An important milestone: 15,000 cycling miles since spring 2009

Early in 2009 I got it in my head to ride the Seattle to Portland (STP) bike ride.  I wasn't a cyclist, owning just a used, heavy steel bike that I tooled around in some during the previous two-three years.  Doing 10 miles here, 15 there, every other week or so.  Nothing much.

But I had heard about the STP somewhere, and decided to do it.

I bought a new "better" bike.  It was also steel.  Cost $400.  Right there you know what kind of quality it was.   But it was still a better bike than I was a cyclist. 

I started riding.  That spring I rode and rode and rode, pushing myself to the point of exhaustion many times.  I was starting late in life, at age 61, to be a cyclist.....I guess.

I finished the STP, and have not been the same since.  It is the most important, non-person-related, event/accomplishment/whatever in my life.

Shortly after that STP I began a series of orthopedic operations.   I spent the next three winters having foot operations.  It took three of them to rebuild my foot (which now works great, by the way).  I also had two more shoulder operations, having already had a rotator cuff repair the previous year.

In 2010 I had planned on doing the STP again, but my foot didn't heal in enough time to train.  Instead, I rented an apartment in Seattle, and rode 2000+ miles on the Burke-Gilman to try to get back into shape after four months of complete inactivity recovering from surgery.  In 2011, Jules, Sean, and I did the ride.   It's hard to believe that it was five years ago that we did this together.

I had met Vicky, and told her that it was probably my final STP.  She encouraged me to keep riding, telling me she would help me train for another STP if I wanted to do it.  Little did either of us realize that within a few weeks of us riding together that it was clear she was strong enough to do the STP  and was interested in doing so.

So, we have kept riding, having now completed five STPs together.

In addition to the five orthopedic operations I have had since I started cycling in 2009, we have dealt with a number of other age-related medical issues.  I have been diagnosed with a heart murmur, so my heart isn't as efficient as it otherwise might be (although I have no symptoms---more on that later).  Vicky has had skin cancer removed, requiring time when we could do nothing even as active as walking until her grafts healed.  She has also had arthritis developing in her back as the result of being rear ended in a car accident several years ago, necessitating the insertion of a titanium disk in her back.

But through all of this we have kept riding, when we are at home, and can.  For about half of the year we are away from home and our bikes, usually roaming the southwest deserts camping and hiking.

So to have accumulated 15,000 miles since I first decided to do the STP in 2009 is an important achievement for me, and for us. 

Important because I am convinced that without the constant encouragement of Vicky I would not be as healthy physically as I otherwise would be.  Those operations were slogs of just sitting while my foot healed.  And my doctors have told me that because of my high physical activity level my heart has adjusted itself (in some mysterious way) so that I have no symptoms.  I will need surgery on it some day, but if I keep my activity level high I may be able to avoid that for many years----hopefully.

Everything I have read suggests that the only control you have over your health is to eat right and move.  Just move.  Move doing anything, but just move and move a lot and move often.  So that's what we do. 

And important for us because we have so much fun together with our cycling.  Early next season we will pass a milestone for the two of us--10,000 miles cycling together.  We are within a few hundred miles of it.

Vicky took a photo of my at the exact point where I crossed 15,000 miles (now, understand that for the first year much of my mileage was estimates based on maps, and for the second year was based on a mechanical odometer, but so OK it's only a pretend exact place----but that's good enough for us).

2000 miles: We reach this year's cycling goal!

On a beautiful, 31-mile Whidbey Island ride.

The route we used to cross our threshold was part of the Tour de Whidbey route from last weekend.

On the Tour de Whidbey Vicky and I did the central part of the island, and created a 45-mile route.  Jules did both the south and the central routes for his 100 miles.

Both days, today and last Saturday, are the reasons why people live in the PNW.  Mild temperatures and lots of sun.  And the astounding beauty of this island.  On our bike ride today we saw two mountain ranges, beaches, tide areas, farms, fields, trees, Saratoga Passage, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, wildflowers, and birds.

