ClubUnivega

Fifty Shades of Green

2013-05-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

The petunias baskets are back, a bit late and a little down-sized. We had a week or two of sunny weather when I started using my bike instead of the bus for errand running again, riding twenty-five or thirty miles a day, three or four times a week.

I still use the post office in Bellingham, even though my emergency move to Ferndale is now more than two years past - this was supposed to be a short-term arrangement. I've come to like it, though, even with having to make regular bus trips to Bellingham to pick up mail and do my laundry. A yoga studio opened recently just a ten minute walk away. If there was a bike shop and a laundromat in town I would definitely change my post office box to Ferndale. But then I would have to plan bike excursions, rather than riding because I need to get somewhere.

This barn blew down in an early windstorm last fall

And a job, too. I still need paychecks.

These photos are from one of the prettier stretches of my old commute route, a marsh separated by railroad tracks from Tennant Lake, which isn't much more than a marsh, either. In the morning the roadside is alive with goldfinches and red-winged blackbirds, and frogs chirping in the ditches. Riding through on my way home in the evening, I sometimes heard heavy splashes in the water, maybe otter or beaver.

This is the season when the roadsides suddenly change from dull brown blackberry thickets, bare tree trunks, dead leaves and dry grass to layers of green, green, green.

River Watch

2013-04-24T14:34:00.001-07:00

Anyone thinking of competing in this year's Ski-to-Sea relay should probably start training pretty soon, as the race date is one month away.

Again this spring, I've been amazed by the changes in the water level of the Nooksack River. I'm trying to refrain from posting weekly updates of pre-race river conditions at the Ferndale bridge near the end of the river part of the race course, but here are some photos from this morning.

The water is quite low now, and last year's big log pile is gone, but there are a few trees stuck in the sand bars at the base of the railroad bridge.

Skagit Valley Tulips

2013-04-15T21:51:00.000-07:00

The ride starts here.

Saturday morning we had sloppy snow and rain mixed. I've been watching the weather reports for weeks, trying to plan a ride to the Skagit Valley tulip fields, but the actual weather never seems to coincide with predictions. So I decided to go on Monday, whatever happened. I got lucky.

I cheated a bit and loaded my bike on the bus to ride between Bellingham and Mount Vernon. Just for reference, it's a bit less than a ten mile ride from the Ferndale Post Office to the Bellingham Transit Center.

I walk my bike across the bridge. Car traffic is fast,
and both the car lanes and the sidewalk are narrow.

It's been awhile since I've been to Mount Vernon, so I was surprised to see a new Park & Ride lot, the Chuckanut Transit Center in Burlington, by the new roundabout at the Hwy. 11/I-5 overpass. I stayed on the bus all the way to the Skagit station in Mount Vernon, which is also an Amtrak station.

Old downtown Mount Vernon is tiny and not very bicycle-friendly. (The newer shopping district on the other side of the freeway is Bicycle Hell.) To reach the tulip fields you cross the Skagit River on the Hwy. 20 bridge, which has no bike lanes and only one sidewalk. But once you get over that obstacle, MacLean Road has nice bike lanes and marked Tulip Routes on the farm roads that pass the most colorful fields.

I could have gotten off the bus at the Chuckanut Station and ridden generally south-west on Josh Wilson Road to Avon-Allen Road, then to MacLean Road to reach the tulip fields. You can also by-pass the bridge by riding south on old Hwy. 99 to the tiny town of Conway on Fir Island Road, which crosses the Skagit River, then loop back north to see the fields.

On this trip, many of the fields closest to the main roads were just plowed mud, maybe waiting for crops of potatoes, corn or pumpkins. I zigzagged around for miles. Then I'd see a thin line of red, yellow and pastel in the distance and ride five miles or so toward it, to find acres of colorful fields on both sides of the road.

Early-blooming daffodils begin to fade before the tulips bloom

Some of the fields are still budding, waiting for a few days of sun for the flowers to open. During sunny spells, you can bike past fields of green shoots with pale buds in the morning - maybe head for lunch in LaConner, reputed hang-out of novelist Tom Robbins - then ride by again in the afternoon on the return trip, after a few hours of sun, and find fields of brilliant color.

The roads are flat for miles, but sometimes you'll fight headwinds and sideways gusts.

So here's a bunch of eye-candy to lure you out on the road.

Alpacas this time, maybe next year's SmartWool

Shame on me

2013-04-08T17:14:00.002-07:00

From the pedestrian overpass above Alabama Street.
This is probably the hardest hill-climb in Bellingham.
The Railroad Trail angles up Alabama Hill, but it's a steep railroad grade.

