Another used bicycle sale

I rode on the 28th, I think, and even took a photo.  But I was so surprised to find myself at home after a brutally punishing outing that I just went ahead and crashed.

Too hot, way, way too windy.

So then we had a couple of days of rain but yesterday was totally ride worthy.  But it was still a little damp and it was chilly.

Today seemed about the same but having passed on one ride already I wasn't going to make it a two days in a row wimp out.

CB: 59, at 4pm.

Yikes, cold.

But too cold is dealt with a lot more easily than too hot.

Here is today's photo:

There is a possible bonanza there for a family of 6 with children of just the exact right ages and genders.

I like the little one the best, it is a Radio Flyer.  The other three are official department store POS.  They all look like they have a bit more wear in them but with department store bikes you just never know when the plastic parts and amateur assembly will rise up and bit you in the posterior.

The Radio Flyer looks like a keeper though, single speed, coaster brake with training wheels.  Nice.

So I did ride the other day and I did get a photo and I did previously promise periodic updates on the Boulevard of Exotic Flora.

That's rhubarb left foreground, there are some pansies down towards the other end.  A bunch of stuff I don't know but I think the center frame bit is probably some sort of coleus.  I am trying to put it all together and I am increasingly surprised to find that most of the display is perennial.

More updates to come, I suppose.

Just a closed circuit message here, it is about time for me to have a guest rider.  Tomorrow is June.

I know, hooray, hooray the first of . . .

Wait a minute

OK, just a couple of things before we move on.  Something about this past weekend and the upcoming weekend has occurred to me.  We officially celebrated Memorial Day this past weekend.  What's up with that?  May 30th is Saturday, couldn't we just celebrate Memorial Day on Memorial Day and give people the following Monday off from work?

I mean, what's up with that?

The other thing is there is a guy walking around inside my house wearing shorts.  I am not sure what to think.

Three straight days of rain in a May already a bit short of miles is likely to make a bicyclist a bit anxious.

But today was a fine day for riding and a full summer costume ride occurred in mostly mid-afternoon.

I got another comparison photo.  This is Saint Anthony Falls, sort of.  It is what engineers have constructed at the former site of Saint Anthony Falls.  Even given its historical shortcomings that is a lot of water dropping off a concrete shelf onto the riverbed below.

I made my first visit to the stadium used by the local professional baseball franchise.  My first visit this year was on my bicycle although, truth be told, we had the opportunity to be inside the park today.  Alas, we both had previously scheduled events that precluded our attendance.

Twins 6, Red Sox 4.

Riding over there also means my first time this season through the UofM campus and across and down to and then across the Stone Arch Bridge.

It is impossible for a bicyclist to cross the Stone Arch Bridge without having some sort of conflict with a pedestrian.

It is inevitable.

The bridge just isn't wide enough.

Pedestrians make the uses of the bridge that their lifetime experiences tell them are appropriate uses for pedestrians.

There isn't enough room on that bridge for pedestrians doing that and bicycles traveling at anything over about walking speed.

And if you are riding your bicycle at walking speed, why aren't you just walking?

Here's a look at the Como neighborhood rain garden.

Fairly obviously the local flora are in full growth season mode.

77 at the Cattle Barn at 2:11, light WSW winds, a really nice day for a ride.

First round of the draft

I had a nice bicycle ride today.  I had my best average speed of the year which may be an indication of a return of fitness.

Or it may just indicate that it always seemed like it was going to rain and at about the 2 mile mark I had a raindrop hit me in the chin.

Rain is a powerful motivator.

So I didn't get any photos but I need to post anyway because this is big, about 17 hours to green flag.

I am going to depart from my usual pattern and go with the top qualifier for this race for the team that has been the top team so far this season:

Will Power.

TOPWLH is now on the clock.

After that?

With apologies to last year's winner, I am going to say first up establishes priority.

Probably 3 rounds of picks and bonus pick for the NASCAR World 600 at the end.

Good luck to all, especially the drivers.

Comparison

Pretty close to summer here today, so close that I rode in full summer costume.  It was a tiny bit not quite warm enough when I started but by the time I got home the costume was a perfect match for the weather conditions.

