I’m trying to get out on my bicycle at least a little every weekend, even when I don’t have a great deal of time. Today’s ride wasn’t all that long, but I got to see some barn swallow babies at a shelter house.
Hungry, hungry hatchlings:
No rest for new parents!
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After a brutal, snowy winter followed by an exceptionally wet spring, Freida and I are hitting the trails again. I was able to add a new experience to my new experiences list today thanks to the city adding a new section of trail into the network.
The Perche Creek Trail branches off from the MKT and eventually will extend to allow easy travel.
Oh, look! One of my favorite things–a bridge!
Scan the QR code to learn more. Phase 2 is scheduled to be complete in 2027.
But for now, if you don’t want to lift your bicycle over a guardrail and continue on the road (which I know people have and do), it’s kind of a dead end.
But it’s a pleasant ride, and I got to see a blue heron.
I hope to get out for a ride at least once a week and build my stamina back up. Today’s ride was 13-14 miles or so roundtrip. Not too bad. Here’s to more pedaling adventures!
There are a couple of quick and easy routes from my house to the trail where I often ride my bike. Getting back home, however, requires an arduous climb coming back off the trail, either way I go. One is a shorter distance, but a steeper slope. That’s the one I took coming home today.
It’s only a block, but more vertical than I would choose. I have never yet had to get off and push the bike, but I do shift down into the very lowest gear. The saving grace to this stretch is that there’s usually little traffic, making it easy to ride in a switchback pattern. Today, however, people were getting in my way with their cars. I was forced to grind it out straight up the hill.
75% of the way, I questioned whether I would actually make it to the top, but I focused on each pedal stroke. One more and then one more and then one more. I made it! Not only that, but when I looked at my gear shifts, I discovered they weren’t on the very lowest setting. I had put them into the second lowest setting.
Whoa! I’m stronger than I thought!
I’m going to hold onto this thought as a truth. I’m stronger than I realize, and I’m accomplishing more than I give myself credit for. Even when stuff is hard, I can hang on.
You know what else is hanging on? These trees.
Their roots are all exposed on one side where the ground is eroded and slants down to the trail. But they still seem firmly anchored, holding on strongly on the other side. Hang in there, trees! You’re doing great!
I found them along the Hinkson Creek Trail, a different ride than Freida and I usually take. We had a nice, peaceful time of it, encountering few other humans today.
Stopping to rest in and take in the ambiance of nature.
Hang in there everyone. You’re strong than you think and accomplishing more than you give yourself credit for.
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This week is feeling particularly alternative universe to me, of the dystopian variety in many ways. How could we have time looped back four years and be reliving the nightmare?
On top of that, I received a text alert this morning as I was leaving my house for work telling me not to show up because there was a fire at the building. WHAT? Fortunately, it was small and quickly extinguished. Unfortunately, it was in one of the air handlers of our HVAC system, so that distributed the smoke pretty well throughout the structure, requiring some mitigation.
Bright side – it was a gorgeous fall day with temperatures in the upper 50s. My favorite weather. Might as well take advantage of the surprise day off to get Freida out of the shed and hit the trail, away from news and worries and automotive traffic…
Okay, trucks on the trail today. I understand it’s for good reason, just unusual.
Still had a pretty good ride and enjoyed the views.
Things seemed comfortingly normal and natural until I checked for the temperature on my phone screen and saw some news headlines:
Uh, yeah, we’ve slipped into an alternate universe.
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Today I told my husband I was going on a short bike ride and then didn’t come back for three hours. I didn’t know how much activity I could manage because I woke up with allergy symptoms and a headache. But thanks to OTC medicines and suddenly mild weather, I felt pretty good after I’d been pedaling a short while.
I felt so good, I kept going and made a half day of it, stopping occasionally for water/snack/photo breaks. In fact, I set a new personal record for miles ridden in one day with a 24-mile round trip.
Freida and I made a friend along the way.