The last weekend of March, when we had a deceptively spring-like spell of weather, I set myself a small challenge: three consecutive thirty-mile rides. On Friday and Saturday I combined errands in Bellingham with a little trail-riding in Whatcom Falls Park. By Sunday I was feeling lazy and heavy in the legs, especially on hills, but I still rode about twenty-five miles around Ferndale. I just wanted to see how I felt doing some longish rides on consecutive days, rather than shorter weekday rides and a long weekend ride. I felt pretty good. I'd like to increase my distances so I can do some weekend trips over the summer.

My Sunday ride also fell into the job-search category. I rode around some shopping centers, office parks and light industrial/warehouse complexes that are within a comfortable bike-commuting distance, taking notes on businesses, which I research online when I get home. I have found some interesting leads this way, but nothing that's paid off yet.

Then the weather turned stormy again, and I have been shamefully lazy. I've been checking out DVDs from the library, so I can watch movies on my computer at home. I spent hours playing Scrabble on Facebook and cruising Craigslist, but I have actually found more interesting job advertisements on Craig's than anywhere else recently.

The Llamas of God

2013-03-30T17:55:00.004-07:00

Sorry.

Boundaries

2013-03-22T15:59:00.000-07:00

Spring break is in the air, and it's time to start planning for summer travel, too - ignoring the fact that we had three or four hours of wet, sloppy snow this morning. I'm far from an expert on the legal technicalities of customs and immigration, but it seems timely to mention some border-crossing issues for anyone who might be thinking of visiting Canada by way of Whatcom County.

Whatcom County is a border community, which influences many aspects of life here - the job market and business management at a macro level, and more mundane things like traffic and driving habits, shopping and social life. There are three vehicle border crossings in the county, and you can also cross the border by boat - island commuter and cruise boats and whale-watching tours depart from Fairhaven and Squalicum Harbor, through the San Juan Islands, and on to Vancouver Island. The Bellingham Airport doesn't have commercial international flights, but there are charters and small island-hopper planes.

A passport is required whether you're crossing on land by private car, train or bus, or boarding a boat that crosses an invisible border somewhere out on the water. I once met a disappointed grandfather who had tried to take his young grandson on a spur of the moment visit to Canada. They had been turned back because border control requires an affidavit from a child's parents, giving permission for another adult to cross with a child under eighteen.

I prefer to exchange US money for Canadian before crossing the border just because it saves the trouble of trying to find a bank after I cross, or running into trouble with places that won't accept US currency, or cashiers who might short-change or over-charge people who aren't so quick with cash-handling.

I have taken my bike on a small tour boat to Victoria BC and Vancouver Island (there's an all-you-can-eat salmon dinner on the return trip). A couple of times I've ridden my bike to White Rock, just on the other side of the Blaine border crossing. At the crossing, I cut across the car lanes, parked my bike outside the customs office, and went inside to the desks to cross as a pedestrian rather than a vehicle. I don't carry contraband, but I think "low and slow" is the best approach with police-type people - keep your hands in sight, don't act excitable in any way, and be ready to open your bags and empty your pockets.

Washington state recently legalized possession of personal use amounts of marijuana, and is developing a system for legal medical marijuana growing. Trafficking, possessing, growing or selling larger amounts for recreational use is still illegal, and so is impaired driving.

However, federal law still bans small amounts, which means you can get away with carrying and using dope within the state, but if you're caught trying to cross the border with it, you can still be arrested and fined, though usually not prosecuted for personal use amounts - federal agents generally are interested in larger scale transporting operations.

Canada has a low tolerance for driving violations, and may refuse entry to people who have a DUI record. I've also heard that Canadian border officials are strict about admitting people with a history of mental health problems. Crossing the other direction, from Canada to the US, people are more likely to run into trouble because of marijuana possession, or for a criminal record related to marijuana.

Washington state also recently privatized liquor sales. Previously, beer and wine were sold in grocery and convenience stores, but hard liquor by the bottle was only sold in state-operated liquor stores. Over the past year, the state stores have been closed down and liquor licenses put up for bid. Now practically all grocery stores have added hard liquor to their beer and wine sections. Prices for alcohol have risen, and there is a growing problem with shop-lifting by minors (and adults), including some ugly incidents of assault on store clerks. A young clerk at a grocery store in Ferndale got his arm badly broken when he tried to stop a customer who was walking out with a couple of bottles of booze.

Liquor and other luxury goods sold at Duty Free Stores are not subject to state sales or "sin" taxes, but only if customers are taking their purchase across the border. So it's really only an advantage if you're planning to stay in Canada to party for at least 24 hours.

I get this information from general news stories, rumors and gossip. The point is, be smart and check things out to avoid inconvenience, disappointment or disaster.

Vernal Equinox

2013-03-19T21:36:00.001-07:00

The first day of spring, with fresh snow in the foothills.

The view from Tennant Lake Park

Mornings have been cold, but sometimes the afternoon can be sunny and warmish. I'm still riding in long sleeves and pants, usually 20-25 mile recreational rides, not for errands or business. Tonight we are having the last storm of the winter - possibly only because after this they will be spring storms.

My sore throat has dragged on for more than two weeks. I still have one little touchy spot, but it started to clear up when I began brushing my tongue as well as my teeth. And that's all the icky detail I will relate.

Groundhog's report

2013-03-09T15:45:00.001-08:00

Two consecutive days of sun. Tomorrow Daylight Saving Time begins. I have turned off my alarm because I can hear birds singing outside in the morning. Spring is here.

My Saturday excursion was a 25-mile ramble from Ferndale, along Marine Drive and around the Elizabeth Park neighborhood in Bellingham. This used to be one of the prettier views of Bellingham Bay, from the place where Broadway dead-ends above Squalicum Marina, but it's getting to be very cluttered and industrial looking. Still, it's a pleasant spot to sit and rest a bit before turning back home.

I guess economic re-development has its own beauty, though, and maybe sausage-making is pretty, too.

My throat is still painful. I was beginning to think I had mumps, but my face didn't swell. Probably just my tonsils. Then Thursday night my eyes began to burn and itch, and I unconsciously rubbed them until suddenly they turned red, swollen and goopy, like pink-eye. It's not fair I should have to relive these childhood illnesses now, when I've finally cleaned up my life and learned to take better care of my health. But I think I'm beating them with home remedies, rest, and good food and drink.

Repairs, recovery, rehab

2013-03-05T22:35:00.000-08:00

I've come down with some kind of strange flu this week, or maybe an arthritis flare-up. It started with sore, swollen thumb joints and a stiff neck and slight fever on the weekend. Then my back and neck started to ache, causing radiating pain in my arms and left leg. I treated this with cold packs on my spine, followed by a long soak in a hot bath, then I slept rolled up in a down comforter with a cold pack for my left hip, knee and foot. My bones were feeling better on Monday, but for two days I've had a terrible swollen, aching sore throat. I'm drinking all the cranberry juice I can swallow, but it's hard to get much down.

My cat, Elvis, has enjoyed having a large, warm companion who sleeps as much as he does, but he has been sadly disappointed with my performance of other duties.

I've been curled up in this cocoon for three days now, and can hardly face going out in the cold and wet again.

The last couple of weeks I worked, the weather was threatening snow so I was riding my old K2 hybrid bike, and left my Surly at home. I'd been having some trouble with the front derailleur on the Surly - it would shift up but not down - and meant to give it a thorough clean and tune-up before the weather turned sunny and spring-like again. But I haven't had to ride regularly since I lost my job, so I've mostly put away both bikes for the past three weeks, which have brought day after day of stormy weather. Some nights the wind and rain were so heavy and constant I could go to sleep imagining I lived by the ocean, hearing waves breaking on a rocky shore.

I've never had so much trouble with a derailleur before, at least not since my first bike, which I was trying to clean and lube with WD-40 and 3-in-1 oil. There must have been fine road grit worked down in to the threads of every screw, spring and pivot point, so it was pretty well locked up when I finally got around to working on it. I replaced the cable, but fiddled and readjusted it so much that the wires split and frayed, and I had to go buy a second one and try again. Over the winter I'd been cleaning the chain and gears with Pedro's Oranj Peelz degreaser. During one rainy spell, I would dry the bike off when I got home in the evening, then clean it every morning before work. Until one day when I arrived at work after riding in the rain, and found the rear gear cassette was covered with black, gritty foam. Figuring I'd over-used too many chemicals, I switched to rinsing it with plain hot water, then drying and lubing.

If I don't get out riding more,
pretty soon my backside will look like this

This is such a strange, disjointed post. I think my illness has affected my mind. Or maybe I've just been spending way too much time fooling with the computer, looking at lists. As soon as I can brave the weather, I'll get out for an easy, scenic ride, with a stop for cofee and pastry at someplace nice.

Inspiration

2013-02-17T17:10:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago while looking back at some of my older posts - the Chilly Hilly, Here Comes the Sun, Still Life with Pumpkins, the Coast of Bohemia - I began to feel I had lost my inspiration, just wearing a groove in the bike lanes on Northwest Road riding to and from work. Then last week I lost my job. My job was not inspirational, so now I am free to find joy in recreational cycling while looking for another source of income (besides unemployment compensation).

Funny, but the first thing I missed about work was the tip jar. Our tips were lousy, at many places one table would pay as much as I'd get in a day, but often my tips added a dollar or two an hour to my wage, and I needed it. Soft drinks and bottled water cost $2.98 including tax, or $5.97 for two bottles (airport prices), so most of my tips came in two or three cents at a time - it would hurt if pennies were abolished. Sometimes I made a game of psyching out customers, trying to coax them to drop some coins, or even a dollar bill, into my jar. The Canadian coins I had saved up were good for pocket money on my little trip to Vancouver. The rest I saved in a special slush fund - I call it my travel fund, or my college fund. Now it's my Plan B fall-back fund.