68F at the Cattle Barn at 1:51p.

Sunny, light SE wind, I headed off to the local waterfall.  It was very, very pretty over there today.

Here's one from down at the end of the gorge, included here today because the foliage obscures the base of the falls.

And here is the comparison, one from last week.  I included this one because the mist obscures the base of the falls.

Also included because that's what I think is the best one taken from the USA side.  I am now back in the USA so it just seems more appropriate to go with photos taken in the USA.

That's our hotel upper right corner.

Today was a fabulous day for a bicycle ride.

Minnesota miles

Yesterday was chilly, way too chilly in light of having nearly popped a sweat on my Sunday ride in Michigan.

But today was just fine.

And today I was really thankful for having gotten those 20 miles in Michigan.  My bicycle fitness has lagged but those Michigan miles were obviously of use in trying to reestablish the fitness I had before the road trip.

I made it out to Grass Lake.

The water level is down a bit from last summer but still much higher than some of the years we have had when Grass Lake was mostly grass.  At least this year it is mostly lake.

Road trip finale

Not much to report today, we were pretty close to home, it was an easy ride in, we are home.

Here is the actual view out our motel room window in Tomah this morning.

There is a little hint of a lake over there to the right behind the dirt pile.  There is a freeway between the dirt piles at frame center.

Sure, it isn't Niagara Falls but it was quiet enough, the bed was good, breakfast was good, it was an easy ride in.  No complaints whatsoever.

We got home in time for lunch.

See, both cars in the garage.

We must be home.

Final verdict on the road trip?  Excellent.

Not quite

As noted elsewhere on the internet we made a break for home today but not a desperate break.  We departed at a civilized hour and hustled on down to the end of the lake to confront the monster.

It went OK.  We had a slight slowdown at one of the spots where it is necessary to jump from one part of the tollway to another part but by far the worst bit of the day occurred a bit north of Madison on freeway in Wisconsin.

Still departing at a civilized hour made tonight at home completely outside of our range.

So tonight we are in Tomah.

Special thanks to TCWUTH for responding to text messages (her mother estimates at least 35 on the day) by first recognizing our probable ending point for today, and then procurring a reservation at a perfectly adequate motel in this tiny mid-Wisconsin freeway town.

I know this is a little early for this particular bit of business and this is not exactly out our motel room window but this is what is next door to our place of lodging.

Tomah watertower in the background as,

a) authenticity of location verification, and

b) continuation of the ongoing occasional water tower theme.

We were really quite extraordinarily knackered after yet another 400 mile day.  Our travel coordinator had recommended a local color restaurant but in the first few minutes after arriving at the motel we just mostly wanted to simmer and baste.  TCWUTH had also given us a back up recommendation based on what her boss said was good.  Motel staff agreed with boss but those two individuals think that the best place to eat in this town is the local franchise of what the FT and I agree is a not very distinguished national chain.

Eventually we summoned the energy to go with the original recommendation.

Chapeau and merci to the travel coordinator.

Very, very good, and quite unexpected in a small town in central Wisconsin.

Now for sure we will be home tomorrow.

Bicycle content

No driving today but we did get in a bicycle ride.

The first ride of the year to the PSPS is always a significant event.  Especially if it occurs in May.

For me nothing says Port Sheldon Party Store like  "Fuels with an Attitude".

Later on this will be a blueberry field.

And here is  a bit on 168th Street introducing the always problematic area of how to you properly value for sale your used bicycle.

$50 seems pretty high to me.

The last time I had my pocket camera out we were at Niagara Falls.  I set it up to take a video but then abandoned the idea of a video.

I whipped out my camera today for a photo of the PSPS.

Actually one of  my best I think.

We won't be here long this time, leaving tomorrow.  We do hope to return for a longer stay later in the calendar.  Here's hoping sunsets like this one will still be here.

Merci.  Au voir.

Relocation

We had a wake up call for 7:30am this morning.  I awakened at 6am.  We have been sleeping with the curtains open just because it seems wrong to shut out the Falls.  I had the camera on the window ledge so I snapped off what turned out to be our last view of the Falls.

