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adventures / cycling / Wednesday — Comments Off
22
Jun 16

A 67-mile bike ride

One of the guys in our cycling club invited us down to his town over the weekend for a ride. About 50 miles, he said, which got a bit longer somehow. Beautiful scenery:

There’s a lot of farming in this area, as you might imagine:

But that means quiet country roads, just a few cars, one moped and a few of these:

That’s Kyle in the foreground, and way off down the road is The Yankee. She’s fast:

I love the old barns and the greenery taking back the space, like nature’s revenge against some old farmer:

Smiley faces really bring in the casual yard sale traffic. Note the angle, this is going up a painful hill:

There’s a lot of farming to be done out there, though:

This one is going to be a banner on the site one day:

By this point, I was torched. We’d been doing high cadence pace lines and The Yankee was holding us up in the mid-20s for long stretches. That hurts after a while. Sometimes you ride so much that you want to ride more …

And sometimes you want food and a nap and to forget you own bikes. Today was a bit of the later.

history / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
15
Jun 16

Transcontinental history

“A dramatic era in transportation was born.”

And if you keep reading after that it is worth it:

We took my mother-in-law back to the airport for her flight home yesterday. I saw that plaque and the propeller reproduction above it. I’ll give you two guesses which one I saw first.

But think of that, in 1929, the trip across the country was cut from four days to less than two. I know people who were alive then. I wonder if it seemed like a wonder to their contemporaries. Ahh, this is what it was like.

Think of it as they did. It would take between four to six months to ride a horse from coast to coast — depending on your circumstance, and that’s if you knew the proper route. And then along came the transcontinental railroad.

So anytime before 1869 it was months. When the transcontinental railroad was completed you could be on the other coast in three-and-a-half days. And then, just sixty years later, less than two days. Today, of course, you can fly from New York to Los Angeles in five hours. A bit less if the jet stream doesn’t interfere. But to take trains and planes in 1929, and be on the west coast in two days, man what a marvel.

Alas, the Transcontinental Air Transport, built by “the father of commercial aviation in America” Clement Melville Keys, was hit by the Depression, lower-than-expected demand, political manueverings and one high profile air tragedy. They lasted less than a year and would get bought and gobbled up in a series of mergers.

Today, you can watch an entire loop around the country in five minutes. I wonder what Keys — a teacher, a journalist, a business man and, finally, an aviation mogul — would think of that?

For alternatives, you could do it, today, on a bike in about two months. The fastest walk across the country was in the 1980s, at 60 days. The fastest run shaves 18 days off that time.

You can still take Amtrak over a four-day journey and, if you refused to be impressed like the person that wrote this, it is just the worst thing in the world, gah.

family / friends / history / IU / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
8
Jun 16

A walk around part of the IU campus

Today one of our friends and colleagues gave us a walking tour around the main part of the campus. It is a big place. Quite attractive. Almost all of the buildings are made from local limestone, so it sort of looks like Hogwarts. But it is also big enough that a quick walking tour makes it all a bit hard to digest. (Mostly I started wondering what they aren’t good at here. The reputation of this place is pretty incredible.) It’ll take a bit of time.

But, here, this is part of our new building, Franklin Hall:

When I was up for my interview at the beginning of the year the students were still working away in Ernie Pyle Hall. The great journalist was an Indiana student and that’s his statue out front, there. When the students come back in the fall they’ll see his statue there, the famed Ernie Pyle desk inside and a lot of new opportunities.

Franklin dates back to 1907 but is right now enjoying the finishing touches of a $22 million renovation. You can’t go inside just yet. Next month, though, we move in. (Which is fine, I’m ready for a break from lifting and carrying cardboard.)

Franklin Hall was once the library, and later an administrative building and will now be home to the newly created Media School. It is going to be an incredible facility. My office is in there somewhere:

Right next to Franklin are the Sample Gates. Designed to look older than they are. They only go back to the 1980s, but the gates have a weird history prior to that. In the 1960s a donation toward building some version of the gates was consider “wasteful alumni spending” and ever since then alumni everywhere have been sure to spend their own money wisely.

Anyway, they are named after Edson Sample’s family:

In a twist of fate, it was long-time University director of scholarships and financial aid Edson Sample that provided the funding to build the Sample Gates in honor of his parents.

Schweir, the historian, says walking through the Sample Gates makes her feel like she’s stepping back in time. Starr, the artist, views them from a 21st century perspective.

“Every time I walk by it now, I don’t just see the Sample Gates,” says Starr. “I see Obama and Edward from Twilight and zebra skin and cheetah skin. You really transform the psychology.”

It took 90 years to get there.

We built our new grill and gave it a tour tonight:

I tasted beef and roasted vegetables. No Edward from Twilight, though.

adventures / cycling / friends / photo / Wednesday — Comments Off
25
May 16

More outdoorsy pictures

The Yankee and Matt. He threw a flat right there, and that was basically the end of our ride.

And this was the next-to-the-last ride here. But we’re not going to make a big deal about that. I’m kind of tired of it, and … some other thing … about it. I started riding bikes as stress relief and … some other thing. And then it became about exercise and then, finally, I discovered that there was a freedom thing to it. But I only noticed that because I really started noticing the sites. Here are some sites:

adventures / cycling / Wednesday — Comments Off
18
May 16

Sitting on 18 miles per hour

It is blurry, but that’s what happens when you’re being passed while going uphill:

Chased her around this afternoon, finally gave in and enjoyed the countryside:

This is what happens when you sit up and stop chasing: