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Monday

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13
Jun 16

What’s a blind dinosaur called? A Do-you-think-he-saurus

We journeyed up to Indianapolis for a Saturday trip. And we saw dinosaurs!

I don’t understand how everyone can be so casual about this. There are giant lizards destroying buildings and no one is under any sort of panic or is demonstrating the slightest bit of concern:

That’s at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, which is the largest in the world. They say there are 472,900 square feet on five floors and holds more than 120,000 artifacts. They get more than a million guests a year. But we didn’t go there today.

The Yankee has some family friends in Indy. Since my mother-in-law is in town we drove up for a visit, a catch-up, lunch and a little tour.

I also took a picture of the biggest sky walk I’ve ever seen, this is at the Arts Council of Indianapolis.

This was my first trip downtown. It feels like a small town, but busy. And it is just up the road, which is good, because I have to go see that museum.

The unpacking continues. I’ve got to figure out where to hang things. Like this:

Note the year, 1953. I’ve had that magazine — bought it in Kansas City I’d bet — for probably 20 years, because of a feature on the inside:

That’s my bachelor’s degree, after all, so naturally it is something I framed long ago. It should go on a wall somewhere. Somewhere that the dinosaurs can’t reach.

Bloomington / cycling / Indiana / Monday / photo — Comments Off
6
Jun 16

Photos from the weekend

We went to the Surplus Store. This is a facility IU runs where all of their extra equipment and furniture and what not from the many different campuses comes to be picked over by the general public. Plus, they were having a sale. I mean look at the deal they’re offering on these:

Cheaper than Wheel of Fortune. And authentic in ways that the Wheel letters haven’t been for quite some time. Vanna just touches the rectangle now, she doesn’t even spin them around any more.

The surplus store is interesting, but mostly office stuff. And the stuff that isn’t office stuff seems to be either almost-worn out or the sort of things you might not buy secondhand. I did get some pool paddles, though. And I would have stayed longer, there was that sale, if only to avoid this:

We are overrun with packing paper. Someone came in and poured water on it or fed it after midnight or whatever makes paper multiple. It is overwhelming. There’s at least two full car loads of paper due to a trip to a recycling center. It has to be more than one car load.

And then there’s the tape. And the boxes. We are making good progress, though:

I’m starting to hear the sounds that packing tape makes in my sleep, though, so I’m ready for that to be finished.

We went on a bike ride this weekend. I saw a bridge and took a poorly composed, off the hip while pedaling-beneath-it photo for no reason:

We made our way to one of the lakes, this one is named Lemon:

This ride took us through four towns, I believe. (I’m not sure if we should distinguish Unionville from New Unionville.) And we enjoyed the rural scenery:

And there was so much climbing! At least we didn’t have to go up that hill in the distance. (We’d already gone up that hill in the distance.)

I was vacuuming and wanted to make a joke about this Dyson. (I am not its biggest fan.)

Best I can tell, this Dyson was designed to stop working when it encounters more than four strands of hair or anything with the tensile strength of nine covalently bonded dust motes. Its seven-foot power cord was also an attractive selling point.
But it has this giant orange ball!

The Yankee points out I’m the only one that has trouble with it. Probably because I use it.

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30
May 16

The Natchez Trace

We rode our bikes in three states today. We started in western Tennessee and cut the corner off of Alabama and pedaled into eastern Mississippi and then back into Alabama on the Natchez Trace. (Grab a map, this makes sense.) The Trace marks the old forest trail which ran about 440 miles Natchez, Mississippi, to Nashville, Tennessee. It was used by Native Americans, early European explorers, American settlers and traders from all over until well into the 19th century. Today, the path is marked by a closed access road that generally follows the original Trace. It is a great place for scene rides. Perhaps one day I’ll get in the entire route.

But, today, we got in a little over 50 miles of it. I took photographs.

Here we are after having worked through a few miles of Tennessee:

If you’ve ever wondered, Tennessee gets its southern border, and consequently much of the northern borders of Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi from the 1663 land grant from King Charles II and North Carolina giving up their lands west of the mountains in 1735. All of the state borders around here were surveyed and established by John Coffee, a lifelong friend of Andrew Jackson’s, who was also a general in the War of 1812. He also negotiated some of the native American resettlements. (Bet we view those differently these days.) He has counties in Alabama and Tennessee and at least four towns across the south named after him. He lived around here and was considered a founder of the city. There’s a chance some of my ancestors knew him. A Walmart stands next to his family cemetery.

The weather was perfect:

The scenery was lovely:

We crossed the Tennessee:

The roads were quiet. So quiet that, twice cars from the other direction stopped in the middle of the road to talk to us. One lady asked us to move a turtle she’d seen in the road just a bit ahead and another guy asked for directions.

The Yankee, making her way into Alabama from Tennessee:

And here she is going from Alabama into Mississippi:

As for the cat, she’s settling in nicely.

She’ll go back in the car tomorrow. So will we.

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23
May 16

Stuff we’ve been doing

Two roads diverged on a paved path and I — I took the one that went up.

Well it went up a little.

We were riding bikes, obviously:

This is in Columbus, on the Chattahoochee Riverwalk:

You are standing here on a bridge across the river. On your left is Alabama. On your right is Georgia. Not pictured are two guys, one on a kayak and another on a paddle board. I just assume they were the Georgia Coast Guard:

My biscuit and gravy from Plucked Up Chicken. I miss it already:

Now, as I’ve said here before, go get yourself some lightly breaded chicken and some spicy pineapple marmalade. Put it on a fresh biscuit:

There was a Game of Thrones party last night. There were costumes. Those are staying in the private collection — but the group managed a great beheading shot. Also, there were snacks:

A little more detail on Ned Stark’s head:

Baked goods are coming. Inside, he was a cupcake:

We went back to Columbus today for another bike ride (that’s about 150 miles in the last week) with Matt the former grad student. He’s getting married in the fall and continuing his studies in South Carolina.

We’ll get maybe another ride or two in with him before he goes, but no more Plucked Up, sadly.

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16
May 16

Pictures from the weekend

What we did this weekend:

Well, what she did:

This was a short race. I’m not fast enough for the short races. Instead of swimming and riding and running, I volunteered. My job involved standing in the road, stopping traffic and directing runners. I stood just down from these trees, listened to the breeze and yelled “Run to me! Run to me!” a lot.

Then we went here:

For these:

I recommend these two:

(The best thing about square doughnuts is that you get four extra bites.)