Bikes and Trails

Way back around the middle of March we experienced an awesomely epic heat wave, the likes of which no weather forecaster or record book around here had ever seen. For 10 straight days we had highs in the 80s! In March! We were shattering record high temperatures every day, to the point that it became old news. Another day. Another record high. We even tied the record for most consecutive days of breaking record highs!

In the middle of this epic awesomeness, Wendy and I bought new bikes. And they’re awesome.

This spring, not one, but two new bike stores opened up near our house. So I went to both and did some test riding. I found one I liked, then brought Wendy along to give the women’s version a test ride. Her first comment was “Oh, this is nice. I like it!”. That sealed the deal. The winning bikes were Giant Sedonas from Epic Cycle and Fitness. They’re comfort bikes, so they’ve got the upright riding style of mountain bikes, along with suspensions for the front wheel and seat post.

The very next day we went to the Prairie Trail and rode our bikes to Wisconsin. The Prairie Trail is a 26-mile bike trail that runs from the city of Algonquin (which is well south of us) all the way to Wisconsin. We live just a few minutes from the midpoint of the trail.

Blue is the Prairie Trail. Red is the Hebron Trail.
Green is a connecting trail.

It’s certainly fun and impressive to say we rode our bikes to Wisconsin, but the truth is on this particular day, since it was our first major ride, we started in Glacial Park which is only 5 miles from the border. So to Wisconsin and back was just about 11 miles. Not the longest ride (last year my longest was 30 miles), but still an impressive feat for a couple of amateurs on their first ride of the season.

Reaching the northern end of the Prairie Trail is always fun. The trail dumps you out into a cul-de-sac in a small neighborhood in Lake Genoa, WI. It’s almost like you wind up in someone’s back yard. There is at least a small park with a bench and a playground nearby. It’s a good place to stop for a rest.

The end of the trail runs between two houses
and stops in a cul-de-sac.

And as further proof you’ve entered Wisconsin, one of the houses in the cul-de-sac has a Packers helmet for a mailbox:

Click to embiggen

Since that first trip, we’ve tried to do a weekend ride whenever the weather allows. The Prairie Trail is always our first choice because of its proximity. We’ve explored the majority of it, but have yet to ride the southern third. There are several connecting trails, too. We rode the Hebron Trail one weekend, which is a 5 mile path connecting to the Prairie Trail just before Wisconsin.  And I’ve since discovered many, many more trails in northern Illinois (and southern Wisconsin) that we’re hoping to ride someday, too.

I always track our rides on my Android phone using My Tracks. After one month of bike riding, we’d ridden 100 miles. We’re currently at 110 miles -- our rides lately have been less frequent because the past few weekends were either cold or rainy, or both.

Yes, cold and rainy. The epic heat wave is now a distant (but blissful) memory. We were fortunate, at least, to have a gradual return to normal temps. There was no jarring 40 degree temperature drop. Just 70s, 60s, 50s, then 40s. An interesting footnote to the heat wave is that for only the second time ever, March was actually warmer on average than April.

Now that May is here, temperatures are steadily creeping back up. Next week’s forecast calls for sunny and clear skies in the 70s. So hopefully we’ll get back into our regular weekend rides.

Summer Fun

A lot's been going on lately.  Here's the scoop:

Severe Thunderstorms

Last week we had a line of severe thunderstorms blow through the area one morning, right as we were getting ready for work.  They were brief, but powerful, with wind gusts of 70-80mph.  Over 800,000 people wound up with no electricity, the worst storm-related outages in over a decade.  Our power went out, too, so I manually opened and closed the garage door for Wendy, took a shower in the dark, and shaved by flashlight.  Then I went out to survey the damage.

We were very fortunate: our yard was littered with small branches, but that was it.  A few houses down, two trees were uprooted, and one was lying on the roof of another house.  On the drive to work I saw a number of trees completely uprooted.  It was crazy.

When Wendy got to work, she discovered it was closed for lack of electricity, so she turned around and headed home.  By the time she got home the power at our house was back on, which was, again, very fortunate.  A lot of people had no power for several days, and a few unlucky ones had no power for nearly a week!  It was unbelievable how much damage was inflicted.  Here’s a collection of photos from around Chicago-land.

• Link1
• Link2
• Link3
• Link4
• Link5

Surgery Not Required

A couple of Saturdays ago, I was all set to perform major surgery on our laptop.  The hinge kept coming undone, making using the laptop a precarious proposition.  The laptop is almost 5 years old, so it's close to needing a replacement, but I couldn't bear buying a new one because of a broken hinge.  So I got everything ready: an operating table, an assortment of screwdrivers, instructions for hinge-replacement, a pair of new hinges I got off ebay for $7, and a youtube video showing the procedure being performed.  Once I got the laptop opened up, I discovered the hinge wasn't really broken: it was just missing an interior screw which had come out.  So I screwed it back in, patched up the laptop, and it was good as new, and only took about 5 minutes.  Much quicker than I was expecting!

