I got going on the trike even earlier this morning, though I think I should get up earlier and get going at daybreak or even just before, to take advantage of more cooling.
Even with the sun shining today, there were lots of trees along the way, and of course corn higher than my head almost everywhere as far as the eye can see. There was also a mild breeze which of course helped a lot.
There seem to be no ham radio digipeaters near Danville so I again was unable to obtain an online GPS track of the 11 mile ride. The link above reflects much of the RV trip later today from Danville IL to Seymour Indiana.
We dearly love "Mom" Carol Johnston, the sole reason for visiting Danville, and it was sweet sorrow to bid her goodbye as we left with our next destination of Watts-Barr Lake near Kingston TN, where we will stay for several weeks in hopes of getting Jacque into surgery for her bad shoulder. Her pain has made the last few weeks much less enjoyable than they would otherwise have been without the rotator cuff problem.
I have tried a new diabetic strategy the last couple of days. Instead of eating breakfast or snacking before taking off on a ride, I've checked the blood glucose and dialed back the basal infusion rate on my insulin pump. This in hopes of burning off a bit of tummy roll that I'm not crazy about. When I "carb up" before and after a ride, it seems to maintain my lumpy profile, and maybe even slowly increase the midsection - the way I eat, anyway.
This may or may not be working - both days I have come home from a ride hot and tired AND with unreasonably high blood glucose, in spite of having eaten nothing before or during the ride.
I theorize this is because I'm indeed burning a bit of fat, which the liver converts back into glucose to provide burnable energy for the saggy muscles.... and since my insulin pump has been dialed back so much, my BG thus increases. Solution, of course, is to adjust the basal back up somewhat so I can keep the glucose level "level". I dialed the basal rate back to 25% of normal yesterday and today and next I will try the 40-50% level to see how that works. Not only do I hope to trim the tummy, but skipping the pre-ride breakfast allows me to get GOING earlier.
Ride Started: 6:56 AM Ride Ended: 8:54 AM Beginning Blood Glucose: 126 Ending BG: 206 Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 11.13 Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed 6.0 MPH 7.6 MPH 22.3 MPH Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time 1 hour 51 mins 1 hour 27 mins 24minutes
Riding for exercise and entertainment needs to be early in the mornings in the midwest's hot and humid climate. I rode yesterday, on July 4, as well as this morning, and should have gotten rolling an hour or so earlier to catch a few degrees of cooler weather.
WHATEVER, I'm trying to re-establish a habit of regular riding. The benefits are immediate and fairly long lasting in lowering my blood glucose and lowering the amount of insulin I have to pump.
On July 4 I rode 9 miles and this morning I got in 6 miles.
While riding yesterday, again with missing gears in the derailleur, and when I took a rest break in the shade of a large tree in front of the LDS church building, I decided to have a closer look at the still-unrepaired front shifter. I noticed the cable was actually NOT broken at the shifter end, and upon closer examination, the other end at the handlebar lever was not broken either. It turned out the cable was stiff, so I assumed rashly that the cable had gotten stuck with rust from recent rains. After liberally squirting both ends with WD-40, and the shifter still barely worked only in one direction, I found a broken spring in the shifter assembly itself. This turned out to be impossible to "fix" with basic bike tools. The shifter guide is riveted together and the spring is very hard steel.... and will need to be replaced instead of repaired. It being the midst of the Fourth of July, it may take a few days or more to find a bike shop with a used shifter that will fit. I have only been able to find complete gearsets online, and the prices are such that I hope to find a used item instead.
So today I again rode with limited gearing, but these low altitudes and slight grades on the hills make for survivable riding with limited granny gears. I got going a bit late, but it began raining HARD almost as soon as I got back from the ride. While I was tooling around, it was sunny and hot, and I had no idea thunderstorms were building up. Thankfully I accidentally avoided getting soaked. Wednesday: Ride Started: 7:24 AM Ride Ended: 9:19 AM Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 9.45 Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed 4.9 MPH 7.2 MPH 30.1 MPH Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time 1 hour 55 mins 1 hour 18 mins 36minutes Today: Ride Started: 7:44 AM Ride Ended: 8:27 AM Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 5.98 Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed 7.7 MPH 8.0 MPH 28.0 MPH Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time 47 minutes 44 minutes 2minutes
DATELINE: Danville, Illinois
We went shopping in Shipshewana early Monday, yesterday, didn't find what we wanted. So I decided to order it from Amazon and hope a local brick-and-mortar store will stock something we want or need next time we shop "offline".
