Archive for the ‘Wild Turkeys’ category

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A memorable morning…

July 16, 2010

Actually, nothing out of the ordinary happened this morning, but it was truly an amazing morning in the Ozarks in spite of the 97% humidity the my phone app was reporting as I left the house for a 28 mile ramble into the office.

I actually debated just taking the direct route this morning to save my legs for the long run Pam and I have planned for tomorrow morning, but when it comes to bike rides and exercise, prudence isn’t really one of my strong points.  It had been a couple of weeks since I had been on my road bike, so I rode!

As I headed east on Sunshine, it didn’t take long to figure out there was going to be a pretty nice sunrise this morning!  After stopping to snap the pic above, I continued toward the river, and as I dropped into the valley toward the bridge, I was watching the sky for the next picture opportunity.  I didn’t see the deer coming out of the shadows until she crossed the road about 20 feet in front of me.  After my initial start, I knew she posed no danger, but immediately started scanning the roadside for a second one that might follow.  This time of year, it’s pretty common to see a mother and her yearling fawn together, and I fully expected this to be the case today.  Luckily, it was not (or at least I didn’t see it).

I paused again on the bridge when I saw a nice reflection of the sunrise in the water below me.

I hadn’t climbed the hills at Turners in a while, so I turned off the highway, crossed the railroad tracks and turned up the steep climb that is the first part of of the Turners hill.  About half-way up it, I spied the following scene, so I turned and coasted a few feet downhill to take yet another picture.

At this point, I had to remind myself that I needed to be at work later and that I should probably try not to stop every quarter of a mile for pictures if I wanted to be on time!  I hate it when I have to be responsible like that!

At the top of Turners, I saw my second deer of the day, and by this time the glow of the sunrise had faded, so it was a little easier to just put my head down and pedal.  After turning around at the high school, I headed for home at a fairly quick pace that really didn’t last very long.  I guess my age is catching up to me, or maybe it’s just all the other cycling and running miles I’m putting in this year, but for some reason I don’t have the drive to time trial it for ten miles at a time like I used to.  I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not, but that’s reality right now. 

As I headed up the hill after crossing Pierson Creek, I came upon a turkey hen with a huge brood of youngsters.  I suspect there must have been at least one other hen in the brush that I couldn’t see because there were a ton of chicks with her.  She flew to the safety of a tree limb, and they scattered into the brush as I approached.

After swapping bikes at the house, I headed for work on city streets that were pretty quiet in terms of traffic, but busier than normal in terms of foot traffic.  I suspect the hot weather is causing a lot of folks to get out for their walks earlier than normal.  And speaking of walkers, since I stopped to ask about his wife the other day, the lone lovebird has been waving to me every morning.  It’s kind of fun to build those kind of fleeting relationships with complete strangers as we go about our separate lives.  Unfortunately, his wife hasn’t been with him yet…

Thanks for stopping by!

God bless….

TW

Categories: bicycle, Bike Commute, Cycling, Fitness, Pierson Creek, Turners Station, Wild Turkeys
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MLK Ride

January 18, 2010

It’s not very often that the weather really cooperates on these winter holidays, but today was a winner. 

After a full and productive morning, I took the road bike and headed out across the river towards Rogersville.  Actually, my plan was to go out past Mentor to County Line Road and then to Rogersville, but on the way out I noticed a pretty brisk wind from the south.  Based on that, I decided to go further south Elm Grove and get a nice push from the wind all the way back up Highway VV to Rogersville.  It worked!  As soon as I turned back to the north, that wind gave me a boost that allowed me to easily spin at about 20 mph in spite of the slight incline back to Rogersville.

This is the first time I’ve ridden the road bike since replacing the brake pads.  I installed Kool-Stop combination pads on both the front and the back, and from all indications today, they are a good choice.  I felt like I could stop on a dime, and once I got a little over-zealous with the brake lever and skidded the rear tire.  It will be interesting to see how they perform in wet conditions.  They’re supposed to be pretty good.

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On the way out, I passed a lady once on County Line, and again at the curve going into Rogersville.  After a quick pit stop at Hardees,  she pulled in as I was leaving, and we exchanged pleasantries.  She said she had seen a couple other riders earlier, and as we talked, I noticed a guy pull into McDonalds across the street.  Later on, I met two other riders, so I guess there were several folks out taking advantage of the weather.  Most people haven’t been riding much, so everyone I saw was just kind of slowly cranking along.

