Act 26: Baby We Were Born to… Ride?

Two weekends ago I took a motorcycle safety class.  For curious minds, I don’t own a motorcycle nor do I plan to purchase one any time soon.  It was just something new and interesting to do.  And in Illinois it’s free (after they refund the $20 down payment that holds your spot in the class).  So why not?

The class was one weekend long: Friday 6-10 PM, Saturday and Sunday 8-5.  Friday night was just class time.  They have a book they go through, some videos you have to watch that are quite as bad as the 50 year old driver’s education videos I watched 12 years ago, and study questions you go over as a class.  I learned all kinds of things about parts of a motorcycle (it has a clutch!) and how to operate it safely.  Good things to know since I didn’t know the first thing about motorcycles.  I knew my dad and my cousin both had one and I’d ridden on a few and that was about it.  Now I know that the clutch is the left hand lever, there’s a foot and a hand brake on the right side, and all that kind of important stuff.

I also learned something about the class.  It’s not just to teach you how to ride and ride safely.  It’s actually a licensing class.  On Sunday they actually give you the driving and written test!  That threw me for a loop.  I didn’t actually care to get my license right now.  I just wanted to learn to ride.  Having a test at the end puts all kinds of pressure on me that I don’t need.  I stress myself out about tests.  I hate failing.  Ugh.  More on that later.

Saturday we spent the first 5 hours of class learning how to ride.  It was fun!  A few times across the parking lot and I had the clutch mostly figured out.  We worked on curves and turns and emergency stops and other important maneuvering skills to keep us safe.  Then we went back into the classroom for a few hours and went over the book more. 

When I left class that night, a few things were clear to me.  I wasn’t very comfortable on a motorcycle.  Don’t get me wrong, it was fun to learn to ride, but the thought of being unleashed onto the streets and highways alone after just one more half day of riding around a parking lot didn’t seem appealing to me at all.  I could think of two reasons I felt that way.  First off, I don’t have very good balance.  Things that require balance (rollerskating, water skiing, standing on one foot) were not things I was even remotely good at.  Being on two little wheels did not seem all that stable.  And it’s not the same as a bicycle.  My bike doesn’t go 55 mph, or even 35 mph for that matter.  Okay, it did once during RAGBRAI but it was a huge downhill and though it was kind of fun in a oh-crap-my-bike-is-going-to-shake-apart-isn’t-this-exhilarating kind of way I wouldn’t want to go that fast very often.  The second reason is that I’m afraid of getting hurt.  I’m not that great of a driver anyway, I get easily distracted, and I’ve seen how scary motorcycle accidents are.  I don’t want to be a statistic.

Basically Saturday night found me not feeling all that confident that I even wanted a motorcycle license and not even the slightest bit confident that I’d actually pass the driving test.  But I got up on Sunday and went to the class anyway.  The riding in the morning was still fun but I was really frustrated for the first 20 minutes because I basically had to relearn the use of the clutch.  Turns out it’s not quite second nature on your second day doing it.  Weird.

 When it was time to take the test, I still wasn't quite confident.  Especially about the figure eights that you had to do in a little box (i.e. tight turns).  Though I never got the figure eights down in practice, I still could have passed the test.  Going outside the lines of the box was only 3 points off the test and you could lose 20 points before you failed.  So I got in line to do my figure eights because it was the first part of the test and one of the instructors came up to me and said "I really think you can nail this.  You just have to lean more to make the turn."  So when it was my turn, I leaned more than I had been before (and was really comfortable with) and... I fell over.  Yeah, that's right.  Two days and no one in the class and gone down with a bike and I did it in the driving test.  Awesome.  Turns out crashing is an automatic failure on the driving test (as I would assume is true for cars as well) so my test ended there.  It was embarrassing and frustrating at the time.  In all honesty though, for all the reasons I stated before, I'm really okay with not getting my motorcycle license and I'm not sure I'll try again.  Plus, I really don't need any more expensive hobbies!

