Myrna CG Mibus - Idyllwild

Two weeks ago I was hiking up a mountain in Montana. Tomorrow I am heading out on another grand adventure - I'm biking to Canada from North Branch, Minnesota (north of Minneapolis/St. Paul) in three days. I'll post more about that later. For now, a bit about my grand Montana adventure. Our church, Bethel Lutheran Church in Northfield, sends a group of rising 10th graders on a hiking trip through Christikon Camp in Montana each year. My daughter, Rose, went on this trip when she was a 10th grader. I had wanted to go along as a chaperone back then but couldn't make it happen at that time. Last year when my Dad was so sick and Owen headed off on the Tour Divide bike ride and it felt like everything in my world was falling apart I told Owen "Ok, you get to do the Tour and get away from it all for awhile. Next summer, I'm going on the Christikon trip with Ryan." I told our youth director, Barb, that I wanted to go on the trip, too. I think she took pity on me ...

This time last year I was gearing up for my first ever century ride . I was feeling pretty fit and had done a ton of biking throughout the season including the super awesome and challenging Box of Frogs ride and a bikepacking adventure . This year I got off to a great start with some winter riding and another round of 30 Days of Biking in April. I was working on a milage challenge and had several organized rides on my calendar. Then my Dad, who had already been dealing with issues from Parkinson's and Lewy Body Dementia, took a bad turn and life changed in more ways than I could have ever imagined. Even before Dad passed away in early July, I realized that bike riding would not be a priority and that I needed to focus on my family instead. So, save for a few rides and a three session mountain biking class in late July/early August, I really didn't ride bike all summer long. Well, life is setting down somewhat and I'm happy to say I've managed to get out on my bike ...

Well we are safe and sound in Siren, Wisconsin and have finished day 1 of our bike packing adventure.  We took off from Shell Lake just before 4 p.m. and headed west on county road B for Siren. At mile 3.5 Owen got stung by a bee or something so we stopped to check him out. Owen reacts terribly to mosquito bites so I was quite worried he'd swell up and have an allergic reaction. But he didn't, thank goodness. We biked on.  We had about a 15 mph headwind all the way to Siren. That was a bummer but we managed. The ride went well. The scenery was beautiful.  After 2 1/2 hours (27.8 miles) of biking we rolled into Siren. We're staying at a little motel, the Pinewood Motel, and we're having dinner right now at the Pour House.  My foot is a little sore. Other than that, I'm feeling strong.  Planning on 70 miles (Owen says it's all downhill) tomorrow. 

Tomorrow Owen and I take off on our bike packing adventure. We are mostly packed but will finish up in the morning. We have some time as we are not due to drop our son off at camp until 1:30 p.m. at the earliest. It's likely we'll leave our home for Shell Lake, Wisconsin around 10 a.m. and be biking by mid-afternoon. At present, our plan is to bike 30 miles to Siren on Sunday afternoon and overnight there. We talked about biking to Danbury, another 10 miles further north, but I could not find a non-smoking hotel room open (at a reasonable price) at the local casino hotels. It's not that we are really picky about non-smoking vs. smoking rooms but that combined with the fact that we have just a few hours to get anywhere on Sunday made us decide we'd bike a shorter distance on our first day. Seems less stressful. On Monday we plan to bike about 70 miles all the way to Superior. We'd make it a shorter day except that hotels appear to be scarce along the Gandy Dancer...

Both kids will be at camps next week so Owen and I have a whole week to ourselves. Instead of going on a relaxing vacation, however, we are going to load up our bikes and go on a bikepacking trip! We don't have a tent, sleeping bags or equipment to make food along the way so we are going to stay at hotels along our route. This sort of bike touring is commonly called "credit card travel" - as in you use your credit card to pay for accommodation and food along the way. That said, we will be packing clothes and other things so will get a taste for what it's like to carry things on our bikes. Our plan is to drop Ryan off at camp on Sunday in Shell Lake, Wisconsin. We'll leave our van at his camp and bike northwest to Siren where we'll pick up the Gandy Dancer bike trail that goes north along the Minnesota/Wisconsin border. We'll bike that to Superior then take another bike trail from Superior back down to Shell Lake. I figure we'll bike about 200 miles...