I went back to bed.  By the time the wake up call came so had the fog.  We could see nothing, nothing at all outside the window.  Not the adjacent hotels, not the street, certainly not the river or the Falls.

So we packed up and headed out without having had a proper goodbye.

It's OK, the Falls doesn't actually have any feelings that could be hurt.

And probably neither does Mountie Moose.

Which means that it probably was not necessary for the FT to be quite that friendly, his feelings would not have been hurt.

We had another long day on the road but today at least it was all freeway, the easiest kind of long distance driving.

We got to our destination earlier than we had anticipated and the gang was waiting outside to respond to the FT's waving.  The waving family was greeted by a family of wavers.

And so it has come to be that we have abandoned the Falls to take up a spot next to the Lake.

We will not be here long but we are here now and at least so far a good time seems to be in progress.

Ontario notes

The last time we were in Canada (April 2012 in Vancouver) I ended up back in the USSA with three bits of currency and some pocket change.

I saved it in a mustard jar.  All USA citizens from within a few hundred miles of the border know that occasionally a shopkeeper will try to pass you a Canadian coin when they give you change for a purchase you are making with good old USA currency.  Every time that I notice I give the Canadian back and demand real money, particularly since the exchange rate has moved so noticeably in favor of George, Abraham and Thomas (and Andrew and Ben and is it Ulysses on the 50?).  But they slip one past you now and again and I took to adding them to my mustard jar figuring that I would be back in Canada at some point and could pass them at par.

Well, bad luck about those Canadian pennies.  Canadians don't take them anymore.

My plan is to just leave them there on the desk or maybe just throw them out the window of the car as we leave town tomorrow.  Disposing of Canadian one cent pieces when Canadian business no longer accepts them as payment seems a task outside of my job description.

We separated for breakfast today.  The FT stayed in and I wandered down the path towards a food court I had spotted inside the casino just downriver from where we are.  It turns out I should have checked the food court a bit more carefully.  There was only one place open for breakfast business.  We had had a coffee a couple of times at the most ubiquitous of Canadian businesses but today I had to have a bacon breakfast muffin with my Tim Horton's coffee.  The coffee is fine, the muffin is a McDonald's McMuffin only not quite as well rendered.  And I say this thinking the McMuffin is anything but well rendered.  Once again, the coffee was fine.

On the way back I broke out my portable communications device and tried to communicate with the FT in the tower.  Eventually we started to communicate (via text) and I got her to move the curtains and wave confirming which of the rooms is ours.  Third from the top under the word "Hotel".

Here's an Ontario note that struck me as a little strange.  We took considerable pains to acquire an international calling plan from our cellular provider.  It was all good in Toronto but here in Niagara Falls I have discovered that my phone is definitely on the domestic plan.  Apparently there is a tower near enough by on the USSA side of the border to provide service to me here in Canada.

So anyway, later in the day I took the reverse angle photo from our hotel room of the spot where I was standing when FT and I were waving and texting.  I was in the second circle along the decorative brick path after that path veers away from the street.  Very pretty purple blooms on the trees down there.

And a lodging note.  We are in a more or less circular tower up here.  The rooms are all radiating out from a central area with elevators and hallway.  This means our room is more or less a triangle.  The acute angle back towards the hotel's center contains a bit of hallway and a wedge for the bathroom.  The very end of the wedge is the shower, a very oddly shaped shower.  Both the FT and I have observed that falling down in the shower is not only unlikely, it seems almost impossible.  I can make it all the way to the shower head but there really is very little room beyond.

Today was mostly cloudy and even though there was a stong sense that maybe we should just sit in front of our window and soak it all in we decided to follow up on some of the other stuff in the guidebook.  All of the water going over that cliff in front of our window is traveling from the fourth of the five great lakes, Ontario, into the last, Erie (and south to north at this point).  There are ships that make that same trip from Ontario to Erie but the ships make the trip via the Welland Canal.  We headed over there to take a look.

