September 9, 2025
123: rest day, 100 easy dinners, the side effect, bike room, hotel breakfast, holing up, the view vs. viewblockers, the benefits of not being smart, the weight of quarters, the miracle of merino, a model who looks like me, cool tattoo
Munising
Yesterday's boat ride was glorious, but it had to end, and when it was over we pedaled over to our hotel, unloaded our bikes, and did nothing for a while (read: I sat staring at a blank wall, mostly just drooling, while Lori went about doing things that needed to be done).
Our hotel has a kitchen, and today is a rest day (from cycling - Lori will work remotely), so we plan to stay in the room all day and prepare our own meals. Yesterday evening, as I was sitting there on the couch in my fog of fatigue, I received a push alert from the New York Times entitled "100 Easy Dinners for Busy Weeknights." It was timely, because we wanted easy, and with very few ingredients, so we selected a couple, made a list, then walked across the street to the grocery store.
Because I was so tired, Lori prepared last night's dinner while I napped.
[Lori said I could share this information]
Lori is a lucky woman, or, perhaps, Lori is a very unlucky woman. I guess it depends on your perspective.
She takes a medication which results in a wanted, or unwanted, side effect. It’s so rare that it’s not even listed on the package insert of the medication as a potential side effect. You know what I'm referring to: the package insert, the piece paper that comes with every bottle of medicine and is so lengthy it requires felling several acres of trees just to print a single copy. The one in which, if there was one written for the potential side effects of water, you’d never have another drink. And yet this side effect isn’t listed.
Hers, interestingly, is a change in taste: anything sweet tastes normal at first, then leaves a terrible aftertaste.
As you can imagine, I was instantly fascinated by this, and have been periodically peppering her with questions, usually out of the blue.
"What does it taste like?"
"Just yucky," she responded, then made a face like a dog with peanut butter on its tongue.
"Immediately?"
"No, it tastes sweet at first, but after few seconds there's an awful aftertaste."
Four hours later, riding down the road after a long silence:
"All sweets? Sugar, sure; how about aspartame? Stevia?"
"Yeah, all of them."
While we're washing clothes in the sink:
"So... how about fruit?"
"Fruit's okay."
In the convenience store:
"Granola bars?"
"They have sugar."
At the breakfast table:
"Syrup?"
"No, thanks."
"Have you lost any weight?"
"About ten pounds."
And on it went....
The implications of something like this prompt further thought:
+ Would I want to take a medicine that caused me to dislike sweets? Would you?
+ If I did, would there be anything left in my diet?
+ What would happen if a pharmaceutical company was able to replicate it? (My guess: rich people would get skinny; poor people would get fat or fatter; the pharmaceutical company would get richer)
From that point on I started reading labels in stores, curious about how difficult it would be to eliminate sugar, and found that there is nothing you can buy without sugar in it.
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Today was the perfect day to take off. It started raining about 8:00 this morning and it was still raining half an hour before midnight with very few breaks throughout the day. We were comfortably sequestered, and the soft slooooshing of the cars as they passed outside was extremely gratifying because we weren't out there.
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And a good sense of humor as well. :-)
3 months ago
In addition to posting the day's events I'm adding my thoughts about a question I've been pondering over the past several thousand miles:
At what point do trees go from being The View to becoming Viewblockers? Some people love trees, others less so. What makes the difference?
Having seen a few thousand trees here and there along the way on this trip, I'm starting to develop a theory: that they're both. Sometimes trees are The View, and sometimes they're Viewblockers. The difference, I believe, is where you live.
In the South, you're more likely to see trees that are spaced apart, magnificently large and ancient, with personalities... and stories. Decades and decades of stories embedded deep within the xylem and phloem, but never shared..... Eddie falling off a limb and breaking his arm when he was five years old, and his great-great granddaughter accepting a marriage proposal under the same branch a hundred years later. The tornado that devastated the entire county, and the community's subsequent resilience to a cosmic tragedy. The wounded soldier that walked past on his way to the farmhouse. Emancipation. The five-year drought. The babies, and their babies, and their babies.... some of whom died young due to disease. The trees are majestic. You can see their character in the bark, in the branches, in the scars and twists and breaks.
In the North, the trees are frequently packed together so tightly that you really can't see any farther than a few feet, and the trees themselves hold nothing of interest... just an uninspiring barrier of green and brown with no personality, resolutely blocking anything of interest on the other side, mile after mile after mile after mile after please god just let me get off this neverending road mile after mile after mile. If something epochal happened around these trees, it would've needed to be in the past 15-50 years, because none of them are very old.