We returned to our pricey ($36-PLUS) RV park and packed up the RV and SUV and got ready to roll.
We took back roads south through Indiana - enjoyed the relatively smooth pavement most of the way and the marvelous views of fabulous US farmland - and crossed into Illinois late in the day. $2.86 was the cheapest gas we found on this leg of our wandering.. Out here in the Midwest gas seems to be cheaper in the small towns than it is in the larger metro areas. Very strange. Prices seemed to jump 20 cents everywhere a few days ago, obviously in anticipation of the 4th of July holiday coming up. The official excuse is the scarcity of oil from Iran and wherever, but we suspect prices will sag a xbit after the holiday highway rush. slows down.
I determined to do a few miles on the trike this morning, regardless of the heat and humidity, before it got later in the day and even hotter and humider. It took me a while to get the trike, radios, and panniers all unloaded and hooked up, and each passing minute seemed even warmer and more uncomfortable. Finally I was able to get going and got in a 5-miler. Again I seem to be in a weak radio zone so I did not get any mapping recorded of the ride.
I rode away, fully cognizant of a slight problem: My 3-speed front derailleur shifter cable has been broken for the last 3 rides. Each time I promise myself to replace the bad cable, but invariably I ride away and only realize I'm stuck with the 7 "rear gears" after getting underway. Out in these relatively flat areas the mild hills are climbable even without my "Grandma Gears", so I've gotten away with it.
Today I remembered the missing 14 speeds but rode anyway, again promising myself to fix it later today after it hopefully cools off a bit.
Where we're driveway surfing is sorta on the outskirts of Danville and I stuck to the perimeter back roads among the cornstalks and enjoyed myself.
I rode fairly comfortably, as cycling produces its own mild breeze which helps keep the heat down. It's always a treat to rid under the welcome shade of trees since the temperature seems to drop almost 10 degrees cooler or better, definitely noticeable cooling courtesy of God.
Several hours now have passed since the ride and I'm almost feeling human again after shaving, showering, and eating. Current temp is 87 and the sky is now a bit clouded, unlike the full sunshine I was blessed with while riding.
Ride Started: 8:41 AM Ride Ended: 9:31 AM Beginning Battery Voltage: ? No remote recording Ending Voltage: ? Lowest: ? Beginning Blood Glucose: 220 Ending BG: 107 Lowest Temp 85 F Highest Temp: 88 F Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 5.04 Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed 6.5 MPH 7.5 MPH 16.9 MPH Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time 47 minutes 40 minutes 6minutes
I must offer many thanks to K9DEW, Dewey Thrash, for operating a Ham Radio Digipeater station that works, and works WELL. We've stayed in several "radio dead zones" recently, and thanks to Dewey, this is NOT a dead zone.
We drove to Sturgis, MI, this Sunday morning for LDS church services. I'd never heard of Sturgis except for the famous one in SD where the world famous motorcycle rally is held yearly. Sturgis, Michigan version, has various factories providing employment for quite a few. The current boom in RV demand and sales keeps most people employed and busy all over this area.
Anyway, the congregation in Sturgis was about the most friendly bunch of folks we've ever encountered, except maybe in Grants NM where I attended school from 3rd grade through High School and where so many old timers have known me since I was a pup. All kinds of nice folks in the Sturgis Ward shook our hands, asked our stories, visited with us, and generally made us feel very welcome. Food for thought when we grow up and finally decide to settle somewhere....
We had sorta planned to do an afternoon cycle ride after church, but Jacque caught my chest cold several days ago, and today her congestion was really bad. We should have stayed home and tucked her into bed for the day. We left after Sacrament meeting and came back "home" to the RV and she immediately went down for an afternoon recovery nap, but encouraged me to go ahead and ride around. We spotted a funny notation on an area map yesterday that turned out to be the "Pumpkinvine Nature Trail", where no motors are allowed, no horses allowed, but cyclists and pedestrians are welcomed. The trailhead originates in Shipshewana and goes west through Middlebury, around to Goshen, and thence on to Elkhart, usually following the route of the defunct "Pumpkinvine Railway". Where we're parked is about 3 miles from Shipshewana so I rode all the way from the RV to the trailhead and then the almost 6 miles along the trail into Middlebury.
I was getting pooped by the time I arrived in Middlebury so I turned around and headed back 'home'.
Now I see from looking at the trail map, I was a quarter mile or so shy of crossing through both a tunnel and a wooden trestle bridge. Rats. No problem though; it was a fun enough ride without those additional thrills.
It was plenty hot today but noticeably cooler than the last few days. A bit of a breeze encouraged me to think I could survive a few miles of riding. For the most part this turned out to be true. This is the kind of weather where I'm grateful for winds and breezes, even though they may slow me down a bit. The additional cooling effect is much more appreciated than a few more MPH in speed.
One thing so far that is nice about these midwest bike trails is the shady trees along much of the route. They contribute quite a mess down below on the trail pavement but running over branches, seeds, and clumps of leaves is a small price to pay for blessed SHADE; what I call "God's Air Conditioning".
In Amish Plain People Country such as this, few stores are open on Sundays. Few horse-drawn carts and carriages are downtown going between any businesses, but today there were all sorts of groups, bicycle and horse-drawn, passing me along the roads and bike trails. The adults and families appeared to be heading home from worship services. I passed the back yard of a Plain Family just west of Shipshewana where there was a large group of Amish youth playing volleyball. Evidently such recreation on Sunday wasn't frowned upon by that particular group. Another largish group of Plain Kids, male and female, riding bikes, passed me coming and going as I neared Middlebury:
You may have to squint to spot them ahead of me on the trail. I feared trying to photograph them any closer, as they do not like to be photographed "Except from a distance".
I have noted previously that the "plain" (solid colors, no patterns) dresses worn by the women fail to conceal the good looks of most of them. No burquas or veils amongst these people.
I must confess I was fairly bushed by the time I got to Middlebury. Right at the entrance of the trail into town is quite a temptation for a Christian who hates to buy anything on Sunday:
A chocolate Sundae would have been mighty delectable on this Sunday, even though Jacque fed me a good homemade version right after Church. I was hot, tired and thirsty/hungry, but I turned around and rode home, settling for lukewarm water and breakfast bars I had in my panniers.
As I got to the village limits of Shipshewana, I noticed a sign indicating "Memorial to Chief Shipshewana - 800 Feet" on a street crossing, so I took a short detour to take a look at it.
Evidently the Pottawattamie tribe were a peaceful and helpful bunch, but land salesmen of the time worried their nearby presence degraded the sale-ability of lots and lands, so the nearby soldiers were mustered to herd these wonderful natives off to a reservation in Kansas to free up more Indiana sales.
Whether the greedy Anglos' consciences finally woke them up or not, the Chief was allowed to return to his native soil, where he died in short order.
Don't get me started on the genocide and grief the so called "White Man" has visited upon the native peoples already living here in the Americas. I read one history some years ago that opined that the U.S. Army NEVER won a fair fight against "Indian warriors". Many of the acclaimed victories the Army claimed were attacks on peaceful villages that were under peace treaties, such as the infamous attack on the sleeping villages of Chief Black Kettle (Cheyenne) more than once, by Chivington and later Custer.
Like I said, don't get me started. It wasn't pretty.
Ride Started: 1:45 PM Ride Ended: 4:45 PM Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.9 Ending Voltage: 12.9 Lowest: 12.7 Beginning Blood Glucose: 116 Ending BG: 60 Lowest Temp 82 F Highest Temp: 84 F Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 20.39 Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed 6.8 MPH 8.5 MPH 30.8 MPH Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time 2 hours 59 mins 2 hours 24 mins 35minutes
We're currently parked near Shipshewana, Indiana, which is heavily populated with Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites, many of which use real live horses to pull their cultivators and plows and carriages here and there. It's the 30th of June and the corn is almost head-high with no tassels or silk showing yet, and the weather is hot and HUMID. I've been more actively riding my bike-trike recently, but much of the time the radio-GPS tracker doesn't hit any relay stations so no tracks on the map have been available. I rode the trike almost 5 miles yesterday up in Scott, MI, before the sun got up too hot and before we packed up the RV and rolled out.