Ships are lifted 326 feet within 7 miles on a trip lasting about 8 hours.  Ships plying the Great Lakes (usually referred to as "lakers") are designed to fit within the existing locks of the various canals.  Here we are at Lock 3 (of 8) along the route as the Harbour Fountain, a tanker, enters the lock traveling from north to south, Erie to Ontario, at this point upstream, up the hill.

And a few minutes later the water from upstream has been allowed to fill the dock and the ship has been lifted up to the next higher level.

We drove along the Welland Canal Parkway up to Lock 7, the lock where the greatest change in elevation occurs, what folks around here refer to as "where the ships climb the mountain".

But what struck us most about that spot was the close similarity of this thing to our dafter's favorite Musée d'Orsay piece "Ours Blanc".  If I was at home working from my full library of photos I could post a link to a view of the sculpture in Paris, for now you will have to rely on your memory.

White bear indeed.

But after a while the Canal mostly seemed like just another industrial work area.  And further, being as we live quite near to the lock and dam systems of the Mississippi River, we found that even though the whole lock system of the Welland Canal is quite an impressive engineering feat, we have both seen plenty of craft passing through locks.

It was interesting but not as interesting as what is right in front of the window of the place we are renting.

This afternoon's view of Horseshoe.  It looks a little bit different every day, the lighting conditions change, the view changes.

This afternoon's view of the American Falls.

We have now been here long enough to notice that the schedules for the excursion boats coming up for a close up look at Horseshoe are not completely regular.  During the middle of the day the trips seem fairly regular but as the afternoon has worn on the last couple of days at least the frequency of trips by the blue boats (Maid of the Mist from the USSA side) seems to diminish.  The red boats (Hornblower from the Canadian side) also seem less frequent but are still running at least once in a while while the blue boats seem to have stopped for the day.

Ontario note:  You get blue complimentary plastic ponchos on the Maid of the Mist, patrons on Hornblower are wearing red plastic ponchos.

And so we are nearly done here.

There is a slight chance that something more will occur this evening but it is getting late here now.  If something does occur I will include it in tomorrow's post.

LATE EDIT:  Something did happen and it seems well worthy of inclusion here.  Some entity or another shot off fireworks over the Niagara River gorge this evening.

Anyone who has been following along will appreciate that we had a pretty good view.  The bursts were actually below us, who doesn't like watching fireworks from above.

Floodlight lit American Falls on the right for perspective and scale.

Back in the USSA

Sunny and 36 at rising this morning.  The Falls are pretty much due east of our hotel room window so the rising sun interferes majorly with photography.  I gave it a shot anyway.  The American Falls:

Right below our window and more directly into the sun, Horseshoe Falls:

From there we had breakfast, got the valet to get our car, and started to try to navigate our way to the international bridge back to the USSA.  All of the guidebooks say that the views of the Falls are better from the Canadian side and it is pretty hard to argue with the view out the window from our Canadian side hotel.

It still seemed possible, though, that even if inferior, the USA side views would be different and probably interesting.  So we set out for an excursion into the nation to the south.

USSA customs went pretty well, we explained that we had been in Canadia for a few days and just want to cross for the USA side views.  We drove right out onto Goat Island, part of Niagara State Park in New York.  If you go to yesterday's picture 4, the first one showing both Falls, you can follow along pretty easily with today's adventure.  That piece of land between the two Falls is Goat Island.  The point of land on the island next to Horseshoe Falls is Terrapin Point, just above that is the visitor center with a parking lot behind.  We parked in the lot and walked on down towards Terrapin Point.

Here's the reverse angle view just after we passed the visitor center, that is our hotel on the now far side of the Falls.  There are only four floors of rooms, we are second from the top. Each room is a jewel box with essentially one window.  Of the three windows at that level that you can see fully, our room is the farthest to the right.

You have a better angle to see the entire horseshoe from the Canada side but on the American side it feels like you get closer.  And since the mist makes it impossible to actually see most of the horseshoe anyway, the American side has a couple of points in its favor.

The rainbow is much easier to photograph from the USSA side.

It is easy to even include the Maid of the  Mist in the rainbow fun.

So we walked back up to the visitor center and then down along the path to the other set of falls.  There are actually two falls there, a tiny one called Bridal Veil Falls.  It is the one visible here mostly obscured in the foreground.