It's been a gradual shift, from The View to Viewblockers, and I can absolutely see why some people dislike them. As cyclists, we like to see what's out there, not just metaphorically, but visually as well.
However, for those of you who believe they're Viewblockers, I have something for you to consider. Not exactly "You can't see the forest for the trees," but more "You can't see the trees for the forest." In this instance, I'm not being metaphorical.
Tucked among the Viewblockers, I think you can still find the weird and interesting - you just have to look harder. Bark that looks like a bear raked its claws across it. Weird-looking moss. A bend in a limb that looks perfect for a swing. A burl that looks like Jimmy Durante's nose/a sumo wrestler/that one guy in that one movie what's his name I'll think of it in a minute. Branches that would make a perfect slingshot for a water balloon the size of a bowling ball. A hole in the trunk with the head of a baby squirrel peeking out of it. Big Earl peering from behind a large tree trunk (I see you, you big lug, and the answer is still no). And what's that tiny sign doing on a tree out in the middle of nowhere five miles from the closest house?
Of course, sometimes there really isn't anything to see when pedaling past Viewblockers. At that point, when there's absolutely nothing to grab your attention, that's an opportune time to do some thinking - if you're into that sort of thing... you know, thinking. Personally, I try to avoid it.
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https://wildflowersearch.org/search?oldstate=elev%3A981%3Bgms%3A8%3Bgmc%3A45.858%2C-87.560%3Bcat%3AW%3Blocation%3AUnnamed+Road%2C+Perronville%2C+MI+49873%2C+USA%3Bcolor%3Apink%3B&buttonName=none&hab=&Elev=&Submit=Submit+Values&PlantName=Centaurea
3 months ago
Sometimes there are benefits of not being very smart, something to which I can surely attest.
Our plan is to ride to Marquette tomorrow, which would be just under fifty miles for the day. Considering the fact that we're not in a hurry, that it's a working day for Lori, and that there are no cafes or stores to stop for a meal, we decided to split it into two shorter days. The only available place around the halfway point in this touristy area was a one-bedroom, one-bed cabin for $181.00. However, if that's what's available, then we'll take it. It's not as painful when you're splitting the cost. It has a kitchen, so we'll pack up the food we didn't eat (milk included) and take it with us to eat for dinner.
However, when I made the reservation I accidentally made it for the day after tomorrow instead of tomorrow. As soon as it dawned on me I started frantically messaging the owner through AirBnB, who contacted me immediately and said not to worry about it. She also mentioned that if I wanted to pay cash when I got there, then she could offer me a four-bedroom, two-bath cabin for $100.00.
After happily replying yes, I recalled yet once more how good luck seems to follow me like the paparazzi after Brad Pitt. I remain the luckiest person you know.
In the evening, I sprinted over to the laundromat during a break in the rain to wash our clothes. I was one lone quarter short of being able to pay for the wash, and all I had for the change machine was a ten dollar bill. After what seemed like several minutes of coins clinking into the bowl at the bottom I gathered them up, shocked at the weight. I couldn't believe how much ten dollars in quarters weighs (half a pound/227 grams). I certainly don't want to carry that much weight with me on the bike, and plan to spend it the first chance I get. Maybe I'll buy a set of weights, or a bowling ball.
Several of the items I washed this evening were made of merino wool. In case you haven't discovered the miracle of merino wool, I'm going to tell you about it. Here's the short version: it's miraculous.
The longer version: Somehow, merino wool doesn't stink. You can sweat in it all day, to the point where you can literally wring it out, then simply hang it up to dry and the next morning it will have a completely neutral smell... nothing. On countless mornings, I've pressed my nose into the armpit of a shirt and taken titanic gasps as if it were an oxygen mask dropped in a plane that's uncontrollably descending, and every time I find it unbelievable that there's no odor - so, unbelievable, in fact, that I take another gasping inhalation, shaking my head. I still don't understand how it works - I have bars of soap that don't do that - but it does work.
As I was sitting in the nicest laundromat I've ever entered (well-lighted, comfortable chairs, free wi-fi, clean and working toilets), I began wondering if you can buy merino underwear. That would be something: a material that comes in contact with my butt and, at the end of the day, doesn't burst into flames, or attempt to crawl away.... I'd pay a lot money for that.
So, I went looking, only to rediscover, yet again, that I'm an old man. The problem is that I wear boxers.... old man boxers. You simply can't find boxers anywhere these days, merino or otherwise, because everyone wears boxer briefs.
Correction: everyone under the age of 95. And me.
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3 months ago
3 months ago