one bottle of water be sufficient or more so when we go riding.  This time we were at the halfway point on the trail when I realized I was much more than halfway through my water.  Comes from breathing so much with my mouth open (i.e. panting), I guess.  Most of the trails we've travelled have water sources along the way, but not, of course, this one.  So we both decided to be a little more conservative in our drinking.  At some point it was going well enough that we switched bikes once more.  I missed my more padded seat, and the extra seat-to-pedal distance on Porter's bike, combined with the bouncy road, was more than a bit uncomfortable for the, um, more delicate parts of my body.

Finally, we reached the "Praise the Lord!" point:  Power Line Road.  (Location C on the map.)  I could see that it was a much better path, and so did not mind taking a short detour (about six tenths of a mile round trip) to see the St. John's River.  This is where we met up with the first people (fishermen) we'd seen since the beginning, except for one truck that had passed us on the road.  We saw a few more cars before getting back to ours, but no one else on bike or foot.

Muddy, battered, but unbowed

Power Line Road stretched long between us and our car, but we were able to make a steady 7-8 mph most of the time, and the riding was easy enough we could look around and actually see some wildlife.  Birds, actually.  White herons and Great Blues and lots of smaller birds.  We heard a couple of alligator-shaped splashes nearby, but didn't see what made them and didn't feel like investigating.  Alligators can run faster than I could pedal at that point.

Scofflaws that we are, we enjoyed breaking the speed limit by bicycle, crossing two wooden bridges a good two or three miles per hour over the posted 5 mph limit.  We were significantly under the 30 ton weight limit, however.

There was one more bad stretch in the final mile, and I had to walk a bit more, having totally lost my momentum having to pull off the road to let a car pass.  But I finished the trip by bike, joyfully greeting Porter who had already opened the car and pulled out a cold drink.  We ate some grape tomatoes, but otherwise were in no mood for our picnic lunch—we just drank and drank.

It actually was a great trip.  A wonderful feeling of accomplishment.  We're both very glad we did it—though neither of us feels any need to do it again.

On the way home we had another great adventure, but that will have to wait for another post.

This post is going to be about our Sunday bike ride, but I have to admit that coffee hour is also a favorite after-church activity, especially on the Sundays when our friend K. is in charge of the food, for she always brings (among other goodies) her famous sausage rolls and infamous monkey bread.  Everyone knows to get over to the parish hall pronto after the service when it's K.'s Sunday, because those items disappear fast.  Not exactly a healthy breakfast, but a wonderful Sunday treat.

And we followed it by a 21-mile, two-hour calorie burning spree. 

We drove to the western end of the West Orange Trail, and biked the South Lake Trail and the Lake Minneola Scenic Trail, along with an unnamed (as far as we could tell) side trail.  I just love the Rails-to-Trails program.  Not all parts of these trails are built on old rail beds, but most are, and it's clear we would not have this wonderful resource if they had been sold off.  One of our favorite trails ends abruptly because we have have Home Depot, Wal-Mart, and other stores sitting where the trains used to run.  It's not impossible to make room for the trail to continue around them, but it's more difficult and expensive.  Anyway, I'm grateful to the foresighted people who made these bike trails possible.

As great as I felt this morning, my body soon informed me that it had not fully recovered from yesterday's 14-mile journey.  I was fine on the level, but today's trails had a lot of hills—for Florida, anyway—and that's where my legs complained.  I normally ride without making use of my gears, but this trip taught me the value of downshifting.  :)

What goes up must come down, and I set a new speed record for this bike (or at least for this speedometer):  27.4 mph.  Funny how that's barely creeping in a car, but felt gloriously, even dangerously fast this way.

The Clermont trail just ends, but some day I imagine it will connect to the General James A. Van Fleet State Trail, nearly thirty miles of rurual, even isolated riding.  It will be a while before we are ready for that one, but it's something to look forward to.