Myrna CG Mibus - Idyllwild

Boy, it's been a crazy week around here. Last Wednesday I went for a bike ride on the Sakatah trail. While on the ride it started to rain. Pour, actually. It poured rain pretty much non-stop for the next 24 hours and the river in our town of Northfield, Minnesota, flooded. Big time. To top it off, I got hit with some kind of a cold that had me in bed most of Thursday and Friday. So it was raining, the river was rising, and the city needed people to help sandbag and I was sick in bed. It's a helpless feeling to be in bed sick when you want to be out sandbagging your town. I'm sure, though, that I didn't feel nearly as helpless as some of my friends who live in Northfield who watched the river rise and ruin their homes and businesses even as they sandbagged. Even as they moved things out of their offices and homes. A video of the flooding in Northfield (I hope this shows up) It's now a week since the rain started. The river is going down. Clean up crews are hard...

I have so much to write about, all sorts of stories to tell about some of my rides this past week - rides that included changing a bike tire, riding in the rain, forgetting to unclip my pedals and falling off my bike and into a ravine. But every time I sit down to write I get stuck. I don't get stuck very often. I don't like getting stuck. So, I'm taking all of my half finished blog posts and am saving them in a file marked "Blog." I hope I get back to them. I plan to. The writing will come together another day. But today is not the day. Today is the day, I guess, to read a book and go to bed. I have a cold. I am tired. Today is also the 22nd day of 30 Days of Biking . I rode my bike today, 10 miles this afternoon on the Sakatah Trail in Faribault. Half of those miles were in the pouring rain. I got soaked but still had a nice ride. Really. Well, sort of. It's been raining since my afternoon ride and was still raining heavily when Owen and the kid...

As of today everyone in my family has biked seven days in a row and are now almost a fourth of the way through 30 Days of Biking . So far the kids haven't complained once about riding their bikes. They seem to enjoy riding every day and I think they like being a part of something big. It may also help that we asked the kids if we should work towards some sort of family reward for biking every day for 30 days. For me, and I'm guessing for Owen, biking every day is reward enough but I figured some extra incentive might be nice for the kids. Ryan on his little mountain bike - he rode almost 18 miles on the Tour de Cream Rose came up with the idea to go to an indoor rock climbing place called Vertical Endeavors . I think this is a cool reward - indoor rock climbing is not something we've ever done as a family and it's unique enough to make it really special. I also think it's cool that Rose came up with an incentive that presents a challenge (rock climbing) and is al...