By now you all know that we give names to everything. Our Coach is “Arcturus,” the Honda Civic is “Little Blue,” and our recumbent tandem bicycle is ‘Path.” It is named after a fictional dragon in Ann McCaffry’s “Dragon Riders of Pern” series. In Ann McCaffry’s series “Path” is somewhat ‘proddy’ and causes her rider, Mirrim, to be ‘out of sorts.’
Category Archives: bicycling
Riding the Scappoose Dike Land:
We have moved over to St. Helens for a few days this week. We are getting our annual dental checkups and visiting old friends. Today we jumped onto Path, our recumbent tandem bicycle and rode from St. Helens to Scappoose. Then we rode around the Scappoose dike lands. This is some farmlands that have been developed from the flood plain of the Willamette River many decades ago. The main highway of the region is US-30. It is four lanes and roaring along at 55 plus. Turning off onto the dike road puts us on narrow twisting roads with practically no traffic.
Triathlon
Sometimes we are just at the right spot and at the right time. We are currently camping at Millerton Lake State Recreation Area near Fresno, CA. This morning the nearby boat ramp was invaded by a couple hundred triathletes and we had front row seats for the Millerton Lake Triathlon. These folks swam 400 yards, bicycled twelve miles and ran three miles. Six of the fastest men did the whole route in under an hour.
Missouri
We have spent nearly the whole month of November in Missouri. We explored my ancestors in Seneca. We visited with our Alpine Coach Owners Association in Branson and took in two of the really big shows there. We traveled the length and breadth of the Missouri Ozarks staying at Corps of Engineers parks at Pomme de Terra lake and Lake of the Ozarks. We then toured the Missouri capital building in Jefferson City and rode a ten mile segment of the Katy trail. It follows the railbed of the MKT, the Missouri, Kentucky and Texas Railroad. For a swan song we traveled to the eastern edge of Missouri to St. Louis and we attended a performance of the Paul Taylor Dancers and watched Neil’s sister Julie perform. Paul Taylor and his Dance Company were performing the “world premier” of a new dance, “Beloved Renegade.” We had a wonderful day with Jerry and Janene, Julie and Niel’s parents. We visited the Transportation Museum and then attended the dance performance.
Ancestral Tree
We have made a four day stop in Neosho, Missouri, the county seat for Newton County, MO, the county where my mother was born in 1913. We went to the court house and immediately found the marriage license for her parents, William Madison Cook and Della Williams for July 12, 1910. What a rush to see the actual recording document that was hand entered in 1910.