Act 25: Dressage It Up

Though we all grew up riding and showing horses, my sister Chrissy is the only one of my family to still be actively involved with the animal and the sport. For the last 5 years she has been showing Dressage, which for those who don’t know is kind of the ‘fancy footwork’ of horsemanship. The tests contain a series of movements that showcase the horse’s gaits, such as collected walk, medium trot, extended trot, and extended canter as well as other movements such as pirouettes (like the ballet movement), zigzags, and lead changes.


For non-horsey people it might be hard to understand what it all entails but its tough stuff to do well, and Chrissy does it well. There are 8 levels of dressage show total: 4 lower (amateur) and 4 upper (professional). The highest level is Grand Prix. In the last 5 years Chrissy has trained and showed them all. It’s been a long journey, with her regularly riding 4 times per week. Now she’s thinking about hanging up her boots for a while and starting a family and her last show, at least for the near future, was this past weekend. So I went to see her perform!

Despite knowing the movements and being familiar with the sport due to her involvement, and seeing videos of most of her rides over the years, this was actually my first dressage show in person (I’ve seen several hunter/jumper shows though). And thus the first time I saw her ride in a show. Unfortunately the spring/fall show schedule doesn’t work well when I only fly to Georgia for the holidays.

All this made it extra special to see her ride now. And to make it even more special, I didn’t tell her I was coming so it was a surprise! I love surprises. My mom picked me up from the airport and took me to Chrissy’s hotel, where I popped out from behind a corner causing her to scream and practically jump off the bed. :-)

Riders generally show both Saturday and Sunday, one ride for each class they are competing in. Chrissy was competing in one class. She rode Saturday morning and had a decent ride, but Patrick (her horse) stumbled during one of the movements and it was hard to get a rhythm back after that. Though the score was a little disappointing for her, the rest of the day was great. She and I stayed at the show while the rest of the family went to do other things. We helped her teammates when they needed it and watched them compete, watched other shows, and spent some quality time with Patrick. I don’t get to spend much time alone with Chrissy anymore so it was a great afternoon of catching up on boys, family, work, hobbies, and everything else we could think of. That night the whole family sat in the lobby of the hotel playing card games and being generally a bit rowdy (as my family is known to do during card games).

On Sunday Chrissy & Patrick rode again and they were fantastic, got a great score, and ended with her grinning from ear to ear. It was a special moment and I’m glad I got to share it with her. Definitely made the plane ticket worth every penny. =)

Act 24: One Full Tent

Since the first road trip/vacation with the dogs went so well this summer, Steve and I decided to take them camping with us. We were going with two friends from college and their beagle, Ruby. Then they invited a few of their friends and their friends brought two dogs as well. So on two campsites we had 7 people and 5 dogs. That’s kind of a lot! Luckily the capsites we had were tucked away against a border of trees/tall grass so we didn’t have other campers on all sides of us. And the campground itself was extremely dog-friendly. I’ve never seen so many animals camping!
We brought what seemed like a ton of stuff, mostly because of the dogs. Traveling with dogs has to be close to traveling with small children for the amount of packing they require. Food, treats, toys, poop bags, leashes, stake, etc. We brought short leashes for walking and long leashes for staking them in the campsite. We have a stake that twists into the ground and 22 foot long leashes (they’re actually horse lunge lines I bought at Farm & Fleet) and they work great. For most of the time the first day, Dean and Satchmo were off leash. They did a pretty good job of sticking close to us, with Satch naturally wandering farther than Dean. We still had to keep our eyes on them. Satch got put back on the long leash that evening because he wandered over to another campsite. They had their dogs tied up and told us we really should too, even though Satch didn’t really bother them at all. Oh well. Dean wandered to another campsite as well but the people there were much cooler and seemed to love playing with him. No harm, no foul I guess… just depends on the neighbors.