This post was also published on my Writing Space blog as X-Ray Follow up . I figured I should write a quick post to follow up on my  X is for X-Ray post  to let you all know what’s going on with my heel pain. I went to the podiatrist and have the official diagnosis of Plantar Fasciitis and Peroneal Tendon Injury in my left foot. The bone spur I have in my left heel has likely been growing for several years but probably isn’t contributing much to my heel pain. That said, I’ve been stretching that foot a lot and may have been irritating the tissue around the spur which would contribute to the pain. It’s likely that the root of the pain came from clipping in and out of my bike pedals so I have loosened the tension on my pedals a lot so that clipping in/out is much easier to do. Other than that, I’ve had a tendency to carry my left shoulder higher than my right. I’m not doing that so much now but that might have also caused me to be off balance and put undue pressu...

I've been off the bike for a few weeks (largely due to being pretty down and out with a cold for three weeks) but got out my Salsa Vaya this morning and headed out for a short ride on both gravel and tar roads near my home. It was a lovely day. The fall colors are a little past peak around my home but still quite lovely. I stopped several times on my ride to take pictures of the pretty trees. I did this because I wanted to capture all of the beauty of nature - and because I am pretty out of shape and figured that taking pictures was a good cover for the fact that I actually felt the need to stop a few times and rest. I'm glad I'm feeling well enough to be back out on my bike and am looking forward to getting out some more in the days to come. Get out and enjoy the beauty of the fall season!

We got a couple of inches of snow in the night. And while I'm certainly not ready for snow with things like coats and gloves and snow boots for the kids, I managed to forget how unprepared I am for the season when I saw the sun shining on the snow this morning. Sunshine on fresh snow makes for an absolutely beautiful morning! And, even though I had to get going and start my work day, the beautiful snowy morning kept begging me to grab my fatbike, Bear, and go for a ride. So I did. It was a short ride, less than a mile. And I was quickly reminded of how much work it is to pedal through fresh snow. I feel totally out of shape and I'm tired now (and running behind schedule). But, boy, it sure was worth it to get out and make the first fatbike snow tracks of the season.

I went out and bought a gravel bike a week and a half ago - a really cool Salsa Vaya 2 - and now I have it in my head that I can do a 50 or even a 100 mile gravel race/ride. Seems reasonable, I tell myself. All I have to do is get out and ride gravel, tackle lots and lots of gravel hills and build up my endurance and milage bit by bit. Zippy So today I planned to go on a gravel ride of some length, maybe 10 miles. Turned out that lawn mowing,  helping my 11 year old son drive the lawn tractor, gardening, and sending my almost 14 year old daughter off on a week-long youth mission trip filled up most of my day. By 8:30 I realized it was a short ride or no ride so I decided to go. I didn't even change out of my gardening clothes. I just put on my helmet, gloves and bicycling shoes, grabbed a water bottle and headed out on Zippy (that's my Vaya's name) for a short spin. I thought I would just go down the flattish gravel by my house and call it a day but I decided I w...

Way back in January I set a biking milage goal for the year - 1,407 miles. Why the odd number? Well, my friend from high school, Kate, wanted to keep bicycling this year so decided to set a goal for herself to bike enough miles to equal riding from her current home town of Poulsbo, Washington to our childhood home town of Richfield, Minnesota. I saw her post her goal on Facebook and made a comment. Kate encouraged me to do the same challenge - except I would "bike" from Richfield to Poulsbo so we could virtually meet somewhere about half way. Well the year has gotten off to a slow start for me. I rode my fat bike through the winter but fat bike miles are slow to add up, especially fat bike miles on the icy snow! I got in a good number of miles during April for 30 Days of Biking . And then it snowed. And rained. And rained. And rained. And I really didn't get out on my bike much. So here I am almost to mid-June with only 241 miles logged and am virtually just over th...