On the way home, I was really wishing I had brought my sunglasses.  It was kind of cloudy when I left, so I opted for clear lenses.  An hour and half later, however, the sky was a brilliant blue out over the Rogersville Flats. 

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As I hit the rollers approaching the river, I could tell I was starting to get tired.  I knew I would hit the driveway with about 30 miles, and it’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to ride that far.

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By the time I got to that point, I knew I could look ahead to the quad-busting climbs between me and home.  I was really surprised that I managed my way up them quite well.  I guess I wasn’t really as far out of form as I anticipated.

At any rate, I hit the driveway with 30.76 miles on the bike with a 15.9 mph average speed.  Not bad for January 18th!

Wildlife sighting:  1 wild turkey as I climbed out of the James River Valley.

God bless….

TW

Categories: bicycle, Cycling, Elm Grove Church, Fitness, Road Bike, Rogersville, Wild Turkeys
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Labor Day – Tandem Style

September 7, 2009

Pam and I made a morning of it today on the tandem!  And what a great morning it was.

Our goal was to start with breakfast, then do lunch before coming home today, so we left the house at 7:00 this morning and headed downtown.  Our breakfast destination was Gailey’s Breakfast Cafe in downtown Springfield.  It’s a place where there is still the old drug store cafe ambiance because that’s what it was for decades.  It’s been a mainstay of Walnut Street as long as I can remember and still enjoys a faithful breakfast crowd nearly every day.

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Gailey’s shares lobby space with the lofts that have been renovated in the old Seville Hotel, and is a pretty laid back kind of place where it just doesn’t pay to be in a hurry.  I usually opt for either pancakes or waffles with sausage and eggs, while Pam goes for a little more healthy fare.  We had to sit at the counter this morning, which gave us a bird’s-eye view of the art of making breakfast!

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After stuffing ourselves (at least I did), we hopped back on the bike and headed north on Grant Street.  The great part about riding through town this morning was how empty the streets were.  We practically had them to ourselves!  The only downside was that a lot of the city streets are getting pretty torn up these days and don’t make for a very comfortable bike ride.

There was just a hint of fog in the air as we left the house this morning, but as we hit the north edge of Springfield, it really started getting bad. 

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We stopped briefly for Pam to turn on our rear blinkie, and I heard her go “Oh no!”.  Not a good sign.  When I looked, the mount on the blinkie was breaking off and the light was only holding on by the thinnest thread of metal.  We had no choice but to go ahead and pull it off and ride the rest of the morning without a rear light.

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Unfortunately, we stowed it in our handlebar bag, where the two sharp edges of the broken bracket poked their way through an energy gel pack that was in there and by the time we got home, we had a huge mess on our hands (and everything else that was in the bag)!

We made it safely to Fair Grove in spite of riding in the fog the entire way out there.  We made our usual pit stop at the convenience store there and sat outside drinking some Propel.  As is quite often the case out there, a couple of people stopped to chat!  They’re very used to cyclists in town because the Trans Am route passes through.  The old farmer we talked to this morning says he sees loaded tourists passing his place nearly every single day! 

We always get a kick out of the bathroom in the store.  As much as I hate to say it, it’s very typical of the hillbilly ingenuity at work here in the Ozarks!

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Not too long after we left town, we stopped to take a picture of a wildflower we hadn’t seen before.  It was a bushy type plant with lots of delicate pink and white flowers.   Anybody recognize this?

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I had stepped one foot into the ditch to take the picture of the plant growing up in the barbed-wire fence, and as I was stepping back, a rabbit absolutely exploded from under my feet.  I guess it tried to hide, but couldn’t stand it any longer.  We both jumped about a mile, and in it’s haste, the rabbit ran smack-dab into the rear wheel of the bike.  It hit with a “twang”, bounced back about a foot, recovered and was off in a flash.  It was hilarious!

By 10:30, the fog was finally lifting and it started to feel pretty warm as we climbed the hills between Fair Grove and Strafford.  Just north of Fair Grove, we saw the second wild turkeys of the day, this one a hen and her brood of 5 youngsters just on the other side of a fence.  We got a good look at them as they slowly headed deeper into the woods.