All the dogs got along pretty well. There was a giant mutt (had to have some shepherd and probably Great Dane in it) that was a bit more aggressive so we was watched pretty closely and a hyperactive Boxer that always wanted to play. They all had a good time together. We had a campfire that night and made dogs, burgers, and smores, had a few beers and played some fun games.

I was a little nervous about Steve, me, and the 2 dogs sleeping in the tent together but it went much better than I anticipated. It took a few minutes to get situated but when everyone stopped moving, it was pretty comfortable. Satch was at the edge of the tent, as far away from everything else as possible because he was cooler that way. Dean curled up right between us at the bottom of the tent by our feet. He’s a doll to sleep with. Never moves around… just curls into a ball and keeps your legs toasty warm 

The next morning there was a little…incident… with Satch not wanting to go back on the long leash, so unfortunately Steve had to deal with that. Satch through quite the temper tantrum and it kind of soured the beginning of the day. There were games of lawn golf and Frisbee to wear out both people and pups and a couple of long walks through the campgrounds and by the beach. By that evening it was time to pack up and head home before it got dark. The pups slept like logs in the back seat of the car, all curled up together cute as can be. At least we found one more surefire way to wear them out!

Act 23: Punch It Out

I don’t really like boxing.  I’m familiar with the greats of the sport and can even get in on some nostalgic, riveting footage of the Rumble in the Jungle but the last thing I generally want to watch is two grown men punching each others teeth out.  I tend to gravitate to sports with less blood and disfiguration.  There’s a reason I didn’t go into the medical field! 

The contradiction to all of this would be the fact that I LOVE punching things.  Not people.  I’ve never hit anyone, though I can think of a few times when people really truly deserved it and sometimes I wished I had socked ‘em one just so I could feel what it was like.  But I generally like punching, well, punching bags.  I got one for Christmas during a particularly stressful time in college and it was a godsend.  There is no better way to get over a bad day than by punching something really hard.  Go at it for a few minutes and not only will you be tired, you’ll have punched out most of your anger.  (Note: Listening to the German heavy metal band Rammstein really loudly has a similar effect.)

That story was basically leading up to this one:  I took a boxing class.

One of my friends from work took up a boxing class at a local gym earlier this year and has asked me multiple times to join her.  Apparently she caught me on a week day recently because I finally gave in.  I’m not sure why I was resisting.  Partly because I find classes aren’t my favorite workout style, I’ve been trying to focus on running, and it’s not at my gym so if I loved it I’d have to pay for it.  But the first class is free so why not?

Turns out it was pretty awesome.  First we got some boxing gloves on and learned a little.  Punches have numbers.  A standard left arm punch is one and a standard right arm punch is two.  Three and four I believe are uppercuts, and there’s at least a five, but since I was new to this I only got to use 1 and 2.

The first half, after some initial stretching, was all focused on boxing.  There were punching bags around the room and the instructor had the thick hand pads.  The three of us in the class that night rotated from working the bags (he’d tell us what to focus on) or working with the instructor.  When you worked with the instructor he would call out what he wanted you to punch and you’d hit his hand pads.  1! 1! 1! 2! 2 1 2!  During this he was moving around the room and you had to follow.  He gave instruction on the footwork as well and this guy really knew his stuff.  The bag work was just okay but working with him was kind of exhilarating. 

The second half of the class was all conditioning.  Which meant ab work and LOTS of it.  Some variations of ab exercises were ones that I hadn’t seen before.  It was tough.  I was sore for three days and I only did 10 of each exercise!  A part of me wants to start doing… maybe 3 or 4 reps of these exercises and work my way up, because clearly they work and I could use some improvement in the ab strength area, but I haven’t convinced myself to do it yet.

All in all, I enjoyed the class and would be interested in going back.  I’m just not sure I will.  I loved boxing with the instructor and if I could just do that part of it every now and then, that would be awesome.  But like I said before, I’d have to pay for the class since it’s not at my gym and I’m not sure I want the extra expense.  And if I’m really going to run this half-marathon next summer, I’m not sure I have time to be flirting with any sport besides running!

