Memorial Day weekend bicycling

Carole and I don't get out on our bicycles as much as we'd like. The main reason is that our house sits just off a busy two-lane state route where the locals tend to exceed the speed limit to a dangerous degree. It's a twisty, occasionally steep road where you'd have to pedal at least three miles to get to much of anything and where you'd have to pedal more like ten miles before you'd actually have gotten somewhere. Nonetheless, each year we show a great deal of enthusiasm at the start of the warm-weather season and then we become more slothful as the summer goes by.

Saturday was our second bicycle ride of this year's warm-weather season. We parked at Oakledge Park in Burlington and followed the Burlington bike path 9.5 miles north to the very beginning of the Colchester causeway, the rail trail that leads out across an arm of Lake Champlain. I was game to keep going north but Carole was tired and wanted to turn around. So we did, ending up with a 19-mile ride. The bike path is never very hilly but it has long continuous slopes in a few places and in previous years we've found them tough going at the start of the year.

This year, oddly enough, we both felt much stronger. Perhaps (for my part) that's because of the walking I've been doing for the Breast Cancer 3-day but part of it may be because we'd done more to stay hydrated with lots and lots of water and stay powered up by eating things like Clif Shot Bloks. I've always felt a little silly about eating GU energy gels and Hammer Shots and Clif Shot Bloks; I'm no marathoner who has to eat those or pass out from enervation halfway through the event. But they do seem to make a difference. Perhaps using them will help us with longer and longer kayak trips and bicycle trips and so forth.

Anyway, it was a nice little ride. We need to do a lot more.

Our route (Oakledge Park is at the southern end):



Me and Carole at the Winooski River bridge between Burlington and Colchester:



Carole at North Beach in Burlington:

Memorial Day weekend kayaking

This past Sunday we did our first serious kayak trip of the year, not counting a paddle around the harbor we did a couple of weeks ago. Starting from Delta Park at the mouth of the Winooski River in Colchester, Vermont, we paddled four miles out into Lake Champlain, rounded the former site of the Colchester Reef lighthouse (now a University of Vermont weather station), and returned to shore.

Eight miles... on our first real outing of the year. We must be getting stronger, or all that energy goo and water we've been ingesting while out exercising must be having the intended effect. Perhaps it's some of each.

Our route (blue is shallow water, white is deeper water, and brown is land):



( Read more... )

Tonight's walk

Carole and I did a five mile walk tonight. We drove one car five miles from home (per the odometer) and then walked back. Then drove back and got the car.

Such efficient people we are, burning all that gas just to walk! But we wanted to walk a road we hadn't walked before and we chose a little dirt road south of our house, across the river, for the purpose. Only problem was, we had no idea how far "five miles" would be unless we drove it. I guess we could have walked 2.5 miles from home, gone as far down said road as 2.5 miles took us, then turned around. My GPS unit would have been happy to tell us when to turn around. But this way was more interesting, not tracing the same route twice and all that.

Our route, starting 4 miles down Wes White Road:



Carole by the shores of Gillette Pond:



Me at the sign for Robbins Mountain Wildlife Management Area:



Carole by a patriotically-painted barn a mile or so from home:

Hot Dog Buns

Amateur but aspiring baker that I am, it's bothered me that I can make my own bread for most purposes but hadn't had a lot of luck producing worthwhile hot dog buns. I'll spare you the details and cut to the essential point of this post: I finally snapped and ordered a hot dog bun pan from King Arthur Flour. It's used for baking "New England" style hot dog buns, the kind with the slit on the top as opposed to the side.

I made my first batch using the pan this evening, going out for a walk during the first rise and going back to pick up the car (long story) during the second rise:



They look good. Tomorrow night we'll have wurst of some kind in homemade buns. Yum!