Time Travel [bicycling, art]

On Saturday evening, after a lovely day's expedition to Troy, we said a hasty farewell to my mother, and then S and I watched the fourth and final program for the Bicycle Film Festival, the "Adventure Longs." (It was called something else, but "Adventure Longs" is a more fun name, to better contrast with the "Adventure Shorts" program). In this program, we got to witness the experiences of people on bikepacking adventures and races, and riding the End to End in the UK. It was both wonderful and terrible to watch.

The wonderful part was witnessing so many people express joy at the beauty and simplicity of being out in the natural world, riding their bikes, and getting to see some phenomenal scenery. The East Texas Showdown brought back memories of so many rides and adventures in eastern Texas, with the added bonus element that it was about a bikepacking race, which means more time on peaceful trails and less time on speed-sucker the coarse chipseal found on many Texas farm roads. I'm also grateful they highlighted a bikepacking race that sounds daunting but is totally achievable and structured to be feasible for people who aren't so much looking to race as to just get out and have a fun adventure in the woods.

Two of the films did an incredible job of showcasing what it's like to ride through the night on some of these long adventures. One followed participants in the last running of the Day Across Minnesota race, where a small but tough handful of people apparently decided that crossing all 240 miles of Minnesota in one day off-pavement wasn't enough and they'd rather turn around and head back for a 'double-DAMN.' The other one featuring some incredible nighttime riding was about the Atlas Mountain Race, which is in Morocco, and includes rugged terrain, arid conditions, and resupply points that are few and far in-between.

The guy who won the featured run of the Atlas Mountain Race was a French guy named Sofiane Sehili; as he was riding, there was mention of the fact that one of his superpowers is his ability to function on shockingly little sleep. If I'm remembering right, he slept all of 1.5 hours across the 89 hours it took him to finish the 1300km race. It was helpful to get to hear his wisecracks and also how well he managed to keep himself together at a point where I know I'd be dropping from an unbelievable level of fatigue.

The terrible part: it is far, far better to actually be out riding one's bicycle than to be sitting indoors, watching other people riding bicycles. It was also interesting to reinforce for myself that there are definite limits to the type and distance of endurance events I'm willing to consider. I have no taste for riding over rocks, although I do appreciate the ability to travel through areas with amazing scenery.

I am also glad that screen time was given to both men *and* women completing the Atlas Mountain Race; the woman who finished first commented on how she is fairly slow compared to the men she's riding with. She said her strategy was simply to spend longer days on her bike: start before the men, keep pedaling after they'd catch up to her and pass her, and keep going after they'd stopped for a nice bit of food and some sleep. Sounds familiar. I do need more sleep than that French cyclist or the featured woman, but I am also a relatively slow rider, so the 'just keep pedaling' strategy is important.

-

On Sunday afternoon, I rode back over to Troy, an hourlong jaunt, to finish glazing the last of the pottery pieces I threw for the Beginning Wheel class. I'm going to miss having the time and space dedicated to creating art each week. It is difficult for me to carve out an equivalent for myself at home, especially in the middle of my busier semester. The time spent dealing with tangible and practical things continues to be a good contrast to the abstractions, repetitiveness, and intangibles of teaching.

Here's hoping at least a couple of pieces make it out of the kiln in good shape, such that I have something to show for the effort.

I have a feeling I'll be signing up for more pottery in the not-too-distant future, but maybe with a bit more emphasis on handbuilding and slightly less emphasis on throwing. In the summertime, at the earliest. I have more ideas I want to pursue, once I see how the current experiments have turned out.

Giant statues and buildings dedicated to standing in line [New York; tourism]

I'm not going to post all of the numerous photos I took of our expedition to see Ye Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, but I can't resist posting a healthy number of them, now that I have a bit of breathing room.

The destinations were popular, even in February. I think we wound up spending equal amounts of time waiting in line as actually ogling the sights. We were fortunate to have a bright, sunny day.


The organization of the stairs inside the Statue of Liberty was fun. One staircase for going up, another for coming back down. Lots of signs to tell you exactly how many steps you'd climbed so far, and how many remained. They motivated my mother to think about working to improve her cardiovascular fitness.