Act 22: Pieces of Art

Earlier this month I went to the Figge Art Museum in Davenport.  I can honestly say I’ve wanted to go there for a while.  I can also honestly say that the only reason it actually happened was because it was the 5 year anniversary of the Figge and admission was free.  It’s only $7 normally, but the free thing really sold me.  Who said free stuff only attracts college students??

The museum is nice.  It's no Chicago Art Museum, but hey, what is?

The Figge did have some really interesting exhibits.  My favorites were two photography exhibits.  The first took up an entire floor and entitled “Scale”.  It featured panoramic (and some not) photographs of stunning geographical landscapes, mainly rock formations.  Most of the pictures were shot at close range so you could see the contour and edges of the formations, rather than being a far off picture of a mountain range surrounded by greenery.  The photographs were quite excellent and, of course, made me want to see them in person.

The second photography exhibit was by a man whose name I cannot remember who took pictures in the 1930’s and 1940’s of seemingly mundane everyday things.  A person buying a newspaper from a vendor, children playing in a park, a man working on a car, someone waiting for a taxi, etc.  They were all in black and white and contained no famous faces but they were still striking for the emotion they showed.  They were very candid, like little glimpses into the lives of these people, their thoughts and fears.

Other enjoyable parts of the museum were the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit and the Grant Wood collection.  I like Wood’s style… they remind me a bit of “home” since he lived in the Midwest and was inspired by the landscapes.  The quote painted on the wall near his collection made my day:  “All the good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow.  That’s why I moved back to Iowa.”

Act 21: A Century of...

The title of this post could end with any number of words... Fun.  Determination.  Pork Chops.  Pain.  All were (not quite equally) a part of this adventure.  But let's start from the beginning. 

When I did RAGBRAI in 2008 (the week-long bike ride across the state of Iowa, annually ridden by ~15,000 crazy people and surprisingly, a few dogs) I rode every single one of the 471 miles.  I never had my support driver pick me up in a pass-thru town.  I never walked my bike up a single foot of the 21,000 feet of climb, despite the fact that some of those hills could have (and probably did) make grown men cry.  It's not because I was super fit, physically or mentally.  It's because I never considered it as an option.  How silly of me.

The one thing that was optional that year, and every year, is the Karras Loop.  On an already long day (70-85 miles) near the beginning of the week there is always an optional loop that will make that day a 100-miler.  A century.  It was (and still is) a huge accomplishment to ride RAGBRAI start to finish.  There was no way I was going to go farther than necessary.  "Hey Steph, today's mileage is already 2.5 times longer than your longest training ride.  Wanna add another 17 miles, just for fun??"  Uh, NO.  But that was then...

Fast forward to 2010, just a few weeks ago.  My second RAGBRAI started off with me missing the first day of riding.  I knew from the beginning that would be the case because schedules just weren't going to allow me to be there.  Pressure to ride every mile, gone!  I also knew that this time I wanted the century.  Badly.  It was a new challenge.  It was a feat to check off my list.  It was... a really long ways.

Since my frequent partner/roommate/friend-in-crime Steve and I had missed the first day of the ride, our first day was Monday.  Monday was also Century Day.  The original daily mileage was 79 miles, ridden in varying distances of north and west from Storm Lake to Algona, IA.  The Karras Loop was more than halfway into the route.  At about mile 50 the entrance to the loop went straight south and around a town called Rolfe, then west back to the main route to finish the day.

We hit the road with the rest of our team at about 7 AM, but we quickly pulled away.  We weren't fatigued from the hilly day before and we had adrenaline pumping already, imagining the triple digits we'd see by nightfall.  Everything was working in our favor that morning.  The tailwind was strong, the weather was perfect, and the route was just gently rolling which means plenty of momentum and plenty of pedaling breaks on the downhills.  The pace was a solid 17-18 mph and we rolled into the meeting town, 36 miles away, in just about 2 hours.  I felt fantastic.  I couldn't have asked for a better start to the day.