Here we are after our ride today:

We did our 2000 miles in 90 rides, a bit over 22 miles/ride.  Last year it took us 100 rides to get to 2000 miles, and we didn't reach that number until the end of September.  Since we are leaving this year for our annual road trip about 4 weeks earlier than last year, we are quite pleased that we could accomplish our goal before we left.

We still have some more miles to tack onto our total.  But, today we are celebrating!

Here is Jules three days ago coming in to the Tour de Whidbey finish line after riding 100 miles.

He came over with Jessica, Ian, and Adam to celebrate his birthday!!!

Sun Lakes. A HOT HOT camping trip with Ian and Adam

It was hot, like really hot.  Actually too hot to be able to do a lot of things, except hang around in the lake.   But we all did our best.  Took a couple of short hikes, but because it was so HOT, they had to be short.

We had fun.  

 

Adam holding a small deer in his hand:

 

and boy did the ice cream every afternoon help!

Stella and Marina summer 2016

All our grandchildren are super fun and enthusiastically enjoy camping and hiking with us.  But our grandsons and granddaughters are very different in some noticeable ways.

Although Marina and Stella can be very “rough and tough”, they are also very “girly.“ They are very like me, Vicky, in this way.  Stella and Marina and I love to look at pretty things, chat together about this flower and that hairstyle or earring....just anything pretty.  And we also get great happiness in spending hours doing any kind of craft.  Our grandsons just aren’t interested in these things.  Viva La difference!

Dan and I get to see our granddaughters in the spring, when we get home from our roadtrips, and before they leave for summer vacation.  So in the spring I get to be a girl again with our granddaughters and do craft projects with them.  Dan has two very important jobs to do.  He gets to be the Visa Card and pay for our craft projects and most importantly, Dan HAS to admire every little thing that Marina and Stella complete and show him!

In the past we have provided Marina and Stella with jewelry-making supplies, and I have been teaching them how to bead and make jewelry, including earrings, bracelets, and necklaces.  

I taught myself how to sew when I was eleven years old, on an old Singer machine that my mother had and my mother and none of my three sisters (or two brothers) ever used. So this old sewing machine became one of my good friends.  

I spent hours altering my sister’s hand-me-downs so they would fit me, as I was the smallest girl in my family (With six kids in my family, the only new clothes we got in the 1950’s and 60’s was a “first day of school outfit”).  I also made every dress I wore to my high school dances.  They were all “originals” that I designed.  I loved making my own clothes.

Last spring I taught Marina and Stella some basic sewing, and they both made a bag with a draw string.  Marina is 11 and Stella is now 8 years old.  Since Marina is the same age I was when I started to sew, I decided that she would be capable to completing an “outfit." Stella is still a little too young for a complicated sewing project that would take several months to complete.

Dan and I took Marina to the fabric store and we bought her everything she needed for her “sewing kit."  Then Marina picked out a pattern, fabric, buttons, and her thread.  Once a week Marina came to our home and worked on her dress.  Stella often came along and made jewelry, assorted crafts, and sewed the pillow cases and curtains for our Grandchildren’s Room.

Marina learning how to read a pattern, lay down and pin the pattern to her fabric, and cut out the pieces for her dress:

 

This took several weeks. At one point while she was ironing her seams open, she mentioned that most of sewing was not actual sewing, but all the steps getting ready to sew.  A very astute observation!  She was not complaining, just noticing how much more than sewing is involved in making an outfit.

Marina quickly progressed from me helping her to sew a straight line to sewing by herself:

 

Grandpa doing his job, admiring Marina’s dress:

 

The completed dress.  Beautiful!

 

Stella showed an interest in playing the piano, so Dan bought her a beginner piano book and taught her how to read the notes and play a few songs:

Stella showing Grandpa the wooden birdhouse and mobile that she painted and glued together:

 

Curtains that Stella made for their room in our home:

One of the really cool things about living on Whidbey Island is the Island County Fair.  The children living on the island can enter not only the animals they have raised during the year, but can also enter all the projects and artwork they have done during the year.