Winter storm damage

It's still too early to say we've had a mild winter, but it looks as if the little bit of snow we had on one or two days might be all we get this year. The weather is still raw and wild, stormy in the morning and sunny in the afternoon. I've been resting a lot, but today I got out for a ride to Cherry Point.

I hate the sight of that blue tape

Fatal Accident

2013-01-28T11:23:00.000-08:00

Saturday night two bicyclists were hit by an impaired driver on a narrow, dark county road some twenty or thirty miles outside of Bellingham. One was killed, the other is in the hospital. The story is reported in the Bellingham Herald - http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2013/01/27/2855047/driver-facing-charges-in-death.html.

The first news item I saw on Sunday morning reported only basic facts about the accident, but the readers' comments that followed might be kind of an introduction to some local characters for people who aren't from around here, including characterizing neighbors as gangsters or gangster-mamas. The more detailed article published on Monday and cited above is also followed by lengthy reader comments that range over some far territory. (The advantage of blogging is that I get to post my ramblings freely here.)

It's interesting that when bicyclists are involved in accidents with cars, the character of the victims often becomes an issue. In this case, the driver of the car has apparently admitted to driving impaired, but many readers' comments are saying that the bicyclists must have been drunk or on drugs, and some believe that people ride bicycles because their driver's licenses are suspended after too many DUI charges.

Of course, there's also the stereotype of the spandex-wearing, conceited, self-absorbed, rich yuppie fitness-fanatic cyclist, but that hasn't come up in this case (yet).

According to the Herald story, the men were riding in the middle of a narrow, dark road with no shoulder, wearing dark clothes, with inadequate (but maybe legal) lights and reflectors on their bikes, and without helmets. Some readers commented that because of this, the accident was the victims' fault. I kind of share that feeling, because a couple of times this winter I have almost hit pedestrians from behind - they were walking in the bike lane at night wearing dark jeans and hoodies, and I couldn't see them until I was within twenty or thirty feet. But that doesn't mean bicyclists and pedestrians don't have any right to be on the road, and to be safe from reckless, impaired drivers.

The article and comments don't mention that Washington state has a Vulnerable Users Law, which doubles penalties for drivers who injure or kill pedestrians or cyclists. But this is a weak deterrent, and no use to someone who is dead.

One item to keep in mind for anyone thinking of exploring around Whatcom County by bicycle next summer is that there is no cell phone signal in many areas once you get twenty or thirty miles out of town, including some places along Chuckanut Drive, and on roads heading out towards Mount Baker or other scenic areas in the eastern part of the county. I discovered this in my first summer or two of bicycling, when I started carrying a cell phone for safety, then found it was no use to call for help if I ran into trouble someplace far away from bus routes, shopping centers and I-5. It gave me an incentive to learn to do road-side repairs and first-aid, and to be careful about carrying food and drink with me on long rides.

The Waitress' Holiday

2013-01-21T21:10:00.002-08:00

Left home with about $25 in Canadian coin from my tip jar, plus $200 from the bank.
I wanted to go to Capilano, but scaled back my plans because of snow.

For all the time I spend reading and fantasizing about bicycle touring, I'm very bad about planning and then actually getting going on a trip. But back in November Amtrak was offering very low fares on the Cascades line between Vancouver BC and Portland, Oregon, so I booked a trip for mid-January, which was the first week I could fit in around everyone else's holiday plans.
My coach ticket cost $24 round-trip, passenger only. I planned to leave my bicycle - my old, reliable K2 hybrid commuter - at the Fairhaven Station, because I would need it to get home to Ferndale on the evening of my return. Cab fare would run about forty or fifty dollars and there is no bus service after 6:30pm.

Bicycle parking at Fairhaven Station

Naturally, things didn't start off quite as planned. It was snowing a little as I biked across town to the transit stop, like tiny cold sand grains against my face. At the bus stop on LaBounty Road, I realized I'd left my bike lock at home and had to ride back for it. The bus was just heading away over the freeway when I returned; I tried to intercept it at the intersection of West Smith and Northwest, but just missed again. Chasing the bus brake lights down Northwest for about a mile before it finally dropped me, I rode all the way to Fairhaven Station, about twelve miles, in about the same time it would have taken on the bus, except that I arrived flustered, damp and with rosy cheeks and nose. At the bike rack, my odometer read 6400.00 miles exactly, a better omen for the rest of the trip, I thought.

A passport is required to cross the border. You have to enter your passport number into Amtrak's online booking system to buy a ticket. Passengers are required to arrive at the station only about a half-hour before departure. Once on board you fill out a customs declaration form, which is collected by Canadian officers who board the train in Blaine to check passports. On the return trip, you'll fill out the customs form and pass through screening by US officers at Pacific Central Station.

Lots of leg room in Coach

There was no sign of snow in Bellingham, but as the train traveled back north past Ferndale and Birch Bay, we headed into serious snow fall. This made the view from the train seem cleaner and fresher and added to the excitement of leaving, but I worried whether I would be able to get around as planned in Vancouver - I'd packed over-night clothes I could layer for getting around the city on foot, but nothing really warm enough for very bad weather.

Train travel offers a different, but still interesting, perspective compared to driving or biking by road. You'll see back porches and backyards with laundry on the line, warehouses, loading docks, truck yards and junk yards, and get a survey of new trends in colorful graffiti art styles. In clear weather the Cascades route has some spectacular water and beach views of Puget Sound, and also tideflats and wetlands populated by bald eagles, herons and other water birds. But on this trip the snow was so heavy I got only a monochrome view of grey water blending in to the clouds and falling snow.

To the left as you leave Pacific Central Station

There were a couple of hostels close by the train station in Vancouver, which apparently had been cleaned up for the 2010 Winter Olympics, but the neighborhood is a bit seedy and they were already looking run-down. I'd taken down addresses of a couple of places on Granville Street, so I spent a few hours walking around Chinatown, the harbour and Granville before looking for a place to stay.

Granville Mall is Vancouver's nightlife center, with exclusive clubs and expensive theaters side by side with dirty dives and sex shows. After I'd walked several blocks up one side of the street and down the other, the sky was beginning to get dusky, and I began to feel I was attracting attention - a couple of men offered me suspicious-looking smokes - so I decided I'd better settle on a place fast. There were several hostels besides the two I'd checked online, but the lobby entries were hard to spot from the street, they all looked a little dodgy, and I was foot-sore, tired and feeling less adventurous by the minute. Half-way down the next block, I spotted a two-story-high sign for Howard Johnson's. I had heard of HoJo's of course, but they're not common in the Pacific Northwest and I'd never stayed in one before. It seemed like the optimal combination of novelty and familiarity. Cost about twice as much as a bed in a hostel, but the room was clean, cozy, private, quiet and nicely furnished, painted in warm shades of creamy yellow and mustard.

I had a very good veggie burger dinner at a pub called Rosie's at the corner of Robson and Hamilton. Not being the club-hopping, pub-crawling kind, I turned in early and got up early the next morning for another walking tour.

Vancouver went through one construction and development boom before the Olympics, and building has resumed again. There are high-rise towers, apartments and condos and commercial buildings in progress everywhere. The University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University both have downtown campuses, and there are many vocational/technical schools and ESL schools. I had breakfast at a boulangerie where the workers spoke French to each other, but I was too shy to try out my community college French skills. Across the street was a Transylvanian bakery and pastry shop, which fortunately didn't open until 11am.

That's Svein Tuft on the far right - winner of the 2008 Gastown Grand Prix.
Next year's race is scheduled for July 11, 2013. Put it in your Day-Timer.

British Columbia is the origin of Ryder Hesjedal, Svein Tuft, and more eminent racing cyclists than I can name off the top of my head right now. The Vancouver region puts on a series of big-time bicycle races in the first half of July, which they advertise year-round on colorful window-posters in Gastown. Sadly, this is as close as I came to cycling greatness and excitement in January.

Canadians are famously polite

After walking around for a few more hours, my toes began to feel raw. The snow had mostly melted, but it was cold and damp and I wanted to see something besides the usual tourist spots, and learn to get around the city independent of cars. I decided to try out the SkyTrain, the city's elevated light-rail system. I bought a day-pass for $9.75 and spent a few hours looping around overhead through some of Vancouver's working neighborhoods. Snow about two inches deep persisted in the suburbs and smaller towns outside of the city center. I passed over the well-known film/TV/video production district in Burnaby a couple of times, but it looked pretty much like any industrial district, not at all glamorous.

Bikes are allowed onboard the SkyTrain from most (but not all) stations, but only one bike in each car. I saw lots of people biking around the city, despite the snow, and leaving bikes parked at the stations, but no one brought one on board.

Bicycle accommodations on Burrard Street, near the Burrard SkyTrain station

Somber views of the harbor in winter

Good night, Van City

Dirty Laundry

2013-01-06T19:32:00.000-08:00

Most apartments I've lived in had electric baseboard heat, but my Ferndale place has a gas furnace, which is very cheap and really only necessary about four or five months out of the year, often only for a little while in the morning and evening. My only complaint about gas heat is that it dries the air in my apartment so much that by December my hair starts to fly around like dry straw, my lips get chapped, and my skin begins to wither and flake.

Luckily, bicycle commuting provides a nifty solution to the problem:
wet clothing.

The laundromat is hard on wool and performance fabrics like fleece, spandex and whatever they use to make UnderArmour, so I do a lot of hand-washing. Besides, I often get caught in the rain coming home from work, and need to dry my clothes quickly (relatively) so they will be wearable the next day, and don't start to smell bad.

With an over-the-door towel rack and a folding laundry rack, I can hang my wet clothes in front of the vents on the door of the furnace closet. Even soggy shoes will dry out in less than twenty-four hours if I open the laces, take out the insoles, and put them upside-down at the top of the rack. Plus, the evaporating moisture humidifies the air in my apartment nicely.

New Year's Day 2013

2013-01-01T17:21:00.002-08:00

Mount Baker in the background again

. . . and I'm still waiting. But here are some more cheerful photos of the river. Lots of dog-walkers, older couples, skate-boarders and dads with kids on bikes, all out enjoying the winter sun.

The water level is way down again - it's all frozen up in the mountains now - but the current still makes for a fast canoe ride.

Rosebud Rides Again

2012-12-31T23:22:00.000-08:00

The Nooksack River from Riverwalk Park, December 31, 2012
The lighting came out kind of grim, really it's much prettier.

This morning at eleven when I was getting ready for work it started snowing pretty seriously, so I pumped up the knobby tires on my old K2 hybrid bike and added an extra layer to my clothing. The snow had stopped by the time I headed home from work at eight this evening, and it might have been cold, but I was so bundled up I felt toasty warm all the way home. I only noticed a bit of cold wind on my face.

The ride on my old bike felt so smooth and easy compared to my Surly. Maybe an occasional change of riding position is good for the spine. Or maybe it's because I haven't given the newer bike a thorough cleaning in a few weeks and the chain and shifting mechanisms are kind of gritty. It's amazing how much sand my bike picks up on rainy days, considering that there hasn't yet been enough snow to require putting sand down on the roads. Usually it isn't this bad until after the snow is gone.

New Year's eve and all day I've been hanging on the edge of my own personal financial cliff. Last summer while I was working two jobs I stopped filing unemployment comp. claims, but after my bike shop job ended I found I couldn't cover my rent at the end of the month without some extra income, so I opened a new claim. My new weekly benefit amount turned out to be pitiful, something like $117, but luckily the Employment Security Department said I was required to continue claiming Extended Benefits until they ran out. Extended Benefits paid a higher weekly amount, enough to cover my rent when my earnings don't.

But the Extended Benefits program is due to end December 29, unless Congress passes a budget deal. All day at work I was checking cable TV news reports (only with no sound, just video and captions), and I keep checking online news now that I'm at home. It's getting so I have to check what time zone a news report is coming from to figure out how timely it is, and which way the pendulum is swinging. Probably best to just turn off the media, stop worrying, and see how things look in the morning.

Happy New Year!

Christmas Eve 2012

2012-12-24T22:21:00.001-08:00

I'll refrain from being profound tonight.

Here's a scene from my ride home from work:

The first snowfall in Ferndale, around noon on December 18.

Turn on your headlights, and don't drink and drive!

A few weeks ago the batteries in my bike computer died suddenly, just as my odometer was about to turn 5600 miles. Now it's back to 116 miles, quite a come down, but at least I can brag here.

Don't Worry, Be Happy

2012-12-12T10:45:00.000-08:00

In keeping with my annual November through January holiday custom of re-thinking and trying to remember what I've been doing for the previous ten or twelve months, I've been remembering this quote:

Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

I'd been thinking this was Mark Twain again, but I did a little google-searching and found it was really Abraham Lincoln. Interesting that many historians believe that Lincoln was at times clinically depressed, and he surely must have been deeply troubled and worried, yet he must also have been deeply satisfied with his life and the great changes he brought about.

Pretty much all my life I've been living in a holding pattern, waiting to move on to something better, or different, at least. From the time I moved away from my family's home at eighteen, through going to college, dropping out then going back, every time I changed my major, through every job change and new place of residence since then, I've been working and just getting by while saving up money, trying to prepare for my next phase. Which was supposed to be the right one, the true path that I want my life to follow.

Over and over again my plans were derailed by job loss, or legal or family or health troubles, or economic slumps or crashes of some kind. Now it appears that the present Great Period of Economic Adjustment will be a long, slow and halting one, and many people will probably never be as well off as before the crash, though we may be content and prosperous again. In fact, as skimpy as my "lifestyle" is now, every day I see many people around me who are worse off, and more mired in hopelessness. So it seems to me now the best course is to make up my mind to find ways to be happier with what I have and where I am, in the here and now.

My google search also turned up this essay by Marc Sokol from Huffington Post,
ht tp://www.marcandangel.com/2011/08/30/12-things-happy-people-do-differently/, which prescribes in twelve bullet points some ways to change your mind and be happier despite hard circumstances.

Compromising

2012-12-07T22:57:00.001-08:00

Now is the season for just sucking it up and grinding it out, pretty literally if you're a bicycle commuter, if you'll excuse the indelicacy. I've been lucky to miss the worst rain storms, although headwinds have been bad enough to put me ten minutes behind on the way to work. On the worst days I've been loading my bike on the bus going in to work. Then heading home at the end of the day, I have a tailwind that lifts me right over the hills.

I'm very stubborn, which is probably why I've lasted so long as a bike commuter, but sometimes I insist on doing things the hard way for no good reason. After wearing myself out last winter, I decided to take it a bit easier, and maybe avoid getting pneumonia this year. I did have a cold in November, but I'm over it now.

Downtown Ferndale is lit up again, even more than last year, so Main Street is a welcoming sight coming home at night.

Black Friday

2012-11-27T20:29:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, I was waiting near Sunset Square for a bus back home after completing my usual boring errands, when it suddenly struck me that car traffic was abnormally normal. Normally on Black Friday around the freeway exits, Bellis Fair, and all the shopping centers in town, traffic jams are so bad that buses are re-routed to approach the north transit center in Cordata by a back way, so we don't end up with most of the bus system jammed up along with the cars. Parking lots are usually crowded with cars with blue and white BC plates. This year it was so un-crowded it was a little scary.

Another woman waiting at the stop, on her way home from work at K-Mart, said the store had been busy the afternoon of Thanksgiving, Grey Thursday, but the crush was all over. Maybe the Canadians, and everyone else, stayed home to shop on-line instead. News reports are still saying it was the best opening-day ever.

Let's hope. Let's hope we can have a prosperous, profitable and generous holiday season, without any greedy, materialist, consumerist craziness.

Bread & Soup

2012-11-21T22:48:00.000-08:00

Bread and soup and salad will be my menu for Thanksgiving, following an afternoon at work, at time-and-a-half pay. My dinner menu will be a little austere because I lost my wallet last week, with most of my ID, ATM and credit cards, and my EBT card. The credit and debit cards were replaced in a few days, along with a new social security card and a temporary driver's license, but the EBT card is still in the mail (this is the magic plastic that replaces the old paper food stamps, in case anyone doesn't recognize the acronym). I'm very glad that I was carrying my keys and bus pass in my pockets, so I was able to get home and indoors on a cold, rainy evening. Would have been an utterly miserable experience otherwise.

Losses like this sometimes leave me considering how slight a person's hold on their place in the world can be. I've felt this after losing jobs, and during my landlord troubles, every time I came home to find another notice posted on my door, and especially the evening I came home from work to find the lock had been changed.

And those little paper and plastic bits with the numbers and ciphers are like keys that you need to get and keep your place. I've often felt that with no job and no home, I'd be a nobody from nowhere, and without my cards and papers there would be no chance of coming back.

Sometimes I brood and worry too much and get myself into an awful state, but with the holidays coming up, I want to ask everyone who hasn't (yet) experienced any of this, to please for a little while try to imagine yourself displaced from everything you own and do, from every place you felt welcome, with no job title, no bank accounts or paychecks, no place to sleep, no car or phone or email. And then remember not to judge people who are going without these things.

Trick or Treat

2012-11-05T21:09:00.002-08:00

Halloween evening was stormy, rainy and windy. I returned home from work late, wet and cold, but glad I had new shoe covers, so I didn't have to empty rainwater out of my shoes on the doorstep before bringing my bike inside the apartment. I had just finished removing the panniers, had shaken the rain and road grit from my bike, and taken off my baggy rain pants and jacket, when there was a knock on the door. Not a childish knock, fortunately because I was really not in the mood to face a bunch of cute little candy-beggars, but a mature, gentle yet virile knock.

I pulled the door open a few inches. There on the doorstep was my very attractive, mature yet virile new neighbor, Alonzo. We had met and talked briefly a few times before, when he admired my bicycle. He'd said he used to be a cyclist, hadn't ridden in many years, but would very much like to ride again. Now here he was, standing on my doorstep, with a jug of Chianti in one hand and a warm, covered plate balanced in the other.

"Hello," he said. "I heard you come in from the storm and thought you would enjoy some chicken penne pasta with crusty, buttery garlic bread, a fresh green salad, and a bit of wine."

"Yes, come in, please," I replied, forgetting about my stringy wet hair and red nose, almost forgetting to close the door behind him. "Of course. Excuse me while I take off the rest of my clothes . . . "

ok, maybe not really.

Kula Yoga in Ferndale

2012-10-23T16:39:00.000-07:00

Last February's one-week snow storm wore me out so badly that I've been dreading the coming winter. Now the weather has changed so suddenly that even though I've been bargain-hunting for cold-and-rain-gear for weeks, I still feel unprepared. Sunday night cold winds coming down from the Canadian Rockies met up with rain clouds blowing north over Bellingham Bay over Whatcom County and we had an early snow and hail storm. When I biked to work at mid-day there were still wet piles of snow in the gutters and lumps of slush along the road. Monday was cold and drier, with snow still on the hilltops around town.

Along with shopping, I resolved to prepare my body for winter. Last winter, after a very hard week of commuting in icy, snowy weather, I tried a drop-in yoga session at a place in Bellingham. During one movement that involved lying on my back with knees raised, twisting at the waist to roll the legs from side to side, I had such hard, painful muscle spasms in my inner thighs that I almost yelled out loud. Feeling it was unfair to the teacher and other students to continue when I was in such bad shape, I decided to rest and take it easy for a few months.

Later in the spring a new yoga studio opened in Ferndale, only about a mile from where I live, and last month I signed up for a four-week, twice-a-week beginner series. Now I'm attending one night a week, and have even been practicing at home, in a somewhat hit-and-miss irregular way, meaning I do some warm-up stretches and exercises while drinking my morning coffee, and a few more stretches and relaxation exercises at the end of the day. It's helping already, which is encouraging me to get up early enough in the morning for a longer, more disciplined practice.

When I first took up bicycling several years ago, at forty-five years old, I read that because of the repetitive and narrow range of movement while pedaling, bicyclists often become stiff and rigid in the shoulders and hips, weak in the feet and ankles, and develop slack muscles in the front of the body compared to the back. I knew I should be doing some sort of cross-training or stretching exercises, but being disorganized and undisciplined, I procrastinated until my laziness started to hurt.

Actually I remember trying tree pose after I'd been riding frequently for a few months, and being proud of myself because I could actually do it - I'd finally developed enough muscle in my thighs to hold my leg up without wedging my foot hard against the inner thigh of my other leg. Not anymore - I have tendinitis in my left ankle, and both my feet are too weak and wobbly to balance on one foot for long. So I've been working on my feet at home, standing on tiptoe, balancing on one foot, doing a lot of mountain poses, especially when my back starts to hurt at work. In class we work mostly on sun salute and warrior poses, after warming up with cat-cow and downward dog, loosening up my legs and back so I can move on to more challenging moves without hurting myself. Doing warrior poses usually makes my spine pop in a few places, which might be alarming to some people, but has done huge good for my back.

I'm beginning to feel calmer and more confident about facing the winter.

The Drought is Over

2012-10-12T21:55:00.000-07:00

Friday was the first rainy day of autumn, after more than eighty days without rain. The Nooksack River is lower than I've ever seen it (not that my experience goes back very far), with sandbars appearing below the bridges in Ferndale. The woodpile I was observing at the beginning of summer was broken up and partly cleared away not long after Memorial Day weekend, but the under-water base is visible now. The pilings in the middle of the picture on the right are the remains of the old Main Street bridge, which was replaced in 1996, about a year after I moved to Bellingham.

I haven't heard any winter-weather predictions I'd trust much, but no doubt the water level will rise quickly now.

As of Monday morning, October 15, the river has risen a bit above the rock banks, and the pilings and sand bars are no longer visible. In case you're wondering what this has to do with bicycling, people in cars can't see much of the river; the view is better on foot or by bicycle. Drivers did get to see an above-the-bumpers pond that formed in the roadway below the railroad overpass, when storm drains backed up at the intersection of Hovander Road and Main Street. The sidewalks were under water and I stayed well back to avoid getting drenched.

Car-centricity

2012-10-04T14:57:00.002-07:00

Maybe it's not my place to be judgmental, but I laughed when I first saw this place, in a small shopping center built by the Lummi tribe on Rural Avenue near the Slater Road I-5 overpass. Customers do have to get out of their cars and walk in to the store to purchase alcohol.

Besides the drive-through, there is a seafood market, cafe, and arts & crafts shop, which I guess give the place more redeeming social value.

I've been spending too much time indoors on the computer, especially considering that the weather continues sunny and breezy, in the low-to-mid-70's. This morning I took a break to walk to the grocery store and coffee shop.

This was the scene on Main Street:

Every day during my six weeks at the bike shop, I saw another bike with mechanical features I'd never touched before - a surrey, tandems, internal gears, coaster brakes, knee-height fixed-gear children's bikes and more. So even though I'm not a car-fancier, I can't help but admire the care and skill that goes in to restoring and maintaining these cars.

I also can't help but wonder what kind of gas mileage they get.

Party's Over

2012-09-25T18:22:00.001-07:00

The C-Shop is closed for the season now. Last Tuesday I rode to Birch Bay expecting to work a half-day, but the place was all locked up and forlorn. Instead I spent the afternoon cruising by the bay and walking on the beach, which I'd been meaning to do all summer anyhow. The tide was out and the tideflat was noisy and crowded with feasting geese and gulls.

That's the BP refinery on the horizon (I think)

I had asked for a schedule adjustment at my regular job so I could work at the bike shop as long as the good weather lasted, but now I'm only working three days a week and have a whole month of four-day weekends. This is almost better than taking an actual vacation, which I never got around to planning. I've signed up for a yoga class, in hopes of resting and preparing for the hard winter months, and I'm going to take some local day-trips. Plus getting caught up on much-neglected house-cleaning, and learning to speak French, and becoming more adept with my computer. Busy month.