15 posts tagged “adventure”
Friday evening we were invited over to friend Rise's house to meet new grand daughter Allie Rose.
You can see from the photo everyone's very happy and excited about the new arrival. She's a precious little baby.
Saturday we headed for Madison WI and the farmer's market there.
The initial forecast was for dreadful heat, but surprise! It was a beautiful summer day. Warm and sunny with a light breeze.
Friends Mollie and Bill joined us and purchased jelly from the prized jelly man booth.
He's a great salesman, fun to talk to, and the products are great.
Just another reason the farmer's market is packed there.
We loaded up on all types of veggies. Cauliflower, carrots, beans, zucchini,mushrooms, leeks, and Tim snuck in a couple pies by the Amish bakery.
A trip to Madison's downtown means I have to stop at the popcorn shop Clary's. I may have broken most of my food addictions, but popcorn is still a weakness. I have it plain with light salt. That eases my guilty conscience.
Stopped on the way out to the winery to admire one of the lakes on such a beautiful day, and then a short car ride to the winery to enjoy some cheese, crackers and a bottle of wine in the open air. Ahhhh, how civilized.
(note in the photo on right-yes, it's the shirt! making a return appearance!)
Then home. The car full of weary middle aged midwesterners winds it's way across the prairie.
Today we ran a couple of errands, did laundry, some of the mundane, but important tasks that weekends usually bring.
I like my life, sort of average as it is. Work tomorrow, early as usual, but it beats being unemployed, and it pays for all these fun things we do.
Speaking of fun, we're getting cranked up about our next weekend folk fest. Stay tuned.
Ireland is indeed a beautiful country. Much of it still unspoiled by modern times. Which is good and bad for them, and I worry that with the upswing in their economy will lead to the damage of what makes this country so unique.
If the jet lag doesn't get you the weather changes will. In Ireland it's pretty much the same year round. Cloudy with good chance of showers every day. When the sun comes out it's absolutely gorgeous. You get a mix of weather everyday, so it's best to be prepared.
The area was purchased by a gentleman for his farm and home in the late 1600's and his last name was Temple. This area is just south of the Liffey River and the land is slightly elevated, which would have referred to as a barr of land. After several hundred years they dropped the extra r, and in the 1700's a pub was built here. Interesting part of town, very narrow streets, sort of touristy. Like New York which reclaimed Times Square, Dublin reclaimed this area which had fallen into an area of seedy reputation until the last 30 years.
Couldn't do everything we'd hoped to do. This is Dublin Castle. Still used for formal state events. Not a castle as what you might think of. The battlement on the left is from the 1200's or so. That part houses a police museum now. The tours were pretty much booked up for several hours when we got there, so we took some photos and moved on.
Caught a cab right outside the castle gates and headed over to the Guiness brewery. A tourism visit must see, but not so exciting if you don't care for Guiness. They have an impressive view of Dublin at the top of the building, and you get a complimentary pint.
As Tim mentioned in the previous blog we had our tour mascot, Walker, and his very nice mother Maura. (and yes, I did remember how to spell it, unlike Tim)
On to unpacking the bags. We were soooooo pooped when we got home last night we just dropped everything. Back to reality today. More blogs and tons more photos later.
Hello
just a note to let you know that we made it back to reality without too much damage. The flight took over 8 hours. We got up @ midnight, cst, and are just about to cash it in. I wanted to let you know that I downloaded the pics, all of them, to the imac, and will start the upload to flickr tomorrow. Fear not, the whole kit and kaboodle, will be up in a day or two. Also, in the next couple days, as time allows, Maggie will tell our tale of adventure.
As for mine, here is the readers digest version.
It was great. Met nice people, saw wonderful things, ate good food, did great adventures.
And, we had a mascot on our tour. His name is Walker.
We had a GREAT TIME. More to follow.
A hearty greeting to all of you from our tour that stop by, btw.
Time for a long summers nap.
Later. . .
HI
we're gonna go see Arlo Guthrie tonight @ the Coronado Theatre. Should be an interesting evening. 