The reason we stopped near Shipshewana (Look it up, it's named after a peaceful Indian Chief Shipshewana) was we had been hearing wonderful stories about all the shops and repair facilities here and the "Cheap" RV repairs available.
So far, I'm a bit underwhelmed. The so-called RV shops all seem to be backlogged with work and cannot find time to work on my roof or other RV concerns. So I have no idea how affordable they may be. I'm now told "in the summer season" all hands are busy with crops and those involved with the RV world are loaded with work in the nearby RV factories in Elkhart and surrounding areas. The RV factories are so desperate for help they hire teens and high schoolers to assemble houses with motors and wheels. In addition to anyone else they can find to work.
It's always impressive to see the Amish and their related brethren go about their business. When we first arrived in the area we of course noticed the horse-drawn buggies clip-clopping along. Nowadays there seem to be more Amish cyclists than carriage operators, often pulling home made looking small trailers carrying everything from kiddos to groceries.
In spite of the suffocating heat and humidity lately, I determined to ride at least a few miles early in the morning this morning. It was stuffy all night and already uncomfortable as the sun came up, but I wanted to get a ride going before it got REALLY hot and humid, as per the forecasts.
Instead of riding into Shipshewanna, where it undoubtedly would have been more fun mingling with all the Amish cyclists going to and fro, I rode east on nearby Highway 120 to see what I could see. I thought there must be another village or small town down that-a-way, but in my short ride all I encountered was farm fields and rural homes. The title of today's epistle sprung to my mind as I "enjoyed" the aroma everywhere emanating from piles near the road marked "Free Manure" and barns piled high with the stuff nearby. Having grown up smelling such smells in my youth, I didn't find it all that distasteful. At least here there were no large feedlots or dairies in the area with the absolutely horrible smells of rot. One impressive bearded farmer was pulling a rather large combine with 2 Percherons or similar huge horses. They were really throwing up the chaff and dirt and making that machine spin impressively. The terrain is largely flat with very low rolling hills or rises, and the only minor difficulty I encountered was dodging the several crushed critters along the otherwise wide shoulder. Traffic was light - and friendly - but several times I had to gauge whether to swerve out in the main road to dodge a squashed squirrel or pile of horse poop or if there was room on the right to go around or if I just had to run over the stuff. I have a rear fender on the trike, so no brown stripe resulted on my backside.
I had, as all to usual, run off without any camera or phone, so no pictures to enliven the post today.
We found a nice looking bike trail today that goes cross country called "Pumpkinvine Trail". Looks like we won't be around long enough to explore it, as it was too hot and late in the day today and we plan to leave for Danville IL tomorrow after Church services up in Sturgis, MI, the closest LDS meetinghouse.
Ride Started: 8:41 AM Ride Ended: 9:42 AM Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.9 Ending Voltage: 13.0 Lowest: 12.7 Beginning Blood Glucose: 156 Ending BG: 77 Lowest Temp 75 F Highest Temp: 82 F Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 7.12 Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed 7.4 MPH 8.4 MPH 12.4 MPH Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time 1 hour 50 minutes 7minutes
CORRECTIONS: In my torpor while blogging last night, I actually skipped over a WHOLE WEEK that my lovely wife reminded me of. Thus in the interests of more-accurate tale telling...
Let's See Now. We camped a few days for the weekend race at Road America near Elkhart Lake in Michigan. That was nice except for our prized driver breaking his motor before he got into his first test lap. Racing must be somewhat like RV'ing, in that large lumps of money are involved....
But more about that later. We left Road America after attending church in Sheboygan and drove to Charlotte ("Char-LOTTE" is the local pronunciation) for their annual Charlotte Bluegrass Festival. This is a 3-day weekend affair wherein many of us come in the first of the week prior to the fest and snag a decent parking spot for our RV's. The sweet strings of picking and fiddling begin long before the festival actually starts, with both amateur and professionals practicing and jamming in "Yard-Picking" style. We enjoy these so much we need to take advantage of the events occurring in other areas than Michigan where we alight temporarily or permanently. So far it's been Michigan since it involves hob-nobbing with Jacque's auntie and uncle and her brother. Saturday was the final day and we stayed over another night so we could attend church at the Charlotte LDS Branch.
We then headed down to "driveway surf" at Uncle Bob and Aunt Marilyn's lovely place on Pickerel Lake.