Curious five-lined skink gets to know Freida
In my quest to have new experiences, I explored a part of the Katy Trail I’d never been down before. It was a lovely, mostly level, mostly shady stretch.
One highlight was when I saw a couple of eagles flying circles in the sky. But I only had my phone camera and couldn’t capture an image.
For many years, I never had the time for this kind of excursion, certainly not to be made on the spur of the moment. I try not to take it for granted.
Happy trails!
I finally did it.
I achieved my bicycling goal of making it all the way to the nearly 400-year-old bur oak, the one my husband visits every weekend. That’s about a 22-mile round trip. I’ve been working on building my cycling stamina, riding a little farther each outing. Today, I just kept going until I was there. The hubs was kind enough to slow his pace so I could keep up. Then I left for home earlier than he did.
I will admit the last three to four miles of the return trip were a struggle. I imagined myself the subject of one of those old times folk ballads about a person on an arduous journey who makes it through all sorts of hazards, only to drop dead within sight of their destination. But instead, I’m here at my keyboard, writing my own story.
A couple more photos:
Happy trails!
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We are in a two-day lull between brutal heat waves, so I seized the day and took a little bike ride this morning. I made a brief stop near a creek to drink some water (from my water bottle, not the creek) and heard an unmistakable sound, the first one in this video.
I’m not well acquainted with many birdcalls, but I do recognize a chickadee when I hear one. Has a more adorable looking bird ever existed? When I was pregnant with my second child, I started calling my baby Chickadee as a placeholder name until he was born. I don’t remember the reason I latched onto this particular nickname, but my fondness for the little critters remains.
I looked up when I heard the call. Aha!
I choose to believe it was calling out “Happy Juneteenth” in its own way.
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Despite seasonal allergies, a slightly sore back, and the need to report to work this afternoon, I got out on my bike for a short ride this morning. I ended up at a wetlands area I frequent because there’s a nice shelter house, yet it’s at a spur off the main trail, so few people seem to stop there.
Thanks to a recent Facebook post from a friend, I realized this morning that there’s an abundance of poison hemlock growing there, and not harmless Queen Anne’s lace as I had always thought. I used the Seek app to verify the species. Since I don’t aspire to die like Socrates, I’m glad I never touched any back when I was misidentifying it!
One clear way to tell the difference between the two plants is the stem. Poison hemlock has smooth stems with purple spots. Queen Anne’s lace has hairy stems with no purple. I found a helpful article that provides more information.
Now you know. If you see this plant, make like anyone who is not Socrates and avoid it.
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Unseasonably warm is becoming more the norm. It was 72 degrees F here today on Christmas Eve. Nothing for it but to hop on a bicycle. My husband, son-in-residence and I rode together far enough out of town that we had to dodge cow patties on the trail.
It was one of my longer journeys with Freida at nearly 13 miles round trip. After being sidelined for medical reasons earlier in the year, I’m doing everything I can to stay healthy in the hopes she and will be able to keep increasing our range.
Happy holidays!
“
It took a while, but I got back in the saddle this morning for the first time since my surgery in late August. Just a short jaunt with Freida to get my legs used to it again. I’ve been walking a lot, but not pedaling. Despite the need to rebuild my leg stamina, Freida and I enjoyed the perfect high fifties temperatures as we went to one of my favorite shelter houses overlooking a wetlands area.
If problem number one was my legs being out of shape, here was problem number two. We had a massive rainfall the night before last. Most of the trail was fine, but this part passing through a tunnel required me to get off and walk Freida through. No biggie. Our city Parks and Rec department usually clears up things like this pretty quickly and I’m sure it will be back in shape within a couple of days.
When I took those photos, I thought I was documenting the biggest problem I would encounter. But here’s an environmental one, though I didn’t realize it as I was snapping the picture.
After I got home, I was able to identify the plant in the foreground as common teasel, discovering it’s an invasive species in Missouri. Much bigger problem than rocks on the trail.
There was still a lot to enjoy in the view and I’m glad I made the effort. Look at that sky!
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Nomadic Noesis 