Apparently you have to plan months ahead if you want to go all the way up into the statue's crown. It's easier to get tickets to climb up to the pedestal, which offers some fairly good views anyway.

Even if you can't climb all the way up, you can still get some fun upskirt photos of the interior scaffolding and even more stairs:




While taking her mask off to get a selfie, my mom knocked her hat off of her head and off of the pedestal, down to the ground below:


It's the small red and white blob in the lower center portion of this photo:


While we were up there, I enjoyed this view:


Her hat was still there when we climbed back down! I would recommend a hat with a chin strap, except she was already dealing with a lot of straps, what with trying to stay masked up and everything among the crowds.


I was aiming for nose-picking, but perhaps it's more appropriate that it looks more like I am attempting to prop up Lady Liberty's chin, given all the everything.


On the pier waiting for the next ferry leg, to Ellis Island, it appears that hundreds and hundreds of bored people have amused themselves by throwing coins into this metal trough. There is a LOT of money in that trough. The seagull is unimpressed.


My biggest takeaway from visiting Ellis Island was coming to appreciate the transition in American immigration policy, away from a system where people were evaluated and decisions were made after arrival on American shores, and towards the embassy structure and country-based immigration quota system that is still very much in use today. I can appreciate that it's just too hard to process most people after arrival, especially for those horrible and desperate cases where people were deemed unworthy of entry (ugh!). The dormitory conditions on Ellis were spartan, although they probably didn't seem too bad to passengers arriving by ship, who were in them because they were retaining some small flame of hope for permission to enter.

I kind of think it's a good thing that going to see a place designed around people waiting in long lines, involves having to wait in some long lines.




There's a lot that could be said about the Statue's poem, and about the Statue itself. A point of agreement might be: some big ideals, poorly and imperfectly realized by some very human humanity.

Hudson River Studies cont'd [photos]

On the return train trip, I took oodles of photos of the Hudson River, with an emphasis on trying to learn more about all of the Hudson River crossings. Some of them are more easily photographed from a train window than others. Here, a selection of photos taken from the train. The train window had some soot buildup, so this was the best I could manage. Learning about the bridges reminds me of my father learning about each and every one of the river crossings between Seattle and Portland. I hope to travel the Hudson by boat at some point, so learning the bridges is part of a general reconnaissance mission. For those who might know these bridges better than I do, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about any of them.

The Bear Mountain Bridge looked spectacular in the morning sun that Saturday as I headed towards NYC:


For some reason, the subterranean track views in Manhattan amuse me greatly. I think it's because they're suggestive of an alternate city beneath the city.


For S, another Stairway to Nowhere!!


Cuomo Bridge isn't particularly impressive, at least in my mind, viewed from the train. I understand from an engineering standpoint why contemporary bridges all tend to look alike, but from an aesthetic standpoint they make me shrug my shoulders.


In contrast, the (edit) Newburgh and Beacon Bridges Newburgh-Beacon Bridge excites the imagination.


Kingston-Rhinecliff, also soaring and elegant:


The Rip Van Winkle was hard to capture from the train:


Okay, not a bridge, but impressive dereliction of this metal warehouse in Hudson, NY:


Basically, once you get outside of New York City, there's an incredible sense of abandonment along the remaining length of the river. I suppose that's the legacy of having shifted away from transport by water and warehouses, towards containerization.

The Livingston Avenue train bridge, viewed from the closed Dunn Memorial Bike-Pedestrian crossing:


Construction for the replacement for the Livingston Ave bridge is supposed to begin this year. The replacement bridge will be located just to the south of the existing bridge. I believe it will feature a lift drawbridge instead of the swing opening. I can understand the feelings of the people wringing their hands over the removal of the Livingston Ave Bridge. At the same time, I am hugely excited about the possibility of another convenient bike-ped river crossing that will connect right into the Skyway and downtown Albany.

In contrast, I am annoyed that the Dunn Memorial is closed to people on foot or by bicycle, without provisioning of any sort of meaningful detour. I need to write a letter to the State Department of Transportation to that effect.