When we arrived, safe and sound with no mishaps, we were shocked, SHOCKED when we opened the fridge for dinner and found it was barely cool, nay, lukewarm instead of COLD. Ice cream in the freezer was sugary soup and Jacque woefully decided much of the foodstuff had to be discarded.
Resetting the 20-year-old Dometic did not help, nor did turning it completely off and back on again, which has worked several times before.
Sadly I began to look online for RV refigerator repair shops. We found a couple, but come Monday morning when enquiring on the phone, no one sounded helpful, and in spite of advertising service calls, none could spare a repairman to come out to our RV. Since we live in the darn thing, it is not too handy to have to drive it in to a repair facility and abandon it for however long it would take them to have a look-see, order parts, etc, etc.
Thus it befell ME to somehow accomplish a repair. Years ago I was able to order replacement absorption cooling units off Ebay and rebuild a failed fridge, but in this case we need quick repair or replacement and cannot wait around for weeks for parts and service to arrive. We decided to bite the bullet and find a replacement, new fridge.
Which turned into an all day job. It took a couple hours just to get the old unit out, fighting the tight fit of the hole in the wall housing the fridge, then wrestling it out the front door. A very tight squeeze in all directions, with impolite comments erupting here and there. Jacque's brother and uncle suggested Bontrager Surplus in White Pigeon Michigan, of all places, a joint that obtains cosmetically damaged or undesired NEW stuff and appliances from nearby RV factories and sells them for decent prices. As in almost HALF the cost of new units in the box.
The gentleman did not have the correct replacement fridge on hand, but called his man in another warehouse and got him to deliver a proper unit to us. All for the bargain price of 1100 bucks, not counting tax. A new unit was priced at 1800 bucks so I got out my card and paid for this one gladly.
Jacque and I just tried to recall the last time we had to shell out a kilobuck. Why Shucks, it turns out maybe a MONTH has gone by since we had our driveline rebuilt with new U-joints in May. That was almost a kilobuck, which reinforces the old saying in the RV world: "A thousand here and a thousand there, eventually it starts looking like real money."
Installing the new fridge was not as difficult, since I now knew where all the screws were supposed to go, and since this was an exact replacement, they actually all fit.
Well, the good news is that gasoline is almost 20 cents cheaper here than in Ohio and Indiana, and 30 cents a gallon cheaper than in New York State, which is not much of a surprise.
Thursday, 14 June was our check-out morning for the West Bay Campground at Thompson Lake. I awoke at 5 AM, feeling guilty about not riding the trike enough or even regularly. I loafed another hour and got up, fed the dogs just before I left, and saddled up the trike and rode to the Rhinelander Post Office and back before breakfast. It was again great to be out and about under my own steam. There were small rolling hills involved but they were anything but exhausting. That early in the morning the temperatures were actually a bit chilly as I approached 20 MPH going down the little hills but warm enough that I was never tempted to stop and put on my windbreaker tucked inside the pannier.
Evidently I was again out of radio range since the tracker on the trike didn't record a single position.
The big bad bike tour was only a little over 6 miles total but it was great to get out and stretch the rubbery legs. Now if I can just get motivated to make it a habit instead of just occasional outings.
The West Bay park gave us a good discount because of our Passport America membership, but the "Enjoy Our Heated Pool" was always locked, with no one ever in it - including us. The office hours were limited and often no one was there, so we couldn't ask what the secret was for pool access.
BUT their bathrooms and showers were respectably clean, which is a rarity at campgrounds.
The mosquito population was dense and ferocious. Lots of water in these climes usually means the skeeters are abundant and prospering... at our expense.
Our son Christopher is a hobby race car driver and he has a race at the Road America speedway this weekend of June 16. Thus we aimed our GPS southward and drove our homeless home down to the Plymouth WI area.
Speaking of GPS, I just sent a belated nasty-gram to Garmin about the GPS situation. Our latest "Garmin Upgrade" has changed our favorite GPS into a find-a-horrible-back-road-detour machine. Instead of taking us on the shortest route, as selected, it regularly leads us off major highways and through the nasty back streets of some small burg. A couple weeks ago it routed us in a large loop through a small town and took us right back up on the highway it had just detoured us AWAY from.
We'll see how this works out. Our early GPS devices were great time and effort savers, and lately (we have several, of course) they seem to lead us astray close to half the time.