Marina and Stella entered all the things they made with us this spring in the Fair.  You should have seen all the blue ribbons they were awarded!

Near the end of the summer we got to see Marina and Stella one last time before we headed out on Roadtrip 6.  It was a hot day and we had a wonderful day swimming at Goss Lake!

We will sure miss all our grandchildren while we are on our next roadtrip, but before we know it we will be playing with them again.

My High School 50th Reunion: Fort Collins High School Lambkins

The best I have been able to come up with to describe it is like I stepped into a time machine as an 18-year-old, and when I stepped out of it, 50 years later, everyone had aged.  But not me, of course, because I had been in the time machine.

The committee that organized the reunion did a terrific job, which I will talk more about later.  One of the things they did was to create name tags for each participant that had a photo of us from 50 years ago---the photo in our High School Annual.

This was helpful to me because after I exited the time machine I had to look at people's 50-year-old photos to see who it was I was talking to.

And then, the awful realization.  Everybody was also looking at my name tag.  Had they, too, just stepped out of a time machine?  Had to be, because I know I haven't changed. 

Fifty years is a really long time.  But it doesn't seem like it.  The reason it doesn't seem like it is that we did not evolve to retain memories of the past, except as fleeting glimpses.  Otherwise, our brains would fill up and overflow at about age 25.  And we would stand motionless reviewing 25 years worth of memories while a saber tooth tiger ate us.

So, we forget.

But when you really force yourself to think about it, time can stretch.  Take a day and do nothing but contemplate the moment, and watch time pass fairly slowly.  Now, realize that there have been over 18,000 days like this since I last saw these folks.

I taught countless hours in my job, but can't remember a single one of my classes from start to finish.  Only snatches.  I watched my children grow for 18+ years, and can remember dozens or hundreds of episodes, but add them all up and it won't account for a single day's worth of time.

I'm going to remember this on my death bed---my life was actually a lot longer than my brain can remember it was.  Maybe it will be a small solace.

My friend David sent me something he recently read:  "Getting old is not a stroll but an ambush."

And while time takes its toll on our bodies, and I know firsthand that it has with mine, for the people at my high school reunion you could tell that it has not taken a toll on their spirits.  The people there were just like they were 50 years ago.  Upbeat, pleasant, and basically happy. 

And you know that life has beaten each of them around some.  But they are there.  Still smiling and joking like I remember them. 

Their personalities much more like they were 50 years ago than our bodies are.  Isn't that nice?

And then there are the 20% who have died.  That's what the statistics show.  The organizing committee had done a nice of job of providing a photo of each classmate who had died, and a memorial service that Vicky and I attended.

So many of them, gone.  So many I remember so well.  Still young in my memory.  Still smiling and laughing.  Still full of hope.

The first night's activities were at Club Tico, which we referred to when we were in high school as just "Tico."

Tico was a club that was begun by students in 1948 who raised money to create a place where teens could meet and dance.  It was held in a building at City Park.  There was a nice, large dance floor, pool tables, and a small concession stand.

People went there every weekend, Friday and Saturday.  It was something we took for granted, but shouldn't have.  We didn't know we shouldn't have because it was always there.....kind of like your parents are, and what adolescent doesn't take his/her parents for granted?

It only stayed viable for seven more years after I graduated.  The reasons for no longer having Tico are vague.  I read a newspaper article about it, but there didn't seem to be any good reason that it ended.........some 43 years ago.

Did the city just decide it wasn't worth it?  Did the schools decide it wasn't worth it?  Was there no adult to sponsor it?  We had an adult who did--Doyle Sorrell--who all of the students loved.  Maybe there were no longer any Doyle Sorrells around.  We took him for granted too, which now I regret.

