Even in Kyoto

Then there's the moment when suddenly, you're back on familiar roads/paths. I don't ride the section of the Erie Canal Trail that's north/west of here all that often, in part because the direct route is only half as long, but I've been out there occasionally.

Today's locks were particularly cool. In the morning, Lock 10 started singing to us. I got a couple of recordings of it that I'll hopefully get around to posting soon. Later on, I noticed the Lock 7 sign just in the nick of time to get us to pull over and visit. I've been to Lock 7 previously, but this time we got to watch two sailboats and a motorboat lock through. What was most amazing was watching the water spew out when they discharged the lock to get the sailboats in. I also recorded video of that bit.

And then, home along the Hudson River, over the Skyway bridge, and back to the kitties and the house!

I have a lot of catch-up stuff to attend to tomorrow, sigh. But I'll ride the vacation high just a little bit longer, now.

First, a new sea shanty verse:

Where are me shorts
Me bikin bikin shorts
All gone for beer and tobacco
For the chamois’ all wore out
And the legs are knocked about
And the tail is looking out for better weather…

So last night I hung up a few articles in the women’s bathroom at the campground in the futile hope things would maybe dry out just a little, please? When I got up to pee at 1 am, my towel, socks, and sports bra were all still there…but two of my pairs of bike shorts were gone.

In the morning, I waved goodbye to Je, who headed up the trail for breakfast, and had a modest camp breakfast of my own, of coffee, apricots, a granola bar, and a chocolate hazelnut biscotti. I was thinking to wait around for as long as I could just in case someone had good intentions when nipping my shorts. Even fit in a short hike on the Round Lake Overlook trail. But alas, nothing.

So eventually I left a note where my shorts had been, plus a longer note at the park office, then set forth.

This was a long riding day altogether, 83.7 miles, and the morning miles I mostly rode hard in order to have time to enjoy brunch and catch up with an old friend from Tufts in Rome (rowing teammate; so great to catch up!!). Then some hard miles after brunch to try and catch S expediently at the train station in Utica (success! Thanks in large part to Je). Then we decided to ride past Utica, closer to Herkimer, to be nearer to where Jo and L are staying.

So I’m kinda tired now. But on the plus side, we should have more reasonable days tomorrow and the next day. And there should be some particularly cool sights to check out tomorrow.

Plus today was dry.

So, onward.

Today some of the finest pleasures of bike touring have been experienced, along with some of the most exquisite minor annoyances.

We have had lots of sections of riding through “green tunnels,” with dappled light in woods full of pink and purple wildflowers of a type I can’t remember but I’m pretty sure they’re introduced.

We went on a short side quest to check out the remains of the Richmond Aqueduct, but the mosquitoes there were so thick we only stayed long enough for a few photos before fleeing. If I had been in a mosquito suit I would have been temped to stay far longer.

The skies turned sunny in the afternoon and we had screaming tailwinds for several sections of the trail that were on-road. That now means my legs are sunburned, argh. But it also meant fun episodes of zooming along, reminding me of brevets ridden out here.

My face and arms are fine, though, thanks to good coverage. I might just wear long leggings all day tomorrow to give my poor leg skin a break.

Tonight’s camping is unfortunately not nearly as cool as the last couple of nights. Our only options were RV parks, so we’re in one at a site on the edge across from a group holding a loud, drunken conversation (as one rightly does in this sort of place). The real problem is that we’re towards the bottom of a slope, the ground is saturated, and it’s raining again. Getting wet is one thing; I’m going to have to be really careful to avoid getting muddy.

So, all just about right for a bicycle touring expedition!

At least the rain is dampening the general noise level of the campground, plus any smoke from campfires, plus the mosquito flocks!

Lockport continued to be awesome in the morning.

We got to watch a group of fourth graders lock through on a tour boat! I took several short videos.

On our way out of town we encountered three tall bike tourers headed the other way.

https://flic.kr/p/2r7Eu37

We went across a point where there’s a waterfall *under* the canal, and another spot where a road goes underneath. Not as impressive as some of the European aqueducts but still great.

Brockport has a lovely welcome center right next to the canal, with showers, laundry, space for tents on shore, and moorings for canal boats.

We had some headwinds and rain today, so I am tired and it’s time to fall asleep.

Yesterday I realized I would run out of coffee this morning, so I built in a side quest to Stacks on my way to the train. But alas, they were out of bags of beans for sale!

I will have to try my luck locally here in Niagara Falls.

The train trip was uneventful up until the door I planned to exit through wouldn’t open and I had to awkwardly wheel all my stuff and bike to the opposite end of the car.

But I made it off fine, then immediately met up with J. I made him backtrack over to the start of the Erie Canal trail, then we u-turned and made our way up to Niagara Falls. I only started to recognize roads about a mile away from where we’re staying (Aashram Motel).

Weather was sunny and beautiful. We’ll stop by the falls in the morning, then head towards Lockport.

I swear there are informational signs and historical markers every 1/4 mile.

...since annikusrex asked for pictures, haha, here's one:



I feel like the mustache made me look like a Super Mario character!

One of the problems with these is you can't laugh while wearing them or they'll fall off.

So I had to just try and look "manly" instead.



Here are some of our kids having a ball with the Stylish Mustaches:





So great.

On Thursday I finally got the call that Frodo was ready, so Friday morning after practice I did an errands loop, and stopped by REI and the pet food store before heading to the bike shop.

With the rack we have for this car, it’s helpful to add an extra strap or bungee to secure the wheel, so I pulled out my bike toolkit and got out a spare compression strap for the job, (now fatefully, I realize) setting the tool kit onto the car while I worked.

I am pretty sure I heard it when it fell off, but I didn’t fully register what had happened until well after I got home.

I called the shop and also made my rowing teammates retrace my path back to the shop, but the efforts were fruitless, alas.

It’s not the worst thing to lose, but it is still sad. I have had that toolkit for maybe around 15 years and it held a number of specialized tools for rescuing long-distance rides.

Godspeed, little tool kit. Any new kit I put together just won’t be the same, but must be done for the sake of my lifestyle.

I decided I should bring my last bag of chocolate-peppermint tea home with me, to do a taste test.

The tea has specific brewing instructions on the back:



I figured I could weigh out equivalent amounts of each tea, as part of the test:



Alas, my kitchen scale isn't precise enough for the task! So I had to guess.

But I steeped both teas for the same amount of time, with water of the same temperature, at least.

Not that you can compare the hues accurately, in these mugs!



A taste:


And a taste:


The Stash variety is definitely much more mellow than my homemade stuff. That could be partly due to the age of the Stash leaves, but I also wonder whether the chocolate peppermint plants might be a type of spearmint rather than a peppermint. I was getting a much stronger and sharper mint flavor from the homegrown stuff. Not enough of a chocolate note yet; it may take more trial-and-error to figure out just how much to spritz on the leaves.

I mean, this first homemade batch is certainly drinkable!

But the experimint will continue.

For this morning's practice we attempted to keep all 7 boats in proximity to each other, starting by having the slower boats launch first. That gave me a chance to get this photo while we waited to launch:



Good practice for waiting in line at regattas! (and then also hustling once we have our turn to launch; these aspects of rowing really do cater to twitchy people like me)

It was a bit chilly, but the water was pretty calm and the current has settled down.



Getting 7 boats across lined up is a bit of a project, and we definitely aren't used to doing it.



Thankfully we only really had to do that once.

But from this photo, you can probably begin to appreciate why coaches are always trying to get their crews to bunch up together.



It's really hard to communicate with everyone when a group is spread out like this! And this is right after we tried to regroup!

A good row, overall. I was really glad to be back in a 2x with J, since that's our priority race for Saturday morning's regatta.

After some coffee with my teammates, I went back to the boathouse to finish constructing the main "wall." I wanted to get it done before I leave to go bike touring next week. And, success!



It might not look like much, but it lets me move forward with constructing a second charging station for the walkie-talkies, which can now hang in another shoe holder next to the light charging station. Prior to the wall, there wasn't really a place to put things - you can see there's just the shed's metal outer cladding that's behind the wall. And then I can eventually start work on an updated coxbox/megaphone charging shelf.

And then I worked on just one of a jillion equipment repair projects. This one was an interesting one. Here is the footstretcher assembly out of one of the club's singles:



As you can see, the sole of the right shoe tore out.

The reason why the sole of the right shoe tore out, is because the shoe had been bolted directly through the footstretcher board, with a pair of bolts.

Most modern rowing shoes are attached to a separate plate via a set of FOUR screws, and that plate is then bolted to the footstretcher board. (of course, I recently emulated this same direct bolting technique on shoes for my own boat, heh!)

However, most likely in this instance, at some point or another there was a hunt to find a footstretcher board of the correct width/dimensions to fit into this particular boat. This footstretcher board hardly looks original (although one can certainly purchase a replacement for the original, for the mere price of $265).

And with that hunt, a challenge, because boatmakers don't care to standardize things between boat brands. So maybe the board was found, but there was no shoe plate that would work with the board. In some cases I've observed that our coach has sawed (sawn?) down footstretcher boards to get them to fit the width of the boat he needs them to go in. Sometimes that works, sometimes not, depending on what the footstretcher board is made of.

Last year I did advocate for paying the hefty sum to replace one of the other really badly bodged sets of footstretchers in one of the doubles we use and race frequently.

Anyway.

With all that information, I did find a box full of spare shoe plates, and I did find a really nice, brand-new pair of shoes among the supply stockpile, which you can see on the right in the photo above.

But do the bolt holes for the nice-looking new shoes actually line up with the bolt holes in the shoe plate I found? (note, it has to be a narrow shoe plate for this narrow boat, so that did involve quite a bit of rummaging through that parts bin).

No, of course not!

But, there was another pair of worn-out shoes in the separate, bigger "footstretcher parts and shoes" bin that DID fit the bolt holes in the plate.

So the only other remaining step was to drill yet another set of holes in the footstretcher board, so the board could accept this particular (superior IMHO) style of footstretcher plate. That poor footstretcher board, though, can only handle so many holes!

And then assemble everything, after rummaging around a whole bunch more to find some acceptable bolts, too. (don't even get me started on thread pitch differences across our equipment!!!!)



There are also some brand new shoes on order anyway, but they aren't going to arrive in time for the regatta this weekend.

So when I go home, I also need to remember to find a couple pieces of foam to insert into the heels on these worn-out shoes, so that anyone rowing the boat doesn't get their heels all cut up.

And with this project, perhaps you can begin to grasp the extent to which there is a massive, massive equipment maintenance backlog to address.

We have the exact same problem with the rowing equipment, as I initially had with the first set of bicycles I obtained for my bicycling class. Used equipment, assembled back together, will work for a little while.

Until something breaks.

And when things start to break, the nightmare begins, because none of the parts are standardized. So every repair requires that someone become the champion of that particular project, and see it through from start to finish.

With the bikes, I largely addressed this by arranging to buy a fleet. I've added more bikes since then, but the fleet is the core of the bike collection. And it has been such a relief, to be able to ride and not have to worry so much about limping the bikes along.

With the rowing equipment, I think my biggest dilemma at this point is related to communicating about this whole situation to the rowing club.

Our head coach, who has been on hiatus for 6 months now (out of town in Chicago with family), has been talking to me about this problem for *years*. But he has also clearly been incredibly thrifty and clever about bodging repairs, to the point where I'm just not sure whether any of my teammates fully understand the scope of things. I mean, I'm not sure that *I* fully understand the scope!

There's also the element that it's usually a whole lot easier to convince people to contribute towards the purchase of a shiny new boat, as compared to contributing to the upkeep of many of these older, tired shells.

But it's worth keeping up at least *some* of these older shells going, because they're the boats we have right now, and we're using many of them often multiple times in a single day.

So that's where I am, with things.

And obviously I also need to be strategic with my time, since this boat stuff is a hobby and not my profession.

It's too late for today, however.

Yesterday was Commencement. This year's ceremony was around 4.5 hours long, around 2 hours of which consisted of the reading out of every graduate's name as each graduate walked across the stage. This was our largest-ever class so it was just going to take a while no matter what.