By the time we hit Strafford it was a little after 11:00, so we decided to do an early lunch, knowing that we would end with over 50 miles on the bike today.  Subway is our standard meal on the bike, so that’s what we opted for.  There is one in nearly every town we ride to, but unfortunately the one in Strafford is in a truck stop.  That means you’ve got to put up with lots of traffic and lots of “interesting” characters wandering around all the time.  We’ve never had any problems there, but it’s just not one of our favorites. 

From Strafford, it’s 12-13 miles home depending on how you go.  As we approached, I detoured us down the loop around Pearson Creek just because it has one final blazing downhill that’s fun to do.  We hit the house with 55.4 miles on the bike and called it good.  After a shower, we enjoyed the backyard hammock for a few minutes before heading off to finish the day doing responsible stuff!

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Here’s the GPS link for today.

God bless…

TW

Categories: bicycle, Fair Grove, Fitness, Labor Day, Strafford, weekend, Wild Turkeys
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Our Version of HHH

August 8, 2009

For the last six weeks, we’ve had plans to finally get out to Fair Grove and have lunch at the new cafe that has opened up in the old downtown area.  Every time we carved out a Saturday to go, it’s rained.  We finally made it today!

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Unfortunately, it wasn’t the best day to go.  The ride out there and back is always Hilly.  Today, it was Hard because there was a south wind blowing at almost 20 mph.  Finally, it was Hot!  So there you are…our own version of the HHH.  If you’re not familiar with it, HHH is the standard nomenclature for the Hotter ‘n’ Hell Hundred, an epic bike ride held in Wichita Falls, Texas every August.  In fact, it’s coming up on the 29th.

We left the house at 10:30 this morning on the tandem for what was actually a pretty easy 21 miles out to Fair Grove.  The wind was behind us all the way, giving us a nice shove.  If we had wanted to, I think we could have made it out there in about an hour instead of the hour and 20 minutes it took us.  I kept looking at the trees and other things blowing in the wind and thinking that I had better conserve my energy for the return trip, and that proved to be a good decision.

As we crossed over the creek between Strafford and Fair Grove, we saw several wild turkeys down in the creek bottom alongside the road.  It’s actually pretty rare that we make that trip and don’t see at least one bird somewhere along the way.  I remember a time when wild turkeys were pretty rare to find around here, but now it seems like we see them almost every week.

When we got to the cafe, it was pretty much like I expected.  It’s probably modeled more after a coffee house (in Fair Grove…go figure) than a cafe, and seems to be run by a local young lady.  Her father was doing some work, and was not at all out of place in Fair Grove!

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We were asked if we were riding cross country!  The Trans Am route goes through Fair Grove, so long distance cyclists are a pretty common sight during the summer.  In fact, the town put a nice restroom and shower in their park for the cyclists coming through.

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After a fully satisfying lunch (including dessert), we took a few minutes for Pam to browse through the flea market across the street.  We had never stopped in this one, and we had really never missed anything.  I’m not normally a flea market fan, and this one was really bad!   Mostly junk piled in every direction!

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The shots below encompass nearly all of downtown Fair Grove!

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As we headed out of town, we felt the full brunt of the wind.  It made it a pretty slow slog home, and by the time we left it was pushing 90 degrees.  Unfortunately, we still had to negotiate the Three Ugly Sisters, but we made it over the top.

Just before those hills, we came over a little bridge and saw a calf out of the pasture.  It was grazing in the tall weeds in the ditch, so we stopped at the next house to let them know it was out.  The resident knew the farmer that it belonged to and said they would call.  In the mean time, I decided we needed to go back and get the calf’s picture for the blog.  As we approached, it took one look at us and started trotting up the ditch away from us.  I was determined to get that picture, so we followed, hoping it would stop.  Pretty soon, it came to a place where there was a tree down on the fence, hopped over, and trotted away through the pasture before we could get situated enough to get it’s picture.  At least it was were it belonged!  Then, it occurred to me what we had done.  We had wrangled a calf from the tandem!  What a hoot!

We made it home with 42 hard-earned miles on the bike.  I was glad we went the shortest route out and back instead of meandering around.  Those last 21 miles were hard!

God bless…

TW

Categories: bicycle, Fair Grove, Odd Fellows Cafe, tandem, Wild Turkeys, Wind
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