Now every other day of the week we'd do the normal "meeting town" thing which is joining up with the rest of your team and your support drivers for some food and fun before hitting the road again.  That morning though, we were way ahead of the rest of our team and Eileen, Steve's aunt and our saintly support driver, hadn't even left Storm Lake yet.  Steve and I fueled up on a Pizza Ranch buffet and before you think it, yes, after you've ridden that far a pizza buffet at 9:30 in the morning in an air conditioned building sounds like a fantastic idea!  The food hit the spot and got us ready to go.  We left the meeting town just after the first of our teammates pulled into town.

The next 20-25 miles went by pretty easily.  Stopped in a pass-thru town or two, because that's what you do on RAGBRAI, but kept a good pace.  We were still feeling solid when we saw the entrance for the Karras Loop between mile 50 and 55.  And that's when things started getting rough.  We turned south on the loop route and immediately we were smacked in the face with the worst headwind we'd have all week.  It slowed the pace way down and made me grip my handlebars in an uncomfortably tight fashion just to keep my front tire from being blown off-center.  The southern stretch of the route wasn't even that long, 7 or 8 miles, maybe shorter, but by the midpoint my arms were shaking and I was cursing the wind and myself.  When we made it to Rolfe I was ready for a break.

Everyone who does the century loop gets a special patch for their efforts, like in the boy scouts, symbolizing your acheivement.  You get a different patch for doing RAGBRAI in general.  I don't know what normal people do with these patches, but Steve mentioned sewing them to the Camelbak I religiously wear throughout the week and I'm thinking this might be the best way to display.  Assuming someone wants to sew them on for me. :-)

After resting by a pond in Rolfe for a while and chatting with a man who mistakenly took us for a married couple and told us we'd be setting such a good example for our kids some day, we hit the road again.  The rest of the loop was west and the headwind was weaker but not absent.  When we hooked up with the main route again, we had about 20-25 miles left.  It started getting tough around mile marker 75 or 80.  My hands were starting to go numb from the pressure on the handlebars (something I get frequently) and my quads were starting to complain.  Which meant that we pushed on to about mile 85 for the ultimate prize... pork chops!

Mr. Porkchop is a RAGBRAI tradition.  It's a guy (now the son of the original guy) who drives a big pink school bus that looks like a pig, ears and all.  (pic to come).  He has a huge flat grill, innumerable pounds of pork chops, and a bus full of corn husks for fuel.  They cook the chops about 30 or 40 at a time (I told you the grill was huge) and throw them in coolers (not filled with ice).  We waited in line for at least a half hour and it was worth every second.  We devoured the pork chop and learned that Mr Porkchop has his reputation for a reason.  He's GOOD.  Also fun was the massive slip 'n slide next to the bus.  It looked like a good one but unfortunately it was starting to sprinkle when we went to leave so getting more wet didn't seem like a good idea. 

Sprinkling was the most of it and the weather stayed pretty good for the whole day.  The last 15 miles were pure determination with equal parts whining and grunting.  This was the pain part.  My quads were spent, my butt hurt like crazy, and I just wanted to be done.  It didn't help that the biggest hill of the day (really not that big at all... more like a mound) came at the very end of the day while riding into Algona.  And it felt like a mountain.  The thing that got me up it was seeing my CatEye trip distance read 100.00 halfway up.  I was just euphoric enough to make it up the hill.  I had ridden 100 miles!

Steve and I were quite home free yet though... we still needed to get to the house of the kind people putting us up for the night.  We got a little lost on our way, stopped to ask for directions, and then called Eileen for better directions.  We learned that the house was out of town about 3 miles or so and it was pretty hilly.  Ugh.  Approximately 102 miles down and more yet to go.  Well you know what we did?  We had Steve's other saintly aunt come and pick us up, and I didn't feel the least bit bad about it.

Act 20: In a Pickle...