I tried to get as many chores done ahead of time as I could, including baking scones and a quiche for breakfasts for the week:



By midafternoon, I was tired from the chores hustle plus commencement plus the 4 miles of walking to get to commencement and back. While my cardiovascular fitness is pretty good, I can't say the same for my walking stamina!

But the chores weren't all done, and I also wanted to tackle some time-sensitive garden projects.

At the top of the list was harvesting out as much chocolate peppermint as I could. Here's what the main garden bed looked like after I harvested:



The peppermint and the strawberries compete with each other, so I figured this would both yield a bunch of leaves for tea, and try to ensure the strawberry plants get a bit more sun.

I suspect that younger, more tender chocolate peppermint leaves may taste more delicious. I will probably wind up doing a series of experiments (ahem, experimints) to dial in my chocolate peppermint tea recipe. But I've got to start somewhere, right?



I soaked the clippings to get them cleaned off, gave them a whirl in the salad spinner, then put them in the dehydrator overnight. As of this morning, the leaf tips still aren't entirely dry. But that means they should be dry by this afternoon/evening, ready for the next step, which will involve misting them with chocolate extract.

I still have some of the Stash tea remaining in my office, so I can eventually do a direct taste test comparison. Stash also augments the chocolate flavor, so we'll see if my homemade methods compare.

After the mint harvest, I got out Mr. Chippy to see how it behaved, and chipped down the entire older pile of twigs. Some of the stuff in that pile had been there for over 2 years! It felt really good to clear that whole area out, especially because some of the Evil Vines were starting to grow back in among the twigs (ripped out on the lower right of this photo). Left to their own devices, the Evil Vines will climb all the way up the side of the house, providing entry points for any and all mice that want to try their luck indoors.



And just look at this glorious tub of mulch!



I will probably actually use this bin's contents as mulch around the shrubs out front. That can only help with suppression of evil vines out there.

Because...here's the next pile of clippings to shred, from pruning the shrubs last weekend:


The next batch of chips will probably mostly just get set aside as compost and worm bin additives.

--

I tried to get up and go rowing this morning, but failed. The lymph nodes in my throat felt a touch swollen, and I still felt tired from the weekend, and those are my excuses and I'm sticking with them. If the exposure to 4,000 people yesterday means I'm coming down with something, better to rest. And if I'm not coming down with something, well, better to not get even more run down via overexertion.

Skipping rowing did mean I could finish up some lingering weekend household chores (namely, vacuuming and cleaning the sink) and tackle a couple more garden projects.

One project is getting the soaker hose system set up again. Here are the irises in the side bed, saying hello and that it's about time to get hoses going.



Much to my amazement, I managed to find the roll of teflon tape to wrap the hose connections!

But to my dismay...when I turned this faucet on, I found that there is water leaking out of that silver cap on the top.



That cap actually kind of looks like it's constructed to fail in the case of water freezing in the line, which is something that might have happened. I was pretty sure I turned the water off in January, but when I went to test the faucet a week or two ago, I discovered that water was still running to it. Argh!

Aside from that, I also just noticed yesterday that the Dark Dahlia would like to have my attention for a moment, please:


That means it has successfully survived the winter, hooray! I wasn't sure it would, because I only got to dig it out in late December, and I don't know how much cold it had to survive prior to that.

I put it back in its customary spot, next to the sunny promiscuous rhubarbs:


I also played Compost Fairy with the rest of the compost I harvested out last weekend. Always fun. Hopefully the compost gives the strawberries an extra boost!

Last but not least, check out this luscious lettuce!



Today is day 1 of Homegrown Lettuce on Sandwiches Season. Yum!

When I was shredding, I also noted that we've got a woodchuck again, in a burrow back behind the garbage cans. S reminded me that a woodchuck previously DECIMATED our lettuce boxes at one point. So I'd better get those lettuce cages secured on sooner rather than later...

Saturday was also Flip the Switches on the Ceiling Fans Day. Temperatures cooled off again as of last night, but these things are all lovely signs of the changing seasons. Summah in Upstate New York!