movement

As I consider the three days since our return, I see that they have one thing in common: in all three, we’ve slowed down to a crawl. Whereas during our trip, each day had a good dose of walking, hiking, or swimming, since we’ve been back, each day has had a good dose of sitting. Yes, there was a market outing and there have been many hours of watering, so not every moment has been spent on the couch, but I do have to admit that especially on hot days, it’s hard to come anywhere near the amount of activity that we typically have when we’re away.

Sunday. Ed, we have to return to our more active ways! (I say this now that the temps have dropped a handful of degrees.)

And so in the morning, we plan on doing one of my favorite small loops – a combination of kayaking-biking that brings back memories – it’s the first such “excursion” that Ed and I did in the year that we met.

We eat breakfast on the porch (at last! it's 'cool' enough!)...

...then I poke out a few wasps from the hinges of the old pickup truck (this, after poking out a few wasps from the lid of the second garbage can, having already done this once from the lid of the first garbage can) and we load it with the two boats and two bikes. Off we go.

...Toward Lake Kegonsa, where we leave the bikes. We drive then toward Lake Waubesa and put in the kayaks on the Yahara River (just after the damn).

It’s a lovely little run – not taxing at all, but it’s bird filled (and algae filled and, unfortunately, in the Mud Lake – dead carp filled) and the breeze is wonderful and the sky is blue and it just feels good to be pushing at water again!

My Huck Finn Ed says to me – we should take the boat down the Yahara this summer, all the way to the Mississippi... (The Yahara runs into the Rock which, in turn, eventually runs into the Mississippi). I say – okay.

Our summer play is just like that: plans hatch from the seat of a bike, or a boat on a very warm day.

As we glide into Lake Kegonsa, the Sunday boat traffic picks up, but that’s okay, we get out here, leave our kayaks and bike back toward the truck.

The bike ride itself is mostly flat and delightfully bucolic.






Ed rides always a few paces behind me. I comment over my shoulder that my tires need a little more air and within seconds I hear a little crunch and I think surely I must have flattened one. I glance back and see that my tire is just fine, but Ed and his bike have landed in a ditch.

Now, Ed is one experienced cyclist and I have never ever seen him fall. Yes, I know that many years ago he broke his collar bone going down a hill fast and flipping over something on the road, but that was then and it was a hill and this is now and we are on a stretch of simple, quiet roads.

Eventually I learn that a car came up on him and in trying to merge behind me, what with my lackadaisical la-di-da peddling, he managed to hit my tire and take a tumble.

He’s not hurt and indeed, the whole incident is one that is chuckle worthy, nothing more than that, but I post about it with the hope of encouraging all out there to wear helmets, because even on the simplest runs, you just never know.

We're pedaling along, and we pass a nature trail and we’re curious about this too, so we leave our bikes and hike down a bit, past willows and tall cattails and prairies that haven't yet turned yellow and brittle.


 













We push around an old, abandoned tennis ball, outdoing one another in the distance of the kick.

In the course of this rambling kind of a day, we come across your typical side of the road corn and melon stand and we pause to buy both, but it’s sort of a sad moment because typically, corn here spills from trucks loaded down with it and it is joyously sold in huge quantities to willing cob loving buyers. This year, the crop in southern Wisconsin is in severe trouble because of the heat and drought. The family selling what little they have looks grim. Rain, where the hell are you this year?

In the evening, my girl and her fiancé came over for supper, which of course has the corn and the market tomatoes etc etc. An Ocean commenter reflected that when you are on vacation, you always eat better than when you’re home. That’s not true for us. We eat with great care at home and we let go of any hard and fast rules when we travel. And so it’s good to be back to a fridge filled with veggies and seasonal stuff.

But let me repeat – may we please help out the growers in the south of our state by giving them (us) some rain?