Well the garden has been a success so far, with out main crop being cucumbers.  In fact, last weekend we had so many ready to go that there was no way Steve and I would be able to eat them all.

What better way to use all these yummy looking cukes than making pickles??  I found a dill pickle recipe (my favorite kind by far) online and then found an invaluable website for beginners: the USDA Canning Guide.  It took a bit to navigate at first but it gave me everything I needed to know about sanitizing the jars and lids, how to process the filled jars, processing time, etc.

Armed with this new knowledge, I set out on Saturday to pick up supplies.  Steve already had 4 quart sized Ball jars, so I only need lids and bands for those.  Easily found at the grocery store.  I needed pickling salt and fresh dill for the recipe.  Pickling salt was easily found too (right next to the jar lids) but I had to go to 3 grocery stores before finding one with fresh dill!  I couldn't believe it.  Apparently this is not a popular item.  A little bit frustrating for sure.  The last thing on my list was canning utensils.  I went to the kitchen store in the mall and asked if they had something to easily transfer the jars in and out of the boiling water.  They said of course... a jar lifter!  It came in a set of canning utensils that included a lid lifter (a cool magnetic stick that lifts the lids out of the boiling water), tongs, a wide mouth funnel, and a few other toys.  All my purchases, the cucumbers, jars, some garlic and vinegar and I was ready to go!

First we simmer the jars, lids, and bands to make sure they were all sanitary and ready to go.  Everything stays in the hot water until you're ready to use them.  We also got the brine ready.  6 cups of water, 2 1/4 cups of white vinegar, and 1/2 cup of pickling salt boiled until the salt is all dissolved.  Next we cut up the cucumbers.  We did half slices and half spears.

One by one we removed the jars.  We put fresh dill and a garlic clove in the bottom of each, stuffed with as many slices or spears as we could fit, put another garlic clove and more dill on top and then poured the brine in to fill up the jar.

Once the jars were filled we used our nifty magnetic lid lifter to get our lids out their pot and closed them up.  We used the jar lifter to transport the jars into the stock pot (which was acting as our canner since we didn't want to invest in an actual one for our first time.

We had a candy thermometer on the side of the stock pot because the water was supposed to be 140 degrees when the jars first go in.  Then you cover the pot, bring it to a boil, and then process it (let it boil) for the proper amount of time.  The website I linked to above has tables that help you determine your processing time by what you are canning, the size of the jars, and your altitude.  Our cucumbers processed for 15 minutes.

Turns out the stock pot was barely big enough.  Safe canning instructions say that the water must be at least one inch above the tops of the jars and not drop below the lid during boiling, even if that means you add more water.  Also, the water must never stop boiling during the processing time or you have to start all over.  The water was all the way to the top of the stock pot and the boiling made the lid jump and sputter the whole time.  Clearly if we do this again in the future there needs to be a purchase of either a canner or a bigger pot! 

We got through the processing time without any mishaps though.  The next step was to turn off the heat and let the jars sit in the water for another 5 mintues.  After that we lifted the jars out of the pot and set them on towels on the counter.  The jars need to cool completely before you check the buttons on the lids to see if they sealed or not.  It was recommended to cover the jars with towels so they don't cool too quickly; there is a chance the glass could crack if they do.  Don't say I don't follow directions!

I was dying to check the seals the whole rest of the day, but Steve kept me in line.  Finally on Monday after work I was able to check and all 4 jars were perfectly sealed.  Success!  I was so excited and proud after this little adventure that I couldn't stop bouncing.  It was fun!  One thing that was surprising is how much room there seems to be in the jars.  We stuffed as many slices and spears as we could shove into the jars, but now there is a lot of wiggle room.  Guess that's just how it works.  Next time maybe I'll try to get more in there.

Though we could open them as soon as the next day, I hear we should wait a couple of weeks for them to become properly pickle-y.  This means one more week before we can dig in and see how they taste.  I can't wait!  Looks good, eh? :-)