Some Assembly Needed

We've kind-of, sort-of been half-looking for bedroom furniture for the past 5 years, with no luck.  To make do, we've been using college leftovers and $20 K-Mart nightstands.  Over the years, we've trekked to nearly every furniture store within an hour radius, but never found anything that:

1. We both liked
2. Was priced right
3. Most importantly, fit in our bedroom

However! In last week's Sunday newspaper was a World Market ad with a bedroom set that was on sale and appeared to meet every requirement.  After looking at it in the store, we agreed it still looked good, so we went for it!  It took two trips to two different World Markets, a lot of creative arranging of boxes in our car, and 4 days to assemble everything, but our quest, and our bedroom, is now complete.

Precognition

We've been waging a war against chipmunks this summer.  They took up residence underneath our porch and started chewing up parts of it.  I hired a wildlife company to trap them and take them away, and it worked, but they kept trapping more and more and more chipmunks.  Eventually it got too expensive and I decided I could do the same thing they're doing (using a cage trap with peanut butter bait) but much cheaper.  So I bought a Havahart for chipmunks and set it up.  It worked; I caught a few, which I transported a few miles away and set free.  It was a bit more work for me, but was a lot cheaper.

Then one night I dreamed a skunk was caught in the trap and I got sprayed trying to set it free.

A couple of mornings later after I finished getting ready for work, I looked out the window and saw something big and black in the trap.  I couldn't figure out what on earth it was until it started to move and I saw the dreaded and tell-tale white stripe.

I absolutely could not believe it.  I slowly realized that 1) I had dreamed this, and 2) I now had to go outside, get within inches of a skunk, and release the trap door so it could escape.  And if I got sprayed, I'd probably have to take the day off just to remove the smell.  Ugh.

So with Wendy's help, I formulated a plan of attack.  We figured out the best angle of approach to minimize the chance of being seen and thus freaking out the skunk.  I went outside, crouched close to the ground, and slowly made my way to the trap.  Once I got close, I noticed the latch to free the trap door was jammed.

At this point I was certain I'd have to get out a set of tools and pry the door open.  But I decided to just pull hard on the door, hoping the latch would give out.  It did, and as soon as it did I sprinted to the deck, and through the sliding doors which Wendy had thoughtfully unlocked.  The skunk, thankfully, ran the other way and I escaped unscathed.

That was an exciting morning!

Lap One

During one of my recent hikes at Moraine Hills, detailed in the last post, someone rode past me on a bike, and I thought "Man, that looks fun."  A few days later I dusted off my bike, which I hadn't used in about 5 years, aired up the tires and went for a quick ride around the neighborhood.  I was surprised it still worked after years of neglect.

A few weeks later I got a spiffy new bike rack for the car and immediately started planning a bike trip to Moraine Hills.  I decided to take the Friday before July 4th off because the weather forecast said it would be the hottest day of the year.  Unfortunately, the weather was a complete bust.  It was cloudy, with a slight breeze, and disturbingly pleasant.

Looking on the bright side, I was able to ride longer than if it was hot, so I managed to ride every trail in the park:

10.8 miles in 1 hour 3 minutes, for an average speed of 10.2 mph.  I discovered Friday afternoon is the perfect time to go for a bike ride there.  I rode for miles without seeing anyone.

Frozen Treats

Wendy's been making Popsicles thanks to some Popsicle molds she recently got.  So we've been enjoying some delicious homemade frozen treats as the weather has gotten hotter.  Here are the flavors we've tried so far:

• Lime Mint
• Strawberry Mango
• Chocolate
• Chocolate Mint

Next up: Chocolate Peanut Butter!

We Only Love Saturday!

This was a really nice weekend.

Saturday morning, I discovered some really excellent programs on our local access cable channel, apparently aimed at native Indians and Pakistanis. I came in toward the end of a program that seemed to involve the inhabitants of two apartments across the alley from each other arguing about whose music they were going to listen to, only exclusively in song (and Hindi). It was almost totally incomprehensible, but I couldn't look away.

That segued into a program that was ostensibly about the over-use of certain Hindi phrases in music videos, but which really seemed to be an excuse to show music videos. I mean, they were taking requests. And giving shout-outs. My favorite video (which they played twice!) was "Chak de Saturday" by the Balle Balle Boys. It was a Matrix-inspired, computer-animated video that showed the Balle Balle Boys' computerized alter egos running down a hallway, entering doors marked "Wednesday" or "Thursday" and doing battle with a buxom female version of Mr. Smith. It then cut to the real Balle Balle Boys dancing with a Trinity look-alike and singing the catchy chorus: "No Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday/No more Thursday or Friday/We only love Saturday!" It was the only part of the song that was in English. Anyway, the programs were excellent. You can, if you want, read more about them at Namaste TV and Chitrahar.

We also bought bikes this weekend! Honestly, this was more exciting than the South Asian tv programs, but I think there's less to say about it. There are a lot of parks with bike trails in them nearby that we're looking forward to exploring.

We also saw Batman Begins, which was very dark and very cool. We both really enjoyed it, and I would highly recommend it to everyone. (Except Mom, who won't like it.) We went for a late-night bike ride after we got back from the movie. It was really nice, with fireflies everywhere.