We crossed the footbridge to Luna Island over the river just above Bridal Veil.  It is tiny in comparison to what else is going on there in the river gorge but it is by itself at least twice the width of Minnehaha and of course a whole huge hell of a lot higher.

So again referring to yesterday photo 4 we crossed to Luna Island, the land bit visible between Bridal Veil and American Falls.  Once again the attraction here is that it feels almost as if you are in the river when you are on Luna Island, the Falls are extremely close, powerfully immediate, powerfully present, a very intense waterfall experience.

We had a little fun before leaving Luna Island.  The Island is only a couple three hundred square feet of land with rapidly flowing water on both sides.  But on the back side there is an almost quiet little meander between Luna and another miniature island just upstream.  The name given by the signpost for the other little island is "Island next to Luna".  They then also give an alternative name for that bit of land but it isn't nearly as much fun as "Island next to Luna" so I am not going to report it here.

One more time a reference to picture 4, we now retrieved the car and exited Goat Island to arrive at the part of Niagara State Park located on the mainland, visible at the far side of American Falls where the large green tower rises from the riverside.  There is again a perspective on the Falls just clearly not available from Canadia, now with Horseshoe Falls providing the backdrop.

The green tower visible center left frame of picture 4 hosts an observation platform extending out over the river gorge.  We went out there and took a look and frankly, it doesn't add much, the new perspective isn't enough different from what was already available to make the intrusion into the river gorge worthwhile.

Except of course, that the real reason for the tower being there is to host the elevators leading down to the Maid of the Mist dock.

That's where we went next.

Boats leaving every fifteen minutes meaning that's about the length of time you get to travel upstream right to the foot of the Falls.  We assumed positions on the upper deck starboard as far forward as we could obtain  a position on the rail.

The guidebook says the mist is pretty intense and hauling your expensive electronics along might not be the best of ideas.  I tucked my good camera under my raincoat AND the complimentary poncho and prepared to try to get some photos with my cheap pocket bicycle ride camera.  I pulled it out of my pocket but for now kept it tucked inside the sleeve of the poncho.

At the top of the ride the boat is only holding its own against the current but it does so for 3 or 4 minutes right there in the mist.  I produced the pocket camera. That's the Canadian (starboard on the upriver leg) shore visible in this shot.

And then the boat begins to swing to  port to fall away from the Falls and exit the maelstrom for the relative calm of the dock.  A swing to port swings the starboard rail right directly into the middle of the Falls.  We did the research, we knew we wanted the starboard rail.

At about this moment the guide on the PA said, "THIS is Niagara Falls".

Turned almost about, this is Terrapin Point from below.

And the American Falls from below as we returned towards the dock.

The fellow said that the reason why there are so many more rocks in the river beneath the Falls is that there were dramatic rock slides at the American Falls in 1931 and again in 1954.

We were done with the USSA, we had lunch and found the road back to where we will be sleeping tonight.  The Rainbow Bridge outgoing from Ontario is part of the package of highways provided by the Ontario highway department.  Leaving New York to use the same bridge you have to pay  a toll

We checked out some other sights on the Canadia side and eventally called it a day.  Here is one last look out our window, this one taken on a day without a cloud in the sky:

One final bit of Niagara Falls trivia for today, the guidebook says that in 1848 a severe ice dam where the Niagara River exits Lake Erie caused the river to stop flowing for 30 to 40 hours meaning that there was only a trickle of water over the Horseshoe and American Falls.

Queen Elizabeth Way

We have been on, in order, ON-402, ON-403, ON-401, Queen Elizabeth Way and the Gardiner Expressway.  Today we toured the Queen Elizabeth Way, affectionately known to those of us frequenting SE Ontario as the QEW, pretty much from end to end.  The QEW has no other name and no number, just QEW.  It runs west out of Toronto down to the end of the lake where it makes the turn at Hamilton and then runs east down the lake to Niagara Falls (the city, not the Falls)

Notes:  Parking is really expensive in Toronto, three nights for the car in the municipal ramp were nearly as much as one night in the hotel for us.

