Chippewa Moraine

There’s the crunch of leaves and then silence. And then the leaves again, closer this time.
Squirrels – Ed says. I’ve been listening to them.

It’s their evening dance, I guess. Most every other animal appears settled for the night. Not so the squirrels.

Though it’s not really night yet. The first dazzle of stars is becoming visible, but it’s just past seven. Still, within a few minutes, we’re both asleep.

As usual, I wake up frequently. It’s the way I sleep – one stretch, than another, some long and dreamless, many with the usual stories running through them. This night I know why I'm waking. It’s turning cold. I was sleeping on top of my sleeping bag after supper, now I’m loosely inside. Several hours later, I’m zipped up solid.

When we had pitched the tent in the forest of the Chippewa Moraine (a tad over 200 miles northwest of Madison) on a tiny isthmus between two lakes, it was so warm that we kept the tent rain cover off. It’s splendid to have nothing but  fine mesh between you and the forest (it's been so warm that there are still the occasional mosquitoes). Until it gets cold. Then you wish you had thought less about the splendidness of it all and more about setting up the protective layer against a crispy cool night.


But oh, the weather! It’s the unseasonable warmth of this October that pushed us up here to begin with. Initially ambitious, we thought of going up to Michigan’s UP this week-end. No, too much driving for a two day trip. Ed suggested a ridge trail just a couple of hours north of Madison. Lakes! -- I tell him. We need to wake up to the noise of the waterfowl and a mist rising above still waters!

Last time we camped, the mist did indeed rise up over waters (not so still then -- it was the Wisconsin River) in breathtaking wisps of pink. That kind of image stays with you. Up in the Chippewa Moraine, there are more than twenty lakes within a day’s hike. The Ice Age Trail, that old friend of ours, passes right through – up one ridge, down the next, through a mixed forest of birch, maple, oak, and conifers.





The perfect backpacking week-end. Not true: one thing that I suppose may have been a bit less disconcerting. These two days have been designated as the days of the youth hunt in Wisconsin. Kids can hunt deer, so long as they have an adult with them. If you’re hiking, you’re advised to wear blaze orange. A warning that even dogs take seriously.





Not Ed though. Wear the vest, I tell him.
I’m wearing a bright red t-shirt.
...the color of maple leaves right now, I point out. But I let it go. I’m his shield We’re traveling together this time.


The Chippewa Moraine is just north of the small town of Bloomer.





And just outside of Bloomer, we come across a rally.





Harley people, Ed says. Having, for business reasons attended many a motorcycle rally in years past, he talks freely about the image of a Harley person, about the styles of bikes. To me, Harleys are loud. I can’t imagine Ed on a Harley.

Did you ever own a Harley? 

No, but I had an Indian. A 1948. 

Loud? 

Of course.
Why did you have it then? 
Cheap.


We’re sitting at a picnic table outside the Chippewa Moraine Ice Age Interpretive Center. We have with us a Subway to split for lunch. Below, a prairie stretches toward one of the lakes and beyond.










Shortly after 1, we set out. Not a heavy duty hike – four hours (nine miles) out one day, then, circling a bit more, five hours (eleven miles)  back the next. But what a hike! We are amidst a canvas of intractable, at once vivacious but also muted and gentle color.











In spite of the noise of the occasional gunfire, we come across no hunters and only once do we sight a white tail deer. Frogs, we do see frogs.





Snakes, too. More than one.





And over one of the lakes, loons croon with that characteristic plaintive song of theirs.





The trail continues mostly through county parkland and Ed reminds me that much of the dedicated forests are there for hiking because hunters have lobbied hard for their preservation.











When the trail leaves the county forest, it climbs up to a prairie that is beyond beautiful. We talk about the difficulties in establishing a prairie on land that for too many decades has been losing the battle with quack grass and creeping charlie. Still, when you look at these meadows you think nothing is impossible and you tell yourself – we should do this back at the farmette. Maybe.





Camping is free and unrestricted, here on county land. We pick our spot on the isthmus. I’m surprised that there are still a few mosquitoes out at dusk. Ed lights his ancient stove and boils water for the pouch dinner we’ve taken along. The sun sets on the lake at the foot of our tent.
















...at night, a crash rouses both of us. Falling branch, Ed mumbles. But it’s not. There is a further sound of twigs breaking. Deer. It must be deer. I know I’ll spook them if I go out to explore. I stay in my warm bag and the noise quickly fades, replaced by a windy patter of falling leaves. When a gust picks up, it sounds like rain. A dry rain hitting our tent. From a starlit sky.


Morning. Maybe the best part is now. For those wisps of predawn mist over the lake.





...for the pink sky and birdsong....

Ed boils water again, this time for pouches of apple cinnamon oatmeal.


