Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Rails to Trails

Wife 1.1 celebrated her 45th birthday last Saturday. I gotta say she looks pretty dang good for 35. As a gift to her, Wisconsin gave her a 67 degree day, sunny with a few puffy clouds just for accent.

May I offer you a reminder, gentle reader, than just a few weeks ago, we froze our collective heinies off. Snow and wind. Hoarfrost on every conceivable surface.

Weather vagaries such as this are what make Wisconsin, for me anyway, a special place. Just as you can know no bitter without tasting the sweet, one cannot really appreciate a perfect day without experience a fair number of imperfect ones. Enough of the sermon already.

Wife 1.1 wanted to be outside on her birthday. This is because:
  1. She's SuperWife 1.1, outdoor goddess and companion.
  2. Normally her birthday is celebrated watching it rain, the outside temperature hovering around 34 to 35 degrees, with the full knowledge that if it were just a few degrees colder, we've have a really good snow pack to get things going. Instead, it all goes down the storm drain.
But this year...this year the weather was perfect. If I were a pretentious English major who believed the world revolved around Robert Browning, I'd write about the gentle zephyrs that caressed the trees and carried the song of the lark through the wooded glade, where it mingled with the melodious song of the brooklet. Thankfully for both of us, I'm not.


We decided to try a new Rails to Trails bike path, the Glacial Drumlin Trail. I will not explain what a drumlin is, that's what Wikipedia is for. But it is a lovely trail starting just east of Madison and going almost all the way to Milwaukee. For no discernible reason we usually head south or west, but Wife 1.1 wanted something new. The Glacial Drumlin it was.

It's really nice. More open and sunny than some of the other paths we frequent, it was the perfect path for one of the last days of the year where biking could happen in shorts and a light wool jersey. Soon the studded tires come out. I hate that part.

Happy Birthday, Wife 1.1. May we have another 45 together. Actuarially the odds are against that, but stranger things have and will continue to happen.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

2 comments:

Silbs said...

Excellent. Life is still about the basics.

Pete Witucki said...

I discovered this trail last month on my Chicago to Madison and back ride. Picked it up just north of Kettle Moraine and rode into Cottage Grove. It's real pretty.

Glad you enjoyed it. It's nice to have a bike riding, canoe paddling, fun loving partner.

Happy birthday, Mrs. Canoelover.