My band, the Pryde (yes, like the Pride of Lions) played there Friday and Saturday nights my senior year.

For our reunion, a different band that had played in High School re-formed and played.  First time they had been together since high school, and they sounded really good.

What fun, huh?

Vicky and I even got to dance some.  Very special to dance, once again, 50 years later, at Tico.

The second night was at a ballroom at Colorado State University.  A fine dinner, a fine time, and a fine slide presentation.  Lots of time to talk.

I saw a lot of high school and junior high school friends.  What I became aware of is that I knew a lot of people, and did things with a lot of people, and so did everyone else.  It was really cool to see a lot of them.

And mostly it was the boys who I remember.  Only a few girls.  Not surprising since I spent my time with the boys.  But still it was a realization that mostly who I talked with and knew in high school were the boys.

There were a few boys, in particular, who seeing again was mind boggling, and really wonderful.  In no particular order, they would be Dennis Proctor, Keith Furones, Arden Kirkpatrick, Jim Campain, and Norris Chase. 

All have turned out to be fine men.  I hope I can include myself this way too.

There was one girl, in particular, who I wanted to see--Carol Steele.  She was the daughter of Merrill Steele who I worked for at his grocery story all through high school.  That work experience, and family, meant a lot to me.  The other girl I would like to have seen was my friend Claudia Wall, but she died at age 50.  

I didn't get enough photos.  Everything was happening too quickly.

Me and Keith:

Me and Arden:

 Dennis across the table (gray hair).

Our old high school, now a performing arts center for Colorado State University. Kathy (who also went to FCHS) and I are sitting outside of it:

 

I wasn't sure I wanted to go to this reunion.  50 years since I have seen people is a very long time.  I decided that I both wanted to go and wanted to not miss it.  It's not like I could change my mind and go next year or something.

I'm glad I did.  It was very powerful in ways I have not yet been able to fully understand.  I am happy for the people I saw there who looked happy, after all of these years.  Children, grandchildren, victories, and losses.  We have all had them all.

Regardless of everything else, we have that in common--sometimes we got the bear and sometimes the bear got us.  But we are still here trying.  And for two nights, all of us laughing and hugging.

It's not our 1966 choir singing, but we sang these two odes to FCHS 50 years ago in the A Capella Choir:

Hail to thee Fort Collins High School.

Travel the Lambkin Way. 

And those of us who are left sang them once again at the Memorial service this weekend.

It has been 50 years since I sang "Travel the Lambkin Way" as a member of the choir.  It is our school treasure of a song.  I finished it with tears in my eyes, being thrown back 50 years in my life, and knowing I would never sing it again with my classmates.

Tropical birds are leaving for the year: Large birds remain

Our birds are leaving us.  The summer tropicals have left for the south, for warmer climes.

They are missed.

No longer do we have to get up at 4:30 in the morning to close our windows so that we aren't kept awake by their singing.  No longer do we re-open them at 6:00 in the morning so we can listen to them while we drink our morning coffee.

No longer do we need to fill bird feeders every day.  No longer are we living in our own aviary.

But they will be back next year.  And we can't wait.

What we have seen in our woods in the past two days are several of our large birds, including an Osprey, a Great Horned Owl, and two Pileated Woodpeckers.  Such wonderful wildlife on our Whidbey Island paradise.

Putting up wood for the winter

Three years ago we got rid of our riding mower, and bought a walk-behind DR mower.  Doing this also meant that we wouldn't be able to use the riding mower to haul wood up from the lower garage.   We'd have to haul it by wheelbarrow or by the armload. 

This decision was a conscious one to force ourselves to move more, to not use machines to make things easier for us. 

At our age, the more we move the better.  Mowing the lawn using a walk behind mower, and walking wood up from the lower garage requires effort.  Effort is our friend.

We make it fun. 

We have an entire two-car garage filled with wood for heat.  Pushing that wheelbarrow up the hill is a lot easier when you consider that each load represents about $20 or so worth of propane.