The head waiter at the hotel restaurant was Polish and after three days of serving us breakfast finally considerably warmed to the incorrigibly gregarious FT meaning that we had to chat, meaning that we had a hard time getting out of the hotel and a not as early as ideal, we thought, beginning on the ride to Niagara.  We wrangled the bags into the hotel lobby where FT stood guard while I went in search of the car.  After being informed of and paying the too high tariff I drove up the ramp from underground fearing the worst, that I would be presented with a completely unfamiliar street scene which would require some driving around peering about hoping to find my way back to familiar ground.  Instead as soon as I reached the surface I knew totally and absolutely exactly where I was.  A left out of the ramp, half a block and a left (I even made the light), half a block and I pulled into the loading zone in front of the hotel.

This is a bicycle blog so I include this bit of bicycle content, the view out the driver's side window after the luggage and the passengers had been loaded but before the engine was started.

Very nice City of Toronto bicycle locking post, the hotel restaurant and at the very left the entrance to the hotel.

The complete tour of the QEW doesn't take very long at all, probably only about 75 miles.  Even with a late start within an hour or so we were within 60km of our destination, that's only about 36 miles.  Nominal check-in time was 4pm and it appeared we would get there way too early.  When a highway information sign advertised tourist information center we hopped off the QEW to see if we could obtain an official Ontario highway map.  It turns out that in Ontario instead of having taxpayers pay the whole tab for the rest stop they have Tim Horton and a few others open restaurants in the building and then reserve a space for the government tourist information types.  We were disappointed to discover at this one that the actual tourist information part was not open.  The french fryer at the Wendy's seemed to be turned up a little high and the place stunk of too hot grease.

I do think I got a nice picture of the three flags though, USA, the Maple Leaf and the Ontario provincial flag.

Finally we decided to head on down towards the Falls, try to find a place to have lunch and then check to see if early check-in was a possibility.  Having been slightly singed by the experience in Toronto we also wanted to check out the parking situation in Niagara Falls.

After exiting the QEW in Niagara Falls, we discovered, eureka, another official tourist information center.  After a highly entertaining interlude with some we think Australians we got directed from the former information center (under construction) to the place where we and the Australians wanted to be.

Official Province of Ontario Highway map, for me a major score.

The next major score was that upon arriving at the hotel we discovered that no one had stayed in our room last night meaning we could go ahead and check in.  Further the whole parking situation is a valet deal with an extremely chatty and informative head valet guy.  Within minutes we were on our way up to our room.

It turns out that the my Dad took me everywhere when I was kid FT was NOT ever taken to Niagara Falls.  So we rode the elevator together, opened the door of room 2802 of the Tower Hotel together and took our first ever during this lifetime look at Niagara Falls together. I took a picture right away.

Pretty cool, huh.

Next we took a bit of a road trip but the sun came out and we decided to hurry back to the Falls.  This is the best one I have gotten so far, Horseshoe Falls right, American Falls left.

That's the view out our hotel window.  I am sitting here and I can hear Niagara Falls as I type.

From where we are you can ride the elevator down to the ground level of the hotel, take a short walkway and then ride a funicular down to Table Rock Point, that bit next to the Falls.

Here is the famous Maid of the Mist.

The edge of the Falls from right next to the Falls.

Another one of the tour boats pushing up into the gorge to about as close as they can get.

And then eventually back up the funicular and around the skywalk where pretty close to our hotel  the FT posed for this view.

"Unusual ice conditions"?  Geez, I betcha, no kidding.

We took a little bit of a sitdown and went to dinner at Marilyn's Bistro and Lounge.  This establishment has been open only Friday, Saturday and Sunday during the winter season.  Tonight happened to be the first night that they have reverted to 7 nights per week service.  Perhaps as a result they were not very busy and we managed to get the table that had this view.

The restaurant is on the 26th floor, we are on the 28th.

After dinner (excellent by the way) we stopped at our room before taking a late evening walk down to see what was happening at the casino.  They light the Falls after dark.

And then one final attempt after we got back from our walk.

We're pretty happy about our hotel room here at the end of Queen Elizabeth Way.