Here is a man who performed @ the original Woodstock, not the reruns.
He's a good storyteller, and musician, with a humble demeanor.
Let you know how it was. . ..
HI
our friends Mollie and Bill are having an adventure out west. They are up through the badlands, and that 'a way.
Hi
here is the article from the Rockford Register Star, about our friend, John Dempsey, and the ride he made from Seattle Wa. to Rockford.
Bicyclist John Dempsey is sore in one place he’d rather not discuss, but he’s back in Rockford.
Dempsey, a Rockford firefighter, and longtime training partner Joe McDonough, who moved to Middleton, Wis., from Rockford four years ago, started out on the afternoon of Sept. 4 in Anacortes, Wash., with plans to ride their bicycles back to Rockford in about 19 days.
They decided to do it just because they thought they could.
After three weeks of spending six to nine hours a day riding, Dempsey pedaled through the rain and into the driveway of his eastside home shortly after 3 p.m. Tuesday. He was bearded and slightly sunburned with 2,430 additional miles on his bike.
“I can sit on anything other than a bicycle seat, and my hands are numb. The pinkie and ring fingers on both hands have been asleep for about 10 days,” Dempsey said Wednesday. “Other than that, I’m surprised at how good I feel. There’s no pain in my legs. I think I’m OK.”
Dempsey rode into Rockford alone because McDonough “declared victory in Fargo (N.D.) and retired undefeated.” He went home “because it was farther than either of us had ever ridden before.” Dempsey also said McDonough originally had planned only to ride to Minot, N.D., “but he told me he figured, if he got me to Fargo, I’d make the rest of it on my own.”
Dempsey said he hit no bad weather until after McDonough departed and said the hardest part of the trip was finding places to stay at the distances they wanted to ride.
“A lot of times, we’d have 110 miles in and we’d have another two hours of daylight to ride, but the next place that we could stay was 60 or 70 miles away, so we had to cut it short.”
The duo rode 28 miles on Sept. 4 so they could set themselves up for beginning to cross mountain passes the next day.
“Our first full day was absolutely brutal,” Dempsey said. “We climbed over two mountain passes, and that was 135 miles. The next day, we had two more passes to climb over, including Sherman Pass, which is the highest in Washington, and that was 112 miles.
“We wound up climbing six passes in the first five days of riding, and that took its toll.”
Temperatures on the ride ranged from the mid-20s to more than 90 degrees just a few days apart, riding up a mountain pass slowed them to about 8 mph, to be followed by descents of 40-plus mph for several miles, and they bucked 35-mph crosswinds.
“Every time a truck went by us, it was everything you could do just to hold your bike up straight,” he said.
Dempsey said the scenery also was a matter of extremes.
“Washington state is beautiful, and I would recommend to anyone that they go out there,” Dempsey said, “but, after Washington and West Glacier Park, there’s pretty much nothing to see. There’s nothing in Montana. There’s nothing in North Dakota. It’s days and days of nothing, no trees, no mountains, no cities.
“It’s desolate. Nothing really doesn’t describe it well enough.”
Despite his description, Dempsey said three towns stood out as nice places to visit — Stillwater, Minn.; Whitefish, Mont., and Sand Point, Idaho. “They’re fantastic river towns with a lot to do in shopping and restaurants and architecture.
“You get a feel within the first two blocks that you ride into a town for what it’s going to be like there,” he said. “I realize now that when people in Rockford complain about our city, they’ve never been anyplace else. This, by far, is the best place we have seen in almost 2,500 miles. I wouldn’t want to live anyplace else.”
Part of Dempsey’s motivation for taking the trip was to complete a ride across the country of sorts, because he had done a similar ride from the East Coast three years ago. He said this one ends the long-distance treks.
“I have nothing left to prove to myself,” he said. “I want to start having some fun and this, I can’t say, was very much fun.
“The one from the east was better because it’s so much more populated, so there are towns every 20 to 30 miles, so there are places to stop and see something. It was more interesting, because on this one, there were days of nothing out there and we tried to get from point to point.”
As if the long ride wasn’t enough, Dempsey had one final problem. He got his first flat tire of the ride about a half-mile outside of Rockton.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I got just eaten alive by mosquitoes trying to change a tire in the rain.”
An hour later, he wobbled off his bike, hugged Cristy, had a glass of champagne and accepted a yellow jersey his father, Pat, bought at local bike store.
He slept well Tuesday night.
Break open the champagne!
The time has come to award the yellow jersey.
Our hero has returned! Yes, it's true! John Dempsey is now home
with Cristy. As the story goes, John and Joe left the state of Washington
three weeks ago on September 4th. After twenty-two days of nothing
but tailwinds and downhill backroads from the Great Northwest to the
Great Midwest, our biker-hero, now the victor has returned safely home. (Of
course, we'll all hear John's detailed stories of torrential
rainstorms, violent headwinds, frigid cold, endless mountain climbs, numbing
hands, saddle sores, and lackluster low-nutrition food. And we will
love hearing every detail of our hero's journey, except the part about
the saddle sores.)
. . . And I think I do something when I ride 30 miles. . . Our hats are off to you Hero John !
Hi
we have a friend, yes, I know that's sometimes difficult to believe, and he is riding from Seatlle Wa home, starting today. Wow.
Here is a link to a story that the Rockford Register Star ran this morning. . .
Cyclists Journey, Because They Can . . .
http://www.rrstar.com/sports/x2136190474/index.html?printview=true
Here's the text too. . .
Cyclist journey because they can
Sep 04, 2007 @ 12:04 AM
By Mike DeDoncker
Sometime this afternoon, longtime riding partners John Dempsey and Joe McDonough are going to meet up at a bicycle shop in Anacortes, Wash., jump on their bikes and see how long it takes to ride back to Rockford.
No competition. No pressure of any kind, really. They’re just doing it because they’re pretty sure they can.
“It’s just something that kind of came up,” said McDonough, a Rockford native who moved to Middleton, Wis., four years ago. “Cycling is what we’ve done the most of, and I’ve always wanted to do something like this. This just happened to be when we could both get the time to go.”
Dempsey, a Rockford firefighter, said the two will begin their trip mere hours after arriving at Seattle’s Sea-Tac International Airport because their first full day of riding will include a 75-mile stretch through a pass in the Cascade Mountains from Marblemount to Mazama, Wash., where there are very few services.
“We want to get there in the morning and not have to worry about being in that stretch at night,” said Dempsey, adding that they want to average about 150 miles a day.
“I know that may be biting off a lot, but we’ll have nothing to do all except ride. There might be some 200-mile days. There might be some 100-mile days and, if there are, we’ll probably enjoy the break.”
Because they hope to make the approximately 2,400-mile trip in 19 days, unless they take a possible detour from Glacier National Park into Canada that would add an additional 200 miles, Dempsey said they will be traveling light.
“I did this type of ride from Rockford to the East Coast in a couple of stages about two or three years ago with some other friends,” Dempsey said, “so this kind of completes a trip across the country for me, but I’m sure Joe is going to want to talk me into doing that half again, but with him next time.”
McDonough put off any future long-distance plans, saying this is the longest ride he will have attempted.
“I’ve had some long days, but I’ve never strung essentially two-thirds of the country together into one day after another,” he said.
McDonough said he wants the chance to see the country from a different perspective, and enjoy spending time in states he has never visited, particularly Washington and Montana, and “to see how many days in a row you can get up and do the same thing and still stay in decent shape.”
Dempsey said he hasn’t done any special training for the trek because “you can ask anybody, I ride with everyone in town.
“I ride with a morning group, an evening group and a weekend group. I’m not one who logs miles or times on the bike, but I’ve probably done 6,000 miles on my bike already.”
HI
this isn't something we did on our vacation, but, I thought it was cute. It does have something to do with the north though, eh. . .
