So the Boundary Waters Canoe Area is on fire. How do I know this? Not because the news or weather bothered to report on it in a timely fashion. No, it's because our entire area was blanketed by smoke as of yesterday afternoon. I was eating lunch outside with some co workers, and we couldn't figure out where the strong smell of smoke and eye-burning haze was coming from. Did the ceramics department get carried away with the outdoor kilns again? Is a farmer's field on fire? No...just a giant fire over 400 miles away. !!
I had ridden my bike to work, so was a little worried about the commute home. Our nurse gave me a mask to wear though. By the evening, it wasn't so bad, so I could have probably gone without the mask, but I didn't want to aggravate the old asthma any more than I needed to. My glasses only fogged up when I stopped, which I did at a couple of intersections, and to help a little Hispanic woman who was exclaiming, "DO YOU HAVE KEY TO MOVE MY CHAIR???" I surmised the translation to be, "Do you have a wrench so I can raise my bicycle seat?" Alas, I did not, but she thanked me for trying. :)
THEN...totally unrelated, really, but still noteworthy, I had an unfortunate treadmill accident in the fitness center. What happened was ... I fell! This was not a little stumble and catch yourself fall either. I tripped over my shoe or something (?!), somehow landed on my side (instead of my face), curled up to protect my head (my mad Ninja Karate reflexes kicked in!) and shot off the back of the treadmill and almost into the wall behind me! Funny, I thought of Lenore's cat, Xena (who had a similar experience)! I noticed a white skid mark of sorts on the treadmill belt and thought maybe it was from my shoe...but then realized it was probably skin! Yikes. So now I have three little "burns" on my leg and my ankle kind of hurts. Sometimes pride goeth after a fall, not before. It was really kind of funny – makes me laugh when I think of what that must have looked like! Scott, the attendant/trainer guy, ran over to see if I was OK, then after I got back on and resumed my workout (like, you know, I MEANT to do that!), he came back and asked, "Are you SURE you're OK?!" Then when I was lifting weights, he asked me again, "Did you hurt yourself anywhere?!" Very sweet. I didn't hear any laughing, so all the people hid it well, haha. Yes, first I thought of Xena, then George Jetson, then my coworker, Craig, whose answer for everything is, "Walk it off!" so I did.
Prior to all this excitement, Roland, Amy, and I (or, Roland and his sister wives, as I like to say), went to Wilton, WI to ride the Elroy-Sparta bike trail and do a little paddling in Ontario. (We did get separate hotel rooms, though I had this vision of me between the two of them in bed, maybe watching a movie and eating popcorn.)
I'm trying to figure out a way to link my photos of a Wilton Biking-Bobbing weekend from Facebook to here. Any ideas? I think there may be too many to post, and I'm fed up with Flickr. Stay tuned...
Later that same evening...
Maybe this will work?
Anyway, it was a gorgeous weekend -- could not have asked for more perfect weather, and I really enjoyed both the biking and paddling. I wanted to see how it felt to ride that trail when I had good biking legs from the summer, and it really made a difference. Even though I've been on that trail several times, the tunnels are still very cool (literally!). The longest one is 3/4 of a mile long, so you need a jacket and a light.
The Kickapoo River is one of my favorite places to kayak. It's really scenic and winding, and the people we rent Kayaks from (Titanic Canoe Rental, in case you're in the area), are super nice. Beth was on her way home from a whole week of hard-core camping and canoeing up in the Boundary Waters, but she was willing to stop off in Wilton Saturday evening and then join us for kayaking on Sunday. What a trooper!
On the way home from Wilton, we took a very scenic route (no thanks to my retarded GPS lady) and stopped in Janesville for some New Glaris beer that apparently you can ONLY get in WI. I did sample some, and it's very tasty.
I do need to post this picture here, a shot of the interior of Hardware Hank's, the coolest hardware store ever. They have at least one of EVERYTHING in that tiny store. I could spend hours in there.
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