 


We pack up camp and by 8:15 we’re back on the trail.





Up one ridge, down the next, pausing every now and then, for the gold studded prairie...











...and the lakes...





...and a snack of dried apricots and nuts. The sky is a touch less blue this morning, giving us a chance to see it all in different light. Morning light.





And then, afternoon light once more.





A mix of trees, a mix of colors.






The perfect, fair-weather backpacking trip. Worth the nearly four hour drive.

On the way back to Madison we stop at an Eau Claire mega-Target. Ed picks up a pack of Dove mini ice cream bars.

There are 17 little bars in there!

It was the best deal per ounce...

I understand that, but that is a lot of ice cream calories!

He takes out a handful and we distribute the rest to the people in line.

Don’t tell anyone, but Wisconsin is one hell of a beautiful state.

days like no other

Oh fickle blog poster! The sun comes out and my computer time goes down.

But truthfully, I was indoors again today, all day long.

Except for a brief hour-long walk with a daughter...










Or at least we intended it to be one hour. We got lost. More than thirty years living in Madison, with perhaps a hundred Arboratum visits under my belt and today, for the first time, I get lost in the woods.





We emerge eventually at the opposite end of the park. It is clear as anything that I will now be late for a meeting that I have scheduled for 4. I call Ed to help. Ed zips over on his motorbike and helps stall the people waiting for me. Thank you Ed.


In the evening, my daughter and I meet up for dinner on the Square. For pub burgers at Graze.





It is a gorgeous night – and the people were singing, they went nah nah nah nah nah...

Fine -- in truth they aren’t singing, not at this point anyway. It is the Homecoming Eve and after dinner, we follow the tail end of a parade down State Street. The night is hot and the parade is ending with fire jugglers and the streets are packed. 





The Homecoming celebrations culminate with fireworks at the Union Terrace. My daughter and I are there, on the dock, waiting for a concert inside the Union and even though we have back row seats for the concert, we have front row seats for this interlude of fire in the sky over Lake Mendota.






What concert are we attending, you ask?

It is of music that I first listened to more than forty years ago. Indeed, the artist – Joan Baez, then traveled to my home country and performed live (in Poland) at the Sopot Music Festival (this was in 1970). It was only the second time that a western pop artist of any note would come to perform before a live commie Polish audience (the Rolling Stones were the first to do this, three years earlier, in 1967).





In those years, I too liked to strum the guitar and since I sang mostly American folk songs, I usually had an attentive and generous (albeit tiny, composed mostly of friends) audience.

The summer after my high school graduation (we are now in 1969), I attended a young adult camp with my boyfriend. He was Catholic and I was not and I think he and his family hoped that I would convert.

His mother was at the camp as well and one evening she said, wistfully almost – give the guitar to Nina, she has the voice of Joan Baez.

She was an incredibly sweet woman, always looking for the good, even if it was a futile endeavor. I understood that day that she probably liked me more than my boyfriend did. I sang my usual JB favorites with that bittersweet knowledge and I tried not to mind that my boyfriend was not really listening.


Tonight, Joan Baez sang to a packed house of people, mostly my age. Next to my daughter and myself was another mother and daughter combo and that mother, too, teared up when Baez sang – you just sort of wasted my precious time... I wondered how many in the audience had once had lovers or some such entities who just sort of wasted their precious time.


The evening was splendid. I rode the bus home humming don't think twice it's alright...



[Ed and I are taking off early Saturday. We’ll be back Sunday evening. More on the where and how when we return.]

choices

I want time off this week-end. And a few hours off tomorrow afternoon. The price tag? Today is a very very long work day.

Outside my office, the sun is as brilliant as ever, the leaves are at their highest magnificence, but it hardly matters. I don’t even bike to work. No time. No time.

Here’s the one shot that I took – on my way to the bus stop.





I work, with the idea that I have a brilliant weekend before me. How good is that!

gold

You can’t do this, day in and day out! Days are never this perfect! What’s the flip side? What’s in store for us this winter??

Biking to work... I swore to myself that the camera will stay concealed. No more beautiful-bike-path-by -the-lake shots! That’s too easy.

Okay, just one.





I have to stay in the office late today, but that means I can give myself permission to scoot down for a late afternoon espresso. And I come across "gold" of a different sort. A senatorial gold.





I listen and I worry – oh my, I know how November can be a real counterbalance to the beauty of October (depending on the weather and on whom you’d like to see prevail in the elections).

Eh, politics. Let me not think about this. Let me just revel in what’s free and available for all to enjoy. The gold of this season – the utter beauty of warm sunshine on your shoulder as you trudge up Bascom hill.

reverse impressionism

I read about a special exhibit in Paris. One that opened this week and will run through nearly the end of January. Paintings of Monet.

I’m one who loves Monet – evocation of earthy, light filled beauty is something that I admire so much on a canvas that it could be argued I am inclined to look for something comparable, above all else, when I am out and about with my camera hanging over my shoulder (that’s a constant: it’s always hanging over my shoulder).

If a canvas, say by Monet or Pissarro, or Sisley (to stay with the greats) is to convey a sense of life in harmony with the great outdoors, through brush strokes that give the essence rather than the detail of a given scene, leaving you to form that lovely impression of, say, a haystack in a winter sunset, or a romp through a field of poppies, then I think what happens as I bike in these glorious days of sunshine and of early fall color is that suddenly I see myself as if I were in a painting. Their painting. Is it that I want not to let go of the perfection of that given moment?

There are times when a photo will do. This afternoon, for instance, on the Union Terrace.





Even though it was quite warm for October, the terrace chairs were mostly empty, as if no one could quite believe our luck with the weather.





But there are moments when I think that a photo will not do. Later, on the lakeside bike path, for example. In my mind, a painting is so much more suitable to the grandness of the moment. Here, on the woody and dappled path, a photo is too blunt, too sharp and contoured. The trees, in their golden shimmer, play with your senses, creating images closer to those painted by the greats. Maybe you’ll agree?

staring at the sky

Oh that blue! That stellar blue! We have a week ahead full of it and sometimes I think if there is a time to run from work it should be right now, with all that blue and a promise of more blue for days to come.

But, I don’t run away. Instead, I bike to work. With blues coming at me from all sides.











Though on the ride home (circuitous, because I have to pick up DVDs at the library) I am reminded that this Fall will forever stick in my mind as the time of purple asters.






In other news... well, truthfully, there’s no other news worth noting here.

I did have a half hour this afternoon, during which I needed to kill time. Not wanting to go back to my office (once I’m out, I’m out), I went to the bookstore and read a magazine on how to create a livable space with 500 square feet to work with. Lovely moment.

There will never be a time in which I will be creating a livable space for myself of that size – not anytime soon anyway, but it was exciting to think that I would enjoy doing just that.

That’s it. Nothing more to report.

the definition of flat

It’s straightforward. Merriam-Webster offers this: being or characterized by a horizontal line or tracing without peaks or depressions. Flat.

Such a beautiful day. Cool initially, but in a good way. And if you place yourself in a sunny spot, you forget that we almost had frost  last night.


We clean the condo in the morning. It doesn’t need it really, but it’s what I do on Sunday mornings. It’s a small place and even though we go to great bother and even take down screens and flush them clean, we are done by noon.


My bike is at the farmette, where it had been placed for the much needed repair work. Ed had replaced broken gear parts and today I am to ride it back to town.


In the alternative, there is a lovely little ride from Fitchburg (the place of Ed's farmette) to Paoli and back that we can take... Ed had done this loop on the back roads with his biking group last Wednesday and he's thinking I may like to give it a shot.

 It's flat. Really it is. A few gentle hills, but basically flat as they come.

He says this because he knows I am wise to the Wednesday night rides. They are damn challenging. I can do hills alright, but not their hills. These people seek out ascents that'll put them in good stead for the Tour de France. Or some such.

Flat? No more than a few climbs?

I can't even call them climbs.

We set out.

What can I say -- it's a beautiful ride!















But the man is prone to put a good spin on most anything. And he can shamelessly lie, too, if it'll get me to do something he thinks is good for me.






I admit, you always get the best bucolic loveliness when there is texture to the ride. Flat is boring. Hills give a layer of excitement. Every mile is different. From ridge to river, then back up again...





















...And then down once more.





I should have known. We had done rides to Paoli before. They all had quite a few heady hills.

You deliberatly mislead me! I say to Ed, panting on the next to last hill for the day.
Would you have gone otherwise?
I would have been prepared!
...to say no?

Eaten a bigger breakfast maybe...

Who am I kidding. I would have stalled and the day would have disappeared behind a night sky. I also know that, in fact, hills are what draws Ed to bike riding.  And he assumes that they must be a visible blimp on a radar screen before they can be called "hills." He still can't quite believe that I approach long uphill climbs with trepidation.  I remember the week-long bike ride he and I took in the south of France. I paused maybe ten times during a particularly long and strenuous climb up a mountain. He did it without stopping once. For him, if it's easy, it's not nearly as much fun.

Often times, I do accept the premise that hard is ultimately more gratifying. On this day, too, Ed asks (as we approach the last big climb) -- you want to veer off and head for the level path? And I answer truthfully --  No, I want to do it right. Hills and all.  I say this without hesitation. No, let